Faces

“Poor and afflicted and oppressed people have faces, and we are required to look squarely into them. We can’t love what we won’t experience.” ~Nancy Mairs

Years ago the women’s group at the church that I was attending was talking about the arrival in the neighbourhood of a home for abused women. As various ideas were put forward as to how we might react to this, a couple of the ladies were very forthright in their disagreement. After all, they said, these women had asked for it! Despite this, the evening ended with a decision being made to start a clothing centre for these women who would arrive at the shelter with little besides the clothes on their backs. Being good Christian woman, both of these ladies signed up to take a shift or two a month. Imaging my surprise when a few months later one of them came up to me after church to tell me the ‘those’ women were just like everybody else!

Now a story from a little closer to home. We spent three weeks in Cape Town, South Africa before our daughter’s wedding there. During that time we had free time to explore the city on our own. So many things struck me: the music everywhere, the bright colours and the smiling faces. I have never before or since had the pleasure of listening to. the checkout girl in a supermarket sing as she puts through my order. I came back with the sight of seeing the children playing in ditches beside a 4-lane super highway with the cardboard shacks with tin roofs that they called home in the background etched in my mind. Without actually seeing the poverty there or having a chance to interact with the people on the streets and in the shops, I know I wouldn’t be who I am today.

I’m sure all of you have similar stories about how being put in a position where you actually saw another person for who they really were, which changed you, and by extension everyone you came into contact with, from that day forward. It is too easy to ignore or downplay that which we do not understand or have not met face to face. Each time we have this experience, it fine-tunes just a little bit more how we will react the next time we come into contact with something similar. My experience in Cape Town has made me more able to appreciate the struggles of the people in other third world countries. I no longer see them as statistics on the evening news but rather as flesh and blood human beings who dream dreams and feel pain just as you and I do.

“Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” ~Proverbs 31:9 [NIV]

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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