A Crying Shame

I carefully stepped out of my car and tried to avoid all of the muddy puddles on the ground. It was difficult as the ground seemed to be alive with water. I managed to stick to a strip of high ground and then I was there. It looked as if a party was on the go. Kids ran around screaming, a women on a chair was having her hair combed by another woman behind her, more woman sat around chatting, and two men seemed to be discussing a nuclear physics problem. One of these men, Paul, was the man I had come to see. I wanted to find out how his new wooden house had stood up to the storm that had just blown through our town.

Not being satisfied with what he had been given; Paul had already built on a new section and converted his long house into an ‘L’ shape. Somehow he had managed to match the front of his alteration with the rest of his home, no small feat for a man without any money. He was as excited as I have ever seen him; his home had withstood the elements. On further inspection, I found that the front door had leaked, soaking the entrance. A little shelter over the entrance would solve that problem and remove the problem from any houses we may build. Paul posed for a couple of pictures inside his house, and his wife came over and simply gave me a long hug. Nothing more needed to be said.

Paul’s friend asked if I would come and look at his house. Understanding his want, I reluctantly followed him. He chose another precarious route through the flood waters, meeting up with four youths along the way. They were none too happy to see him and a few barrages of verbal abuse were flung either way.

His shack was a sad looking affair, a hodge podge of wood nailed together and canted over to one side. He opened the door and invited me in. His two tiny rooms were wet as a result of a roof that had never seen better days. The family’s meagre possessions had been bundled into black bags and stacked on one another. The floor was partially wet sand and he explained that the heavy winds had actually moved his shack off its wooden floor. I was revolted at the thought of anyone having to live their lives in a place this despicable, let alone raise a young family.

His eyes welled up with tears. ‘Mark’, he said, ‘I need a decent place to make a home for Jesus’. He rushed off to his room and returned with a page torn from a children’s bible. A treasured possession, somehow kept clean and dry in all of the squalor, a shining beacon of hope. ‘Help us’, he pleaded. I did not have the heart to tell him it was a picture of Moses.

Sadly the waves of alcohol from last nights party closed up my ears to his pleas. I asked why he continues to drink instead of saving his money to fix his house himself. He promised to do just that. Could I really blame him for enjoying an escape from his terrible reality?

Standing in that hovel, watching a grown man cry, I wondered about my own lack of compassion. I was moved to help yet made no promises. He certainly did not deserve any help as a lazy man lost in a haze of drugs and alcohol, in trouble with the local gangs, full of lies, and without a hope in the world. I could not imagine him ever being able to change his ways on his own. For the first time in my life, I started to understand the depth of the social problems that exist just under the thin veneer of society.

I have no idea what to do. Interestingly enough, some guy a couple of thousand years ago saw the same things, met people who deserved nothing, and yet showered them with his compassion and love anyway!