extreme poverty

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Sufficiency of the Gospel

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.- Galatians 1:8-12

The street where Christian used to live is in one of the worst neighborhoods in São Paulo. He was a recent arrival to the streets and one of our team members thought it was a good idea to visit his mother. We decide to venture out together to this infamous neighborhood.

In another time, this would have been considered a beautiful neighborhood. There were many historic buildings with intricate patterns and designs adorning their exteriors. However, now they are in various stages of deterioration. These buildings are known as “cortiços” which is just another word for urban slum. The houses are divided into tiny rooms and rented for exorbitant prices. Most of the tenants are very poor and without choices in terms of housing except for these places. As we entered the street, we were “greeted” by a group of teens who asked us what we wanted. They thought that we were there to buy drugs and they wanted to let us know of their wide range of stock. We told them that we were here looking for Christian’s mother’s home. They knew her and they pointed us to one of the buildings. We were informed not to knock on the doors but to just wait outside the door and they would eventually let us in. Only the police knock on doors in this neighborhood. We did not want to find out what would happen if we knocked. The street was filled with people sitting outside and children of all ages running around. They stopped their conversations and stared at us distrustfully. We stood in front of a building where the dealers pointed out and waited. It took a while before the door was opened. The drug dealer looked suspiciously at us at first and then he relaxed when we told him that we are from the church. He smiled and said that he would call the mother of the boy. The atmosphere was tense. We could feel everyone in the neighborhood scrutinizing our every move. It was one of our most intense experiences working in the streets.

Much later we had a discussion with a group of Christians about the challenges our children face growing up in these neighborhoods. Someone suggested that it was asking too much from our children and teens to be Christians while living in these kinds of neighborhoods. This sentiment was just not just the conviction of one person. Almost everyone in the discussion agreed. They argued that the temptation was too great for them to be involved in crime. I understood their sentiment but at the same time both Mary and I were greatly disturbed. The implications of this argument should disturb any Christian because it is saying that the gospel is only good news in a certain context and it is inadequate in another situation. If this is the case, then I am afraid that we have nothing relevant to say to our children in the streets. Then the gospel is not powerful enough to do anything for them unless they change their circumstances first. This argument implies that those who have the misfortune to find themselves born into extreme poverty are beyond the reach of the gospel; that they first need to change their social status to fully reap the benefits of the gospel. This gospel is a gospel that depends on certain social and economic circumstances to be effective. Thanks be to God that this is not the gospel of the Bible. It is the other gospel of the world that St Paul so vigorously argued against in his letters.

Our children have heard this other gospel preached to them all their lives. None of our children doubt the existence of God. They love to hear church music. They even have memorized some of the modern choruses. They even sing them with gusto if asked. However, there is something missing in their belief system. Their faith is a sentimental feeling and God of this gospel is incapable of bringing about any significant change in their lives. The children heard this gospel from adults. We discovered that we are no different from them. We have a limited idea of what God can do. We need to purge ourselves of this wrong concept of God.

When we went to the neighborhood I described above, we were only able to see the criminality and the darkness. We were impressed by the oppressive presence of violence but we failed to see God present in the neighborhood. We failed to see His Light in this place. We listened to the society’s judgement of the place and believed that it is the worst neighborhood in the city. We failed to see and acknowledge that despite its reputation, God has poured His spirit into this world. His Spirit is present in all places. God’s Spirit has only one task and this is to guide us to the knowledge of the Truth. Jesus said that the Truth will set us free. We have a choice before us. Either we believe this to be true or we don’t think that Jesus knew what he was talking about. For Christians, the latter is not an option. However, if we are not fully convinced of the former, we can never effectively share the gospel. Our message of hope will be tainted with social reforms based on ideologies that are not compatible with the gospel.

I don’t know how to live in a neighborhood that is riddled with drugs and violence: it is a world that is foreign to me. However, just because it is foreign to my reality, it doesn’t mean that it is impossible for anyone to live a full Christian life there. St Paul met the Living Christ on the road to Damascus. This experience with the Resurrected Jesus changed his life. He gave him the confidence to preach Christ to all people regardless of the circumstances they found themselves. Not just Paul, the early church went out to distant lands and preached to Christ to peoples with different cultural practices and beliefs. Some of them were grossly adverse to Christian ethics and morality. They discovered that the gospel is still the gospel in every situation. It has the power to enable people to triumph over their circumstances. Our confidence in the sufficiency of the gospel perhaps reveals more about ourselves than the message of the gospel. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves in the light of the biblical revelation if our understanding of the gospel is truly good news for all peoples in all circumstances or it is just a cultural religious sentiment. The latter has no relevance to the world. The power of the gospel has to first be experienced in our own souls. It is this confidence that will enable us to see victory when we are confronted with utter hopeless.

