She blended in with the scenery as just another fixture on a street that always remains the same. Bundled against the chill, head scarf tightly wrapped with sign in hand and a cup at her feet. I was told that she always sits there and her sign explains her situation. She is a widow and she is in need of financial help. Not only that but there are many similar women around Odessa who beg in the same silent way. One women even holds a sign that reads, “I am a widow. If you help me God will bless you.” So true and so tragically profound.
Admittedly this happened several days ago and until I read the blog of another World Racer I had not given this woman another thought. We have seen people begging in every country that we have visited this past year. The crippled, impoverished and deformed would hop onto the trains in India dressed in their brightest rags, faces smeared with makeup to “perform” for your money. In Cambodia the begging style of the children was aggressive and argumentative as they grabbed for our pockets, followed us and insisted that we had money even if we truly didn’t. In Malaysia the poor and disabled would sit in the middle of the narrow market streets where people had to step around them. They would sing loudly into microphones and try to catch the eye of all who passed by. In South Africa a woman I met on a hillside pulled her baby from her back holding it out to me as she begged me to give her money. ‘For the baby, for the baby!’ she cried.
The voices and actions of each of these echoes in my head to this day bringing me confusion and distress. There are too many beggers in the world for me to be able to give to all of them and in many countries we were warned not to give because it actually keeps the cycle of poverty going, especially with the street kids. Though I almost wonder if hearing that gives me the excuse I want to close my eyes to the reaching hands and allow myself to believe that I can change nothing.
With all of these ‘normal’ images of begging in my head I look and see this little Babushka on her chair. Silent. Not moving. Not making eye contact. Nearly lifeless, just another piece of the scenery. She did not moan or lament her sorrows, she did not call out her need or place herself where it was impossible not to see her, she just sat. Her lined face and sad, empty eyes telling the story her voice never even attempted to tell. At the time it seriously disturbed and fascinated me to see her sitting there. I wanted to stop but we were running short on time and the brief moment passed me by.
After having my ears filled with the loud cries of the needy something about this womans silence screamed out to my spirit. How easy it is to forget the needs of widows and orphans when we get caught up in our daily rush.10 minutes doing final preparation, 5 more to get to the school and an hour long English club later and the face of this little woman was gone from my mind. Her need, not just financial but emotional, left unacknowledge and unmet by me.
Poverty is not always loud. Needs are not always immediately visible.
Everything in me wants to hunt down that little old babushka right now and chances are I won’t be able to find her anymore. But as I reflect upon my failure to love the least of these and care for the widows of Odessa I am reminded that when I go home the needs of the nations remain. There isn’t a poverty switch that we can flick when we go overseas on a missions trip to keep things interesting and then flick back when we go home to put everything right again.
Today on a train in India a little girl is dressed in rags and bright makeup singing for change. There is a woman in Africa begging to feed her baby. There are children in the streets of Cambodia fighting each other and demanding money from tourists. There are cripples in Malaysia sitting in markets singing into loud speakers. And there are silent babushka’s along the streets of Odessa nearly hidden by the commotion of life.
