Today, the same Christ is in people who are unwanted, unemployed, uncared for, hungry, naked, and homeless. They seem useless to the state and to society; nobody has time for them. It is you and I as Christians, worthy of the love of Christ if our love is true, who must find them, and help them; they are there for the finding.

- Mother Teresa

Charity is not Romantic

This is the fourth week that we are hosting displaced people in our church hall.
And that which began with chaotic good humour has now become a more considered act of charity. We have invented systems for feeding people, clothing them, and housing them. We have learned how to estimate the food requirements, and how much soap and toilet paper will get used each day. But the congregation is getting tired – what some call “donor fatigue”.

The refugees have also adapted. They began as a disorientated collection of individuals. The only thing that they had in common was an experience of rejection and loss of both property and dignity. Four weeks later they have begun to recover some independence. Many leave our premises during the day to go to work. And the women report each morning to the office to discuss catering arrangements and other housekeeping needs. But the newly forming community is showing rifts.

The family units provide leadership in terms of cooking the food, and organizing community life. But there is a large group of young men who go out in the late afternoon and do not return until late at night. They often show signs of having been drinking – and on their arrival they demand food. This has caused tensions, and I suspect has led to some of our guests choosing to move out.

Today two family units moved out.
And tomorrow there will be unhappiness, because the cooks have now gone, as has Baba Abel, who acted as the glue to hold the community together.

So pray for us tomorrow.

Blessing

He is two. Big eyes set into a broad forehead, framed with short curly black hair. And for almost two weeks he has burst into tears every time he sees me. I do not pretend to know why. Other than the knowledge that his mother fled a mob of people intent on burning her home down. And he was traumatised by her fear, and the screams of the people, and the sudden insertion into the strange world of a church hall.

His name is Blessing. After a few days of living with us he cheered up, and began to play with a car given to him by Kyle, another two year old from my congregation. Kyle is from the same Nguni ancestry as Blessing, but with parents who did not flee from Zimbabwe.

Over the weekend Blessing managed to get his fingers caught between a closing door and the door jamb. A visit to the clinic across the road put two stitches into the wound and a white bandage around the painful fingers.
So tonight I went to see how he is doing – and for the first time he smiled at me without tears.

Perhaps he is cried out of tears for now.

For Reflection

Nothing is so important as human life, as the human person. Above all, the person of the poor and the oppressed... Jesus says that whatever is done to them he takes as done to him. That bloodshed, those deaths are beyond all politics: They touch the very heart of God.
- Oscar Romero
March 16, 1980


Did not your father eat and drink
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
then it was well.
Is not this to know me?
says the Lord.
But your eyes and heart
are only on your dishonest gain,
for shedding innocent blood,
and for practicing oppression and violence.
- Jeremiah 22:15-17

The story continues...

We continue to care for people...
The School teacher returned to his school classroom yesterday – and left when a pupil pulled a gun on him. So he returned to us with another Zimbabwean teacher from the school. When I asked in amazement why he returned to the school, he answered that he was anxious to receive his month’s salary.

We now discover that the group of four men we had housed all have families. So another 13 people have just arrived – wives and children who had been in hiding. When asked who they had not come with the men, they answer that they were too afraid. “We did not know what the people in the city would do to us”.

And I am deeply moved by the compassion and care of my congregation: one 84 year old lady arrived last night with four lamb chops and some rice. She explained that she had planned this as her lunch for the next few meals, but decided that the displaced people needed them more than she did. Another arrived with her children’s toys – even a beloved Thomas the Tank Engine – because there are children who need to know that they are loved. And then there is the amazing time and care from Lynn and Lorna who work in the church office: sourcing everything from nappies to cell phone chargers (because people had fled without taking their electrical chargers with them).

Pray that the Province and the City might set aside their petty political squabbling. They must come up with a joint plan that will help us all find a way forward. Because all we can be is a temporary emergency shelter. The macro re-integration of people, or repatriation of people is beyond us.