“For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”- 1 Cor. 1:22-24

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An Odd Family in Streets

We had a good day.

The children and teens were exceptionally open. We had meaningful conversations with some and the others were just happy to spend time with adults. There has been a drastic drop in the number of social work agencies in the streets and consequently, the children have fewer interactions with adults. Even though the children and teens would never admit it, they do crave for adult attention. Today, they were open about their desire for adult company and we openly enjoyed their company. This is why it was a good day.

As we were on our way home, we ran into Alex. He is 15 years old, but no one would believe it. He is small for his age. He was carrying a huge backpack perhaps too big for his size which made him look a little awkward. He was walking briskly away from the area as it was full of police. We suspected that the heavy backpack contained some paint thinner which he was selling. Alex has always been a loner. It is hard to get him into a conversation. Most of the time, he doesn’t engage in any activity with us. He is an extreme introvert. Today, however, he was different. When he noticed us, he came to us and asked to do an activity with us. We were a little taken aback. Alex never makes such requests. Even though we were ready to call it a day, we decided that it was worth extending our time just to spend some time with Alex.

Recently we have been trying to do more art with the children in the streets. Most of them have responded very positively to this. They are partial to water colors. We were expecting things to turn messy but to our pleasant surprise, they do a good job with their painting. Alex wanted to paint a horse today. He asked if we could draw him a picture of a horse. The only artist in the group is Mary and she drew a lovely horse. Alex happily chose the colors and started working on it. We also noticed that Alex had a horse keychain. We asked him if he ever seen a horse before. He said that he rode one when he was living on a small ranch in the outskirts of the city. He told us that it belonged to his family. This was a little strange because we know Alex’s family. They were not a family that could ever own or even rent a small ranch. They were extremely poor.

Alex alternates between the streets and his grandmother’s house. She lives in one of the worst neighborhoods in center. It is an area riddled with drugs and violence. Unfortunately this is the only place where she can afford to rent a tiny studio apartment which she shares with her four grandchildren. To call this place an apartment is an exaggeration. It is an old historic building that is literally falling apart and the so-called apartments are really just rooms with bathrooms. Most of the renters are drug addicts and dealers. Crime and violence are an everyday occurrences and the children have grown accustomed to them. The grandmother makes very little money doing odd jobs to support herself and the children. Mary has met her and she found the grandmother to be a kind person with a sense of humor. However, she is limited in what she can do for the children. She has no one to help her and most of her grandchildren are under fifteen. The youngest is a girl and she is 9 years old. Alex has another younger brother who is thirteen who also alternates between the streets and his home.

We enquired once again about the ranch. Alex smiled and told us that he was lying. It did not belong to his family. However, he really rode horses at the ranch but it belonged to a children’s shelter. In São Paulo, children’s shelters also function as orphanages. Alex and his brother were sent there soon after their mother’s death. He was about ten when it happened. We did not really understand the details of his story but it appears as if his mother suffered a sudden cardiac attack and died before the paramedics arrived. Unfortunately, he remembers vividly that the ambulance took forever to arrive even though they lived three blocks away the hospital. His grandmother could not take care of all the children and consequently he and his brother were sent to the shelter. We asked about his father. He told us that he remembered very little of his father. All he remembered was that his father was a crack addict. His father eventually died but Alex never had a relationship with him.

In the course of our conversation, Alex spoke and acted like a young ten year old. It was the age when he lost his mother. He had a little bit of a cold and I gave him a piece of tissue and he blew his nose in it and tried to give it back to me. I told him that this was a gift that he should keep for himself and he started laughing. At that moment, we all forgot that Alex was selling paint thinner and he was sleeping in the streets. We forgot that he was usually closed to conversations and a recluse. He forgot that he was alone and an orphan. We sat around and talked like an odd-looking family on the floor of a square in the center. We felt a strong love for him and we believed that he sensed it as well. It was the first time that Alex had a long conversation with us. He started asking questions about animals and different stuff; not unlike the questions a young child would ask his parents. Perhaps Alex never had the chance to ask such questions before. Perhaps the adults in his life did not have the time or energy to answer such questions. God wants to answer his questions and I am grateful that He used us as His mouthpiece to do this.

We went home happy that we stayed longer today. We pray for many more moments like this with Alex.

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Why didn’t I dance

“My favorite thing to do is to take a shower. I never had a shower in my house, in fact, I never had lived in a proper house. It did not have a bathroom or a kitchen. I never slept in a bed when I was a child. I never dreamed that I would have all these things one day. Now I do.”

