It was a day of a million questions. I always try to get the low-down on the streets whenever I go to a new place, as poverty is the first and most pressing thing I notice about any city.

“What do you think about the disabled men on the street begging for money? Do you give them any? What is their situation?”

“Most of them seem to enjoy their situation. We’ve tried to offer them micro-credit loans and get them training in our programs but they always just want the money right away”

“What about the women that sit on blankets with their children? Is it the same or do you think they really need the money?”

“Yes, I think they really need it”

“What about the women that are just resting on the street? They don’t appear to be begging...”

“Some of the women don’t have work, so they carry things on their head for people long distances to make money, like commuters. A lot of the women we have trained used to do this and now have other professions”

I had a lot more questions like this. I was taking a tro from Madina to the slums at Ablogbloshie with my friend Selina, who works for an organization that tries to empower people in the slums by giving them training or micro-credit loans to lift them out of poverty. The slums are one of the things I am most interested in, because I find them so desperately sad and incomprehensible. I was really grateful for the opportunity to check out her work .

In the newspapers, the slums have been talked about a lot. They call them “Sodom and Gomorrah” because of their hellish condition, and the government wants to relocate them. The slum areas are huge. Selina had this satellite mapping system from all the location research they had done trying to track people and areas to address need- they are always changing and expanding. There doesn’t appear to be any plan of relocation or compensation for the thousands of people living there, but the government wants to move them anyway. This, to me, seemed so unfeasible.

“Do you think the government has even been here?” I asked

“Hahaha... I doubt it.”

We transferred tros at Tema station. The only cars that go to Agblogbloshie are really run down rickety things. We got in a big lime green one didn’t look too bad. Walking through the slums was like being in run down, messy market, except it was a tight knit community-- the inner-workings of which worked perfectly together. It wasn’t as dirty or horrible as I thought- I’d always pictured slums as being really scary and inhumane. This one was crowded and smokey and made up of little shanty shacks that burn down all the time, but the people didn’t treat you bad and there wasn’t any obvious or dire poverty. They had schools and bathhouses and places you could cook and do other things- although run down, they were functional. Life was hard but it had a system- people learned to live off one another.

Many people move to the cities to ‘seek greener pastures’ from the increasingly harder life in the country. Often, they end up in places like this. The slums are the end-of-the line places where people go when their dreams have been dashed.
We got to the place where her NGO worked- it was a little cleared area at the back of a half built church which had a table and some benches and enough room for the women to work. On the table there was cloth spread out that they were dying, while the rest of the women were hunched over their jewellery, twisting wires around beads and making all kinds of beautiful things. It was really wonderful to meet them- They greeted me with smiles and laughter and blessings. I made some earrings with this girl named Julie and we taught each other English and Twi and French as we worked. Julie struck me instantly because she was such a larger than life character. Often women in Ghana are pretty shy- but this one had a fire cracker in her. I instantly wanted to take her on a plane and travel around. She seemed like she would be the most fun person to travel with, the kind that was constantly pointing out the window in delight and excitement, laughing and asking questions. The other fire-cracker woman I know is the one that runs my internet cafe. Today she’s wearing a t-shirt that says “GIFT FROM GOD”, sings gospel music all day, and beats the internet-box with a stick to get it working.

I don’t even begin to think that this world’s problems can be solved by human innovation. It’s because we’re always out for our own interests, I don’t think many would argue that. Whenever we have tried to come up with solutions for our problems usually more people end up dying, or hungry, or in poverty. I think it’s somewhat audacious to think that we can come up with some type of magnificent solution to these problems- people just like me and including me created them. Even with globalization and the input of the whole world. The millennium development goals are just as painfully unmet as any other strategy. Often I think we are so caught up in trying to find a solution that we just don’t really understand what the problem is.

I read this really amazing story about Mother Teresa. She pulled this woman out of a pile of trash who was dying, burning with fever. All this woman could say was ‘My son did this to me! I am like this because of him,’ When I read this I thought then that she was going to do something real heroic, like clean her up and lift her out of her situation, like set her up in a hospital or a house with some food and clean water, or pray for her and all her calamity be healed. Instead she just said something simple “you must forgive your son. You must forgive him”. She begged the woman this until she finally did, “with a real forgiveness”. Then she held her in her arms and loved her as she passed away.

I think the problem in this world is not always of poverty, but of forgiveness. It’s not a lack of wealth but a lack of love. A lot of people think heaven is just some place where you go when you die, but Jesus said “repent and be baptized, because the kingdom of heaven is near.” He said this after some crazy looking guy named John the Baptist was declaring the days of the Lords coming. The people must have thought “whatever that means”. They thought this until they met Jesus, until he started teaching strange and beautiful things, like “blessed are the poor in spirit, and blessed are those who morn, and blessed are the meek, because theirs is the kingdom of God”.

Did we forgive each-other? Did we give of ourselves to the poor and needy? (did we give them the time of day?) I think that Jesus made it very clear that when we gave a cup of water to the poor, we gave it to Him, when we welcomed the little children, we welcomed Him. Did we love each-other? Our enemies? Did we love Him? It doesn’t take long for me to get into His teachings to realize how much of a mess I’ve made of myself, and the world of that matter. But I think the point of the gospel is that we can’t do this alone. That even the righteousness of the most righteous is nothing in comparison to the righteousness of God. I think the beauty of the gospel is that that’s okay- that Jesus did it for us. He forgave us, He loved us, He gave everything for us, even as we couldn’t; that we could love him too.

There’s a promise at the end of the bible in the book of Revelations that say that “He’ll wipe every tear from our eyes.” There is a phrase in the book of Psalms that says “He knows every hair on our head.” Isaiah says that “He has done wonderful things, things planned long ago.” Ecclesiastes says “he makes all things beautiful in their time.” Surely if these things are true than when it comes to these unfathomable questions of slums and growing poverty, and hunger, and death and disease- surely if he knows us, if he loved us that much, if he saved us...surely if we love him to, and love each-other (and this is the greatest command), then we can see walls crumble down and mountains move by His hand.

I have seen beauty and love unfold in this world like a spring tree blossoming pale and vibrant petals in the middle of the winter frost. Like a lush stream flowing through a desert. Like a pearl buried in the middle of a dirty field. I believe this is the kingdom of heaven, and that this is a part of what Jesus saw when he called us to “Repent and be baptized, for the kingdom and heaven is near.” This is where my hope lies; Because there is nothing more beautiful, nothing more pure, than this.