The Use of Emotion

Hey everyone! It's Monday which means I write and write and write until I cannot feel my wrists! So, welcome to blog 4, yes that means I have been here one month! blog four of my summer internship. I am going to structure this blog a little differently I think because I have different things I want to say. I am going to write an update on my in another blog


The Use of Emotion in America
Almost all missionaires have something like this blog site to keep you updated on things. This is normal, people want to know what your doing and how your doing, and of course missionairy's want to stay connected. Also, all kinds of NGO's and non-profits put together liturature on what they do in order to inform and gather support. America is used to these things. People are constantly reading information on NGO's and programs, those in church circles are always reading updates from missionairy's the church supports. These things are normal ways of doing things in America, and they are not bad at all. However, I realized something the otherday. America is addicted to the emotional and dramatic! this isn't my main realization but what I want to say ties into this.

Think of marketing, think of the news, think of movies. They all move to inspire you and to move you. To shake you or to make you think. How many times have you heard someone describe a movie as a "break from reality" or in otherwords a way to let your emotions rest on something that does not involve you. Musicians make music (most of them) to inspire you and you hear people say "I feel this beat" or "this song just gets me". Contemporary church services want to move you, to help you feel your love for God and express it. I am not pointing this out to make fun of America and emotions, I am not saying "Americans are whimpy little girls and they should change" I am just pointing out emotion follows all human beings (not just Americans) and effects human beings, and all these things I have said above are part of my life as well. However, I think we have a dependency on this emotionalism and when we do not "feel" something, we freak out.

The reason I bring this up is because I realized that most of the summaries on NGO/ministry programs feed on your emotions. They write these descriptions of a broken, in mass chaos people who need your help to survive. They write these moving articles about someone undergoing an extreme hardship that none of us will ever understand. They portray people in horrible situations to draw you to action. Now, let me say that we need to understand hardships that people go through, we need to be aware and we need to be in action. It is our Christian calling and responsibility to care for the oppressed and broken. However, we also need to realize those broken people are not just a people that need our help. They are a people with a life, they wake up in the morning and sleep at night and the way they are portrayed is not the way they normally live.

I realized the other day that I have yet to write a blog like this, a blog that describes to you all that I have seen in Kibera. A moving and graphic description of the rivers of sewage that run through the heart, the handicapped boy sitting in a pile of mud hoping that I will give him some money. The vastness of the slums, the one million families that are living on a dollar a day. The day I was walking in Kibera and saw twenty shillings (about 10 cents) on the ground and realized that who ever dropped that money just lost food for their family for the day and now their family will have to go a day without food. I haven't written about these things and i should, I should tell you about them and how moved I was by the people and how deep in poverty they are. I was wondering why I wasn't and I realized that I was seeing something different, I was seeing not the horrible situation or the sewage rivers, I was seeing a people of Christ, a people with joy!

All the times I have been in Kibera I have seen people willing to talk, people in suits doing their daily business. The small vegetable stand filled with Avocados and the mother chopping cabbage to sell. I have seen and met many people who are living in Kibera that would not describe life like the liturature of programs and organizations. They would affirm that that does exist but that is only one side of the coin. I will show you an example of this, I am going to write about the same situation, in two different ways.

1. Barney woke up and put on his coat. He walked out the door and saw a man in a wheelchair, he smiled and opened his 1995 impala car door to find a note from his wife saying how much she loved him. They had some rocky times but nonetheless they kept living and loving each other.The town he lived in was a place of hard knocks, but the town was small enough that there was an strong community of people who watched out for each other. Barney was a counselor and today he had an appointment with a man who had been addicted to alchol but is willing to work it through.

There is nothing really super emotional about this right? simple, it is just a smiple description of a guy's day and some of his life. Now I want to submit to you that this is how we recieve the information about third-world countries.

2. Barney tossed and turned and finally with an aching back climbed out of bed. He reached up for his coat and his arm ached because he had slept on the wrong arm. He always had done this and never learned his lesson. He walked out the door and smelled the air of industrialization, his thoughts immdiately went to a town with high pollution and the high rate of unemployment constantly attacking the city, casting a seemingly hopeless town into a neverending circle of poverty. He looked to his right and saw a man in a wheelchair on the side of the road, Barney forced a smile because he knew that this man needed his encouragement, he was stuck in a wheelchair with only a unobtainable doctors fee as salvation. He got in his car after struggling with the handle for two minutes and consequently cutting his finger. he found a note from his wife, saying how passionately she loved him, they had gone through times where they thought they would end, where their relationship could never be mended. They still struggle with loving eachother everyday, but do so the best they can....

And so on and so forth. SEE THE DIFFERENCE! This kind of representation isn't wrong, but it is misleading! We "romanticize" things so we can feel its effects more and this just is not the whole story.

In Kibera and all the other slums I have been too, I have seen more life than sorrow. I have seen just as many people dressed sharply that are dressed in tattered clothes. I have seen more joy than grief. Is it a bad situation? yes it is. Are the living conditions horrible? yeah, they are disgusting and un-humane. Are the people of these slums close to naked and sometimes face starvation? yeah, all the time Does it seem like a hopeless cycle of poverty? yes. However, what is more important than these things is how the people are living and how much God is doing in Kibera and Kawangware.

God is working there among everything! He is really present among the slums of Africa and I want you to know that. There is redemption happening! and I want to take part in redemption more than lifting hopeless poverty.

So, I want to tell you that all the things you read about the slums is true, its really bad and I have been impacted and emotionally moved by them. I do not have to tell you what is wrong because that is already out there and it is true! but what is even more true is the redemption work of Jesus Christ, how his remedy is found as far as the curse is found. I want you to walk away from reading my blog fully aware and encouraged about what I am seeing and doing here, I don't want to add to all thats wrong with Kibera or Kawangware.

So dear friends, be encouraged! God is working among the sewage rivers and the beggars, he has been before I got here and will be after I leave.

In Christ,
Dave