It looks like a neighborhood nobody can live. As we walked up the first time, rain drops pinged off tin-walled homes and children huddled for cover with their barefeet and stained clothes coated in sloppy mud.
I’d seen slums like these before 7 years ago when I was in Costa Rica. Looking back on pictures the other day to reminiscence, I was stunned at how young I looked then. Still a child or not, the first feeling I had was that I ached to talk to them as I saw the neighborhood come into view while sitting in a comfortable, air conditioned bus at 16.
Maybe at that time my desire to meet the people was for the reason I would be viewed as a savior of some sort. Someone who visits the slums sounds glamorous, right? But even with a possible alternate childish motive, I longed for the people to know they are loved and wanted. They are seen.
The slums we visited this past month are not glamorous. While it’s what I picture when I think “ultra or extreme poverty”, it is overwhelming to soak in the hardships they experience on a daily basis.
A mother cannot feed her children for dinner. A young teenager is being coaxed into the attractiveness of drugs and gangs. He told us he wished he could have a normal life like us. A woman was threatened to be killed by her brother with a machete. Our sweet friend that attends Transforma barely has room in her house to comfortably sit 3 people. Her prayer is for a little casita. A little home for her small family to live better. Many have separated families some because of divorce and some because of the violence and unrest in Nicaragua.
There’s despair dripping in the streams full of trash and sewage that winds through their homes. There is pain and a lot of bondage out of desperation to escape their circumstances.
But there’s a steel clad strength in the women we visit that joined the classes at Transforma. These are classes that assist the women in learning trades and skills to begin businesses but it’s also a place many start or restart their relationship with Jesus.
The one main thing is they strive to restore dignity. Panning out of the obvious view of the poor, what people need there is to be equipped in their specific community. They don’t need me swooping in to save their day or to create enabling by constantly giving handouts. They need more than charity.
There’s a time and a place for that but our focus should be to see them as people. People that have potential, ability to learn, and beautiful stories even in the broken places.
They aren’t people to pity. They’re people to remind of their value and worth because some believe otherwise. They’re people that are children of God that get to have human dignity. They are a reflection of Him and have transcendent worth and value that cannot be taken away.
I’ve seen many open their homes to us but also their hearts. I’ve heard hopes, dreams, grieving, crying, and laughter. There may be darkness pressing into their midst but they’re people. People that need more than a picture taken by a white stranger.
It isn’t the same neighborhood but 7 years ago I wanted to stop my language trip to go on a journey where I met the families that live in unsustainable conditions. I did. I wanted to tell them they were wanted and loved. Before I left our last house for the month, I grabbed the shoulders of one of the women and told her in Spanish,
“You are loved and you are seen. You have strength and the Lord will not leave you.”
I want to say I did but God influenced those words. The atmosphere of these homes changed to authenticity and openness because of the Spirit. I believe that!
See the poor in the lense of restoring dignity and human value. It’s more meaningful to equip and empower than to enable and temporarily relieve their situation. Being around the world has been a testament to that for me personally.
