From Andrew Ulasich, January 2009.
I have recently been having a more difficult time writing about my friends and my work. It’s not that nothing has been happening, or that I don’t have thoughts to share. But I am trying to find the balance of advocating for my friends, while not being exploitative. You see, I assume people like hearing about the people I meet and the experiences I have. That’s why they read my letters. The stories may be exciting. The experiences cool, new, or inspiring. But for my friends, it is just life. And there is no escaping it. I have been getting to know a couple Nigerian guys in jail here. After our conversations, I get to leave the jail. Clearly, that’s not an option for them. I’ve also been spending time with a family who lives in a slum. I was invited to stay the night there, which I have done a couple times now. For me, it was a new thing. Sounds kind of hard core, right? But while I leave their home of tarps and bamboo in the morning, they know they have to return to the slum each night. For them, life in the slum was never about being hard core. There was never anything novel about it. So while I write about my experiences with them, my hope is to respect them, their lives and the reality of the divide of opportunity and wealth that separates us.
It’s interesting, too, how different my expectations were from what I have actually experienced. Calvin and I went to the prison because Jesus says that when we visit prisoners, we visit him. We went to build a relationship, yes, but also probably expecting to be of some encouragement, to offer some hope for these men. There we sat, sitting on one side of the fence, while they sat on the other side, their freedom stripped from them. Our conversation turned to creation, relationship in the garden, the first sin, and the shame that followed. But it wasn’t Calvin and I doing the preaching. It was the men behind the bars. They argued with each other over the meaning of certain parts, occasionally asking Calvin and I for some confirmation of what they were saying. “For sure,” we’d chime in. At one point it got heated, so one of them cut in, “Let’s change the subject. When are you bringing me Christian music?” I busted up laughing.
It’s hard in there. They don’t deny it. While they have most everything they need, the absence of freedom changes everything for them. They actually have access to a lot of what we have. And thankfully, a few friends who can bring them certain luxuries - like Christian music. But the lack of freedom can take the life out of you. But in just a few short meetings, they have expressed to us their hope. Their hope for life outside the jail. And most of all their hope in Jesus, whose grace covers all of our sins, even the sins of those we lock up and keep away from society. It is with them Jesus wants to be in relationship. It is in them we meet Jesus.
It is good to be in relationship here. To be getting to know men in prison, friends who live in poverty in the slum. And not just for the novelty of it. We are in relationship to offer hope and love, but we also go to those the world rejects, believing that God will meet us and teach us through them. Pray for my friends. That they might know the hope of the coming Messiah, and the love of God in their lives. And pray for me, that I would continue to learn and grow as I am in relationship with those who God sees, despite the ways our societies have pushed to the side and hidden.