Part 4 of Finding Home - Hope for Esperanza?

     Batey Esperanza. Seems an unfitting name for such a place. I wondered, as our white school bus drove through the squalor and past the people with shifty eyes, how it came to be named Esperanza. Hope. Because from my perspective, I didn't see hope.  

That right there is the clothing store. Clothes that were picked out from the trash, washed, and then displayed for customers to come and purchase.

      I saw pain and desolation. Hurting and just-barely-making-it. 

     It was as if they had tried to label a barren land the "lush, tropical rainforest". Naming a hopeless place hope--how does that happen? I may not have seen hope, but you rarely do. In fact, it says in the Bible, "things hoped for, but not seen". We certainly didn't see hope. Even the church that we had come to visit looked near hopeless. 

     That's what I was thinking as we drove through the place. Then I met the people. We disembarked from the bus and entered the church. A group of kids had gathered in one of the doorways. It was near 4 o'clock and the sunlight was slanting in, taking a look at everything the church held. There wasn't much of anything except some wooden pews and a curtain. Everything else was rubble and rocks. Yet the people would gather to worship...it certainly didn't look like a lot, but I felt it: it was sacred, holy hope. 

     I ran over to the children and started a conversation with them. Because my Spanish had been improving every hour, I was always eager to use it on anyone I could find. Soon I knew all their names and ages and then, since that's about where my Spanish stops, we stood there and just held hands. The pastor of the church had come to show us the place. They called us over to join a circle and pray. 

     We stood together in a large ring, in such a hopeless place I could feel the hope encircling us. I held onto the brown hand grasping mine and every fiber of my being resounded like a harp as each word my Dad prayed was then translated into Creole. The sophisticated guttural sounds of Creole are absolutely enchanting. To hear them, firm yet pleading for grace and mercy as we stood in that place, that hopeless place--it was like spreading light on a dark path, or seeing bright light emanating from the windows of a house on a cold, winter night. Certainly God was there with us. 

     We continued to walk through the Batey, all the while I was linked together with the children, running, laughing, hugging. I don't know what they thought of me, or what I represented to them--but I pray it was the love of Christ. The hope of Christ. Our time at Batey Esperanza was short, but it was long enough to see that even in the most hopeless of places, there can be hope--in the people of Christ. However, it is still very hard. I think many people visit such places and feel such hope and then move on without another thought. These people, though they have hope, they cannot sustain themselves off of that hope for much longer if something doesn't change. They need the Holy Spirit, yes, and they also need to be inspired to rise out of their situation. Later that evening, we discussed what it would take to give the people of Esperanza better lives. We thought about how having a trash program or a recycling project could produce many jobs. The problem is that littering is absolutely institutionalized. 

    They can't fathom why you'd throw your trash into a trash can and much less actually pick it up off the street. So many people live in situations similar to Batey Esperanza and unfortunately, some of them are even worse. They need jobs, and there's plenty that could be done...but where do you start? What we did that evening was hopefully a blessing to the church..and I feel as if that's where it needs to start: with the people of God. We have hope and in that hope we should be able to revolutionize the degrading practices that keep these people in poverty. Yet it seems so hopeless. 

    And then I remember the time of prayer. That circle of hope amidst the rubble. Surely that place was named Hope for a reason. I trust that it's because there is hope...but more than that: faith. Faith from the believers that they can do more, faith that God can do more, faith that there is another way. Why should our brothers and sisters be living in such horrible places? Surely we should do something about it?! 

    It is because of this that I must go back, because there are people--my people--my brothers and sisters, and yours too, that are living in situations no human being should every be in...much less when they're family. I don't know where I would start, but I suppose I'd start with one person and work my way from there. 

      There was this one boy, I don't remember his name, but we did this little signature fist bump thing. It made him so happy and everyone laughed. Who knows what he'll face today, tomorrow, or in the coming years...where might he end up? But maybe for that moment, in the sunlight and in the laughter, there was fulfilled hope--hope that someone would come, someone would see, and something would change. I can't promise it immediately, but to the very best of my ability, I will promise it someday. Change for Natalie, Santiago, Crystal, and that little boy...someday.