These were the opening lines of a remarkable book I read over the weekend. It was recommended to me by a homeless teenage girl. Her name is Isabela. She is about 19 and like most of the older teens, she has been living in the streets since she was a young child. Although, unlike the others, she spent a couple of years in a shelter for children until she turned eighteen. Then she was forced to return to her family. She stayed for one day at her aunt’s house and then fled to the streets again. Our conversation did not go further than this. She was not ready to share more and we respected her privacy. Then she surprised us and asked us if we could buy her a book. This was the first time any of the teens or children asked for a book. Most of them dislike to read and naturally we were happy to find one who actually likes to read. She corrected us immediately. She told us that she did not like to read but this particular book touched her. The book is called, “Esmeralda: Why didn’t I dance.” It was a strange title and we had to search for it at several used bookstores before finding it. I open the first page and read the above opening lines of the life story of Esmeralda. I was drawn in immediately.

As I read her story I discovered that Esmeralda was living in the streets when we were working here twenty years ago. To my great surprise, her older brother was someone with whom I had good contact in the past. However, I cannot remember ever speaking to her personally even though her face looks familiar. Her story was similar to many of the children and teens in the streets. She comes from a family living in a tiny shack made out of scrap plywood. They had one mattress and everyone slept on the same bed. They were eight children but four died from illness. The oldest sister was ten years old when a group of men kidnapped and raped her before killing her. Her mother suffered a mental breakdown after this and started drinking heavily. The mother used to force the children to go the streets with her to beg for money. Many times they hardly had any money for food but the mother always found a way to buy alcohol. The shack they lived in did not have a bathroom or a kitchen; they cooked their meals on a makeshift stove using scrap wood as fuel. Consequently, their tiny shack was always filled with suffocating fumes which the children had to endure while eating their meals. This was the world of Esmeralda. It is hard to believe that people could live in such conditions and I would have found it unbelievable if I hadn’t been to some of these homes. However, according to Esmeralda, it wasn’t extreme poverty that led her to the streets. This is an important point to remember. The problem is not just poverty, as extreme and dehumanizing as it may seem. Children can adapt to extreme conditions if they feel that they are loved. And love was the one thing that Esmeralda did not feel in her tiny shack.

Esmeralda’s mother suffered from severe mental illness that made her violent. She would wait for the children to go to bed while they were fast asleep she would attack them. In the morning she would be remorseful. The children were naturally terrified of her. Eventually things got worse for the children. Her mother started bringing strange men to the shack and one day one of them raped Esmeralda. She was about 11. Her older brother had enough and ran away to the center. Esmeralda followed in his footsteps soon after.

Life in the street was not easy for Esmeralda. In her desperation to get money and shelter, she trusted the wrong people and she suffered more abuse. It was a miracle that she was not murdered like her sister. Gradually she got involved in crime and was sent to the juvenile detention center where the guards treated her with violence. By the age of eighteen, she was a hardened crack addict and considered to be a hopeless case.

Esmeralda shares that her faith in God gave her the strength to take the bold step towards leaving the street life. There was no radical conversion experience. It was actually a quiet and reflective process. She said that she found life in the streets to be monotonous. She used drugs not because she was addicted but to escape the monotony. She pleaded with God for the strength for a change. At this particular moment, she felt the presence of God in a real way. This presence opened her eyes to see the people who were willing to help her change her life story. She approached these people for help.

Her journey out of addiction was not an easy one. She had to struggle with the fact that she had to leave behind all her friends who had become very much like her family. She realized that she needed to change her way of thinking about the world and she was clueless how to go about doing it. She started by changing the way she thought about herself. She learned that she needed to love herself and she couldn’t do this until she forgave her mother and not only her mother but all those who wronged her. Then, finally, she had to forgive herself. I won’t say that there was a happy ending because Esmeralda is still young and there is a long journey for her. Esmeralda is happy now because she is where she wants to be emotionally and spiritually. She is in a place where she can learn and grow. For her, this is the perfect way to live her life. She did not want to become rich. She did not mind being poor. Her goal at the end of the book was to finish her high school education and go to college. Things she never thought she could ever hope for when she was a young child. The book ended at this point and it was written 14 years ago. I did some research on her and found out that she did finish her college degree on Anthropology. She continues to learn and grow into her vocation as God’s instrument in this world.

This is the story of Esmeralda. Isabela had already this book once and she wanted to read it again. When I told her that I found the book, her eyes lit up and she wanted to see the book right away. She grabbed it from my hands and held it close to her chest. Her face reflected an intense delight. The story of Esmeralda meant something very important for Isabela. It represented hope for her. Maybe she came from the same background. We don’t know. Isabela is a very private person. We know very little about Isabela and we hope that the story of Esmeralda will inspire her to open up to us. Maybe one day Isabela will share her story to the world as well.

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