While distributing newsletters from our church to the surrounding neighbourhood I noticed a few things that I thought I would share. I am by no means an expert in human behaviour but using reasoning and past experiences I can make a few educated guesses.
While handing the newsletters out and interfacing with the people in the neighbourhood (it is a relatively poor area) I couldn’t help but notice how hard the people in the area are. Perhaps it is a natural instinct to seeing strangers but their is a definite air of suspicion about the person you are interfacing with. To the degree that you can’t help but feel that they are trying to figure out why you are being polite to them and what you going to take from them.
When my wife asked why I thought people remained in those types of environments I couldn’t help but feel that the people in the neighbourhood know no other life and when others dream of getting out of it the community pulls them back in, like crabs in a bucket. I can only think that they do this because the pain is unbearable if you have to deal with it alone and having someone around that understands makes it easier to deal with the situation.
My heart couldn’t help but break when I was approached by a young man claiming to be a heroin addict and asking if the church would be able to help him. Now, growing up in Africa is not an easy task. Perhaps we have it slightly easier in South Africa than our northern neighbours but it isn’t easy. Africa carries a mentality of “you owe me something” and people use this to gain leverage over our emotions and to do things out of guilt. This means when someone is asking you for help you tend to wonder what exactly they are asking for. Do they want money, which will inevitably land up funding the next hit or do they genuinely need help. I explained to the youngster that he is more than welcome to join us at our church BUT the only way he was going to get off the heroin is by God’s grace and if he truly does want to come off it. That it is not going to be a quick fix, that no one can do it for him. The best we could possible offer him is emotional support. I do pray that we see him this evening.
That being said, I still feel my heart aching that I couldn’t do more but I just couldn’t extend more help like a place to stay or money as this creates a dependant and I cannot put the security of my family at risk. If anyone reading this understands what I am saying please, say a prayer for this young man. By God’s grace alone perhaps he will come round to form a productive member of society and use his experience to educate others as to the dangers of that one night out and using drugs to escape our circumstances.
How I long to have the parasites of society feeding off peoples desperation and pain removed from our society. God be with us in this dark world we live in.
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