Below is the reflection assignment I turned into my supervisor covering my thoughts from my first few weeks in South Africa
June 5, 2011
June 5, 2011
An Unmitigated Challenge for Reconciliation
When someone uses the word impoverished, often this conjures up the homeless or less fortunate. Imaginations shift to thinking of emaciated forms, laying in rubbish, holding out gaunt slender arms with tattered rags for clothing, begging for just enough to go on. In some strange way, as alarming as this image may be at first, comfort is found in the images predictability and recurrence. Poverty is best handled when kept to isolated street corners or appropriate venues of the mind. Often in the States, cities excel at hiding poverty in certain sections of town. Poverty will be dealt with, but that doesn't mean that we can't tidy up the place a bit before we do. Keeping poverty quarantined from the general masses allows for reconciliation and relief to progress at the comfort level of those providing the relief. Out of sight, out of mind, or something to that effect. One shouldn't have to get dirty in order to help.
Yet, I think the obvious rebuttal to such convenient talk on disparity and economic disconnect becomes readily apparent to anyone willing to lend an ear; poverty is not a condition that can be systematically diminished through institutionalized financial rations that lack holistic relationship components set on empowering the soul of the individual. Poverty is not just an economic issue, but a human condition. The church must not fall under the dangerous assumption that soup kitchens can substitute for the nourishment that only the Gospel can provide. Both of these are required.
While poverty may indeed be easier to escape in the States due to the heightened level of the common citizen's affluence, South Africa affords no such comfort. Walking the streets of Pietermaritzburg, one is constantly reminded of the financial decadence observed by the few and the monetary hardships burdening the majority. People attempt to hide themselves from this reality not in sections of town, a la the States, but in individual compounds surrounded by gates and bars. I mention this not out of ignorance of my own attachment to concrete structures of security, but instead, choose to highlight this as just another attempt to shield the conscious mind from thoughts of poverty. Having walked through the streets of the city, I noticed that across from luxury are shanty towns and within ear shot of exorbitant living are the cries and outstretched arms of those in need. My conclusions from such observations, the disparities between those that have and those that don't, and the willingness to rectify such economic hierarchical relationships, represents a struggle that spans continents. What I have realized within days of working in the townships and surrounding area, may of taken years back home. South Africa paints a clear picture through its urban and rural demographic landscape of things that must be changed out of regard for the readily identifiable nature of things. If one is going to go to church, and profess belief in a God who loves and cherishes all, then in South Africa, one will find conviction to reach out an able hand to assist the neighbor who lies in despair at your doorstep.
I point now to a powerful instance of the need to reach out into communities through my pastoral care visits carried out through the Masibumbane and Ethembeni HIV/Aids relief agencies in Mpophomeni. The drive up to the township portrays the ideal golf side community on your left with a certifiable shanty town on your right, picturesque scenery across from human misery. These two worlds are separated by a two lane highway. Over the course of a week, I worked with these organizations visiting clients stricken or affected by the Aids pandemic, and providing prayer, scripture and interactive devotions. I was exposed to families fearful of leaving behind young children as their parents succumb to the dreadful disease, infants already infected through birth and pantries worn bare under the weight of 80% unemployment. Comfort will not come to these families by way of a governmental check. Voiced were concerns of well being, family unity and security, all matters of the soul.
I am convinced, now more than ever, that in order to address poverty , one must take material relief in one hand and the Gospel in the other. In this declaration, I suggest first and foremost, that one must go. Poverty has a real face and it is a beautiful human one. The face of a woman who gladly speaks of a powerful restoration in her health and family life declared with absolute certainty as God's work. The face of children praying, young faith like fertile soil freshly tilled with the seeds of the Spirit. A resounding sign of hope captured in the smile of a woman happy to eat and read from her bible in order to share a devotion. These encounters are possible only when the Church is willing to step into people homes and care for them, resisting the temptation to involve their efforts in distanced mail-order ministry. I can no longer escape the reality that when I return home, back to a society able to neatly keep poverty from encroaching on the everyday, that much work has to be done. Ministry does not occur with your eyes closed, but by looking at the world through the eyes of Jesus Christ. Only then can we say that we reach out to touch our neighbor, and only then, does the long road to reconciliation begin.
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