To give you a little taste of the clashes within the slums and western visitors, I’d like to take you on a trip down memory lane to last week Thursday’s visit to a place called Lunga Lunga. I am not really sure where to start…perhaps a snapshot of Thursday evening’s emotions would be appropriate. Frustrated, hurt, honored, exhausted, fearful and maybe even a bit of resentment toward those who have gone before us.
Thursday was a reminder of how far the CTM network has come here in
Mandy, Gideon, Moses and I ventured into a new part of town to visit with a group of pastors. Mandy and Gideon had visited before and were encouraged by the transformational work taking place within this community. Gideon invited us as he was hoping to film a few clips for a “signs of hope” video that he is compiling to be shared with mainstream and slum pastors in
In retrospect, the signs early on that things might be a different were obvious. The fact that we arrived 2 hours later than they had expected us, yet a group of 25 pastors will still eagerly waiting was sign number one. Signs two, three and four came in the first 30 seconds of our encounter when Mandy and I were asked to sit in the front, when we noticed a table with crafts for sale off to the side and when Gideon and Moses were barely acknowledged. Sign five came when our primary reason for the visit (Gideon’s interview clips) were placed on the back burner and Mandy and I were issued “lead roles”.
As we walked around the community, we went to six different churches. The tour of the community was meant to be a show and tell amongst other pastors in the area of what each ministry is doing. Ideally, we would be a listening ear in the background and there may have been a little red light on Gideon’s camera glowing. Instead, it became a ploy for access to resources, a cry for help and a presentation for what they had been prepped for as “potential donors”. Don’t get me wrong, there is some great stuff going on in this place. Most of the churches have started schools as there are few government schools operating in this area, there is a strong network of pastors who know what is going on in the community and these churches remain agents of transformation in a place that is environmentally, physically, economically and socially impoverished.
One could have said that it was an honor to be treated the way we were. We were offered bottled water regularly to cope with the beating sun, they insisted on carrying our backpack, we were given a 3-course meal at the end of the day, kids waited 3 extra hours at the school simply to say hello to us (and see white people in their school) and we were asked to sign guestbooks in many of the places. One could argue that these people were simply honoring us. The scary part for us was when Gideon and Moses were side-stepped in order for all of this to happen. The four of us arrived as guests, but only two of us remained guests over the duration of the day. Gideon and Moses, for that we apologize, You should be the guests of honor in your own city.
One can’t help but think how things got this way. Was it the western missionaries that previously expected better treatment? Is if western missionaries that have viewed each encounter as an opportunity to give money? Did we imply something in earlier interactions that encouraged this behavior? Do some people not have the capacity to look past skin color and the dollar signs embedded in the pigment of one’ skin? Or maybe, these people are simply survivors-they saw and opportunity and went in for the kill.
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