In the afternoon of our last day we were invited to make a decision: return to Blind Town or experience a ministry called Bad Boys. We selected Bad Boys. We hopped into the vans and drove to a poor part of the city. We parked. We got out. Divided into groups. Each a group of three or four with a Nigerian leader. When my foot met the ground outside the van I thought that the ominous experience wasn't going to be much different than the things we had done before. I had been to Blind Town, a fairly wretched part of the world. I had seen the poor orphan boys of Gidan Bege and I had watched crippled men give their lives for other crippled men. I looked around and wondered exactly what our ministry was, because we were still on a street, lined with shops and such. My group assembled and our leader began to explain the pending duties and expectations. Even when he explained what we were going to do I felt safe. I felt as if it would be relatively tough (when compared to my American leisure) but would still be similar to most of our ministry in Nigeria. I was led (along with Luke and Cici) in between two shops and into a tightly-packed cluster of houses, huts, walls, or whatever you would like to call them.
Now, if you have been to Africa, and to a poor part of Africa (not just the elephant scene), you might have a firm visual grasp of what I'm talking about. But, as is the case for most of my (few) readers, I should probably assume that you have not been, and need some sort of mental picture for the rest of my journey with the Bad Boys. In order to put such a picture into words I think one needs the talent of Ernest Hemingway or Joseph Conrad, obviously a talent that I do not possess, but I will give it a try.
The sky was bright, reflecting the sandy-dirt color of the leftover deserts from the dry season. A few clouds lie scattered in the blue. I stood, surrounded by huts with ceilings only about eight feet tall, and looked closer at the shelter directly in front of me. Over several tables hung a sheet metal roof, which created an outdoor patio for the locals. The people at the tables were a sight most exotic to fashion-sensitive American eyes: brightly colored shirts with dirty, pinstripe pants or blue jeans or brown pants with holes in them. Or green shirts, grayed from the pollution, with khakis. And everyone wore flip-flops. Hats from America with collegiate or professional sports logos. On the table was a large, circular pan, piled with hunks of chicken, beef, and dog meat. The Nigerians reached and grabbed chunk after chunk and picked the stringy meat from their teeth. To be sure the diners conversed and laughed, but because of a lower substance. The tables themselves were simple and wooden, set with all different types of chairs: large and small, wood and metal, black and brown. And as I watched the feast I began to notice the drink (with both my nose and my eyes) which slid down their throats. Large gourds had been cut in half so that they made convenient bowl-cup contraptions. In the gourds was a liquid. It was a tannish gray color and inside it was the pulp of unfermented yeast and any other foreign particle able to find its way into the brew. Women around the patio straddled huge cast-iron vats of yeast and water, stirring the foul mixture over a fire in order to ferment the potion into alcohol. Hundreds, thousands of flies buzzed round and round the liquid, with a few not-so-lucky bugs drowning in the fatal concoction. The gourds filled and emptied the homemade repeatedly, filling the minds and stomachs of the directionless Nigerians.
When our group first assembled our leader handed us gospel tracts in English that we could give to the people and, when I remembered this, I awkwardly stopped my gawking and pulled the pink and blue sheets of paper from my pocket and offered them to everyone who I encountered. And since I was white (a giraffe in a heard of elephants) people accepted what I gave them. Honestly, I felt my publicity was being used in an unfair way. But that thought soon dissipated and we walked past the patio-restaurant and crossed the threshold into one of the huts. The room we had entered was dark and small. Around the square's edge was a bench connected to the wall, and on the bench eight men sat, holding gourds that were refilled periodically by the previously-mentioned women-brewers. The eyes around the room turned up to look at the giraffes, and when I returned the look I saw hopelessness manifested in the bloodshot orbs. An empty existence seeks anything to fill. And although this existence, this need for love, may realize that its attempts (alcohol or drugs or sex or relationships or music or art or family or marriage) are futile, it persists in unprecedented stubbornness, refusing to admit need for a higher form, and refusing to tell others how much it hurts. All that He needs is for the existence, the blood-eyed Nigerian, the CEO American, the cigarette-smoking Frenchman, the wave-surfing Australian, the maize-farming South American, the ice-ridden Eskimo, the hard-working Asian, the lonely man, the downcast child, the burdened woman, to say the word: "help."
The remaining time spent in the "Bad Boys" territory was spent in repetitions of this scene. The familiar drowned itself into familiar and my heart sunk deeper and deeper as I beheld so many men, women and children with absolutely no hope. There was nothing for these people to hold on to, and there will never be.
I can only trust God. And after reading this you might think to yourself, "How the hell can this nut trust God while God lets people suffer like this." Yes, people suffer. And I don't know why it is this bad. But I do know one thing: that the suffering is not God's fault. It's my fault. It's your fault. It's the CEO's fault. It's the surfer's fault. THE PAIN IS OUR PROBLEM. WE DID THIS, NOT GOD.
Take action now.
No comments:
Post a Comment