Poverty Photograph

Poverty. We catch a glimpse of it sometimes. It's like a photograph, or a landscape seen from a train window. We never really get close. Maybe someone else was there, and they distorted it with their camera lens and limited it with the zoom function. Maybe we were there, but we were shielded from it by a thick pane of glass, and our train whizzed through it so quickly. And anyway, we were sleeping. (The chairs were more comfortable than we expected, and we ate too much for dinner).

We have music, technology, a gym! Department stores, Walmart. We pack a lunch, drive in our air conditioned cars to our air conditioned jobs. We have enough to worry about keeping up with our stuff. Checking our notifications and updating our apps. Creating a playlist, creating a shopping list. Exactly when would we have time to think about poverty?

This week, I've had time.

I've been on a mission trip that was like a train ride. Relaxing and fun at times. We stayed in a ritzy hotel in Sosua. Played in the pool, walked on the sand, ate buffet style at every meal. Drank unlimited smoothies and pineapple juice.

But some Godly men and women also took us by the hand and led us out of the train. Right up to poverty to stare at it and at the sweet people who are mired in it. They are us. Born at a different time and in a different place. That's all.

Their homes consist of one or two rooms, an aluminum roof, maybe a couple of chairs and a makeshift bed- if they're lucky. That's middle class, here.

I went to a dump and swatted flies from my face. I looked into the eyes of people who live in mounds of trash and smoking ash. They sleep in the middle of a circle of used tires, dig through piles of vile garbage in search of plastic bottles that they can sell for just a few pesos. It's a dry, charred existence that most of us cannot even begin to understand.

They were famished, and so thirsty. I gave a cup of water to two young boys digging in the middle of the fumes, little boys who shouldn't have been there. I wondered if they ever heard any words of affirmation. I told them that they were good workers, "trabajadores" and they nodded in acknowledgment.

I picked a up little girl in my arms and wondered how long she'd have to live. I doubted that it would be long. I told her that she was beautiful and that God loved her very much. Daniel, one of the youth pastors for the ministry Cups of Cold Water, asked her in Spanish if she had a smile for me. She came up with a lovely one, and we took a picture. I don't remember her name, but I will never forget her.

Today we went to Munoz, a village of Haitian refugees that was ravaged by a fire. The entire middle section of the village is charred, covered in ashes and trash, with broken stone structures protruding from it. They were houses, once.

The villagers lined up to receive cups of hot soup. As we walked through the village to pass out more, I noticed that many of them refused to take the soup. I realized that they had probably already been through the line and didn't want to take more than one cup, although it would have been easy to do. I felt that they were looking out for each other, making sure that everyone was fed.

The kids were funny and sweet. Like kids everywhere. They teased each other, poked each other, laughed. Eventually, four girls ages 12-14 came up to me and hung onto me throughout the night, while we were talking to the villagers and afterwards, when we played a movie for them. I felt that I didn't have enough arms.

They asked me my name, I asked them theirs. Francesca, Kimberly, Mariela and Maria. When they told me their names, I said, "No! PRINCESA Francesca!" (Giggles). "I am not a princess, I'm a girl!" I kept calling them princesa. It was fun, and may have built them up in a small way. But most importantly, I had the chance to tell these girls that they are precious to God. It made me cry just to think about the way they have already suffered, and the suffering they will endure in the future. The Dominican Republic is not friendly to Haitians. In fact, in a movement that I saw compared to the Holocaust in a newspaper today, Haitian refugees will be deported back to Haiti soon. Racism is strong here; not the assumed racism of Americans who are eager to see it in every tone and expression, but true discrimination against people with darker skin. A civil war may even result. I love these people, and I love these girls. But I will have to get back into that train. I'll have to go back to my comfortable American life, and leave them to their fate, because there is nothing I can do. Beyond giving a cup of soup and a few hugs, there is nothing. And that realization is breaking my heart.

First Impressions

I came to the Dominican Republic with a jolt, cheers erupting from Dominican men as the plane's wheels hit the runway. Startled from sleep, I thought about feeling annoyed, but I could only laugh as the men cheered again and again. After all, they were demonstrating their love for their country- something Americans rarely do. And, I'd finally arrived.

We rode to our destination in a creaky open truck with a peaked metal roof. My first impressions were of the smoky grey sky and spindly thin palm trees with shaggy branches. I could smell smoke and manure. Eventually the breeze and the steady rumble of the truck almost lulled me to sleep.

The buildings were run down, like ones I have seen in the poorest of American neighborhoods. Some were simply mismatched materials piled in a building shape. Businesses had crude awnings and hand painted signs, many with a single bright bulb underneath. When I changed places with Will, I hung out the back of the truck a little and watched them receding into blackness, the taillights casting a rosy glow on the pavement under us. We passed police cars and trucks with red and blue lights flashing, even more brilliant than the lights of American police cars.

I saw a building with a grass roof and thought of the mansion I saw flying into New York City, with its circular driveway and pool.

The road's unevenness jerked us from our seats. The wind whipped our hair around in our faces. We were passing through a river of moving air.

I noticed that the sky was glittering, stars that I couldn't always see in my street-lamp-lit world. Signs proclaimed the names of political candidates with colorful cartoonish letterings and photos imposed on solid backgrounds.

It was 4:30 A.M. We passed a Dominican man bicycling on the highway. Others congregated at a food stand.

My first impression of the Dominican was that it was rough and crude, and that it was beautiful.