In the few feet from one office door to the other, I was transported from Barrio Logan to the Blanco township in George, South Africa. My senses took me on a journey that left me winded, shocked and with tears forming.
It caught me off guard because, at first, I didn't realize what was so familiar and special about it. I couldn't remember what it reminded me of. It's almost been two years since that trip to the Rainbow Nation, how have I forgotten so much? How have I forgotten those smells and sights and that feeling of hopelessness mingled with bittersweet joy?
There are clouds in the air, with a slight humidity and the hope that the sun will come out in the early afternoon. Cars drive by adjacent streets, there was a honking horn and the whirr of a motorcycle far away. Men talk on the corner across the street, and a mother is walking several children to school. Their clothes are a little too big, same with their backpacks. An amputee with his pomeranian passes in his wheelchair, and a young lady sits against the fence across the street, watching him pass.There is little river forming by the building, where a drain pipe empties out onto the sidewalk. It runs to the street, and while the water is clean, the ground is not. There is a smell wafting, a mixture of gasoline, urine and body odor, and the faint salty breeze from the nearby harbor.
Barrio Logan isn't the same as Blanco. But there are so many similarities, and when I look at this neighborhood, really look at it, the similarities are overwhelming. How have I spent four months working every day in this place and not seen it as such? I've approached it as a place I have to be in, one to be cautious and apprehensive towards. One where blood stains on the sidewalk from a stabbing are gross, not heartbreaking. Where a mentally unstable man talking to himself is to be avoided, not prayed for. I've approached it with a glass is half empty mentality, no, more of a glass is all the way empty mentality.
While Barrio Logan is still broken, it isn't beyond hope. I should treat it as Blanco, or the Tenderloin, or Skid Row-- praying for it. Praying that Jesus will take hold of this neighborhood, filling it with His servants who will manifest His light and hope in the darkness. Praying that hope will rise and His people here will know Him. Praying that, even though my time left here is short, that He will use me in this mission.
Thinking of Blanco and the people there who captured my heart, and thinking of Barrio Logan and the people here who need love and kindness and Jesus too.
