All the Poor and Powerless

There is a song that is near and dear to my heart. We sing it a lot at Beautiful Gate as well as my home church in Michigan. The first verse says...

All the poor and powerless
All the lost and lonely
All the thieves who come confess
Will know that you are holy.

Yesterday I went and visited friends who are serving in South Africa. They took Anita and I to a township that they have been doing outreaches in. The "houses" are made of mud and stick. The roofs  are scrap pieces of medal, garbages bags and anything else they can find to provide some type of shelter. Townships have been around for centuries. They are where the black people have been sent to live, because they are not good enough to live in the white communities. Townships are not places of hope. The smells of poverty and sights of depravity are overwhelming. As we drove I just sat in the back seat and took it all in. Children running around naked or only in shirts. Adults staring us down as we past their homes. I could only imagine their thoughts. "Why are white people coming here?" We went into one of the houses where a family lives, that my friend is working with. A room much smaller than an American bedroom, was home to 16 people. Four generations of women, doing live in really rough conditions. Four generations of women who have been told they have no worth because of the color of their skin. Four generations of women who think the only way to make a living is to have more children, because then you can get more governmental funding. When people try to tell them they can do more, they refuse. From generation to generation, they have been shown that their worth is to lay around and allow others to provide for them.

When we entered their house one of the children grabbed a bench for us to sit on and one of the women wiped it off with a clean shirt. I felt so dirty. They did not know me, but because I am white they made sure I was comfortable as they sat on the unleveled ground in their home. Along the wall was a pile of blankets, that served as the family's beds. They rolled them up every day and night so that they could have a place to sit during the day. A little metal ring which held charcoal, that they made from dust and mud, served as their heater and stove. All around the room, there were little reflections of light that streamed in from the whole in the roof. My friend told us that when it rains, their houses crumble, because it is only mud and sticks that hold it together. My heart was so overwhelmed. I couldn't even form a proper sentence to say. We spent just a few moments with the women and then left. As we drove away we passed another community. The homes were nicer, still nothing that compared to homes in West Michigan, but they were made of concrete and had windows, doors, electricity and water. I thought for sure that this was the community of white people, but my friend told me otherwise. The people in this community were black as well, they just found pride in themselves and wanted to make something of themselves. They didn't lay around having babies only to get more funding, but instead went to school, found skills and got jobs. They were not poor. They were not powerless. They are rich and empowered.

On the drive home I kept thinking about the song that I love. Sometimes it is your culture and history that makes you poor and powerless. If you see no hope or way out, you continue to fall in to the trap of relying on the government to help you. But if you see the tiny specs of light shining into the darkness, you see the hope that you have. If you decide to better yourself and not allow those around you to tell that you are powerless, you will find pride and turn you situation around.

Sometimes others make you powerless, other times you convince yourself you are powerless, either way, you are not. The Lord has come to give light and hope and life in our darkness. He wants us to claim Him and shout to Him so that all throughout the world, everyone can see they have the mightiest power within themselves.