On Saving the World

I kind of came to university to learn about how to save the world. My program is “International Development Studies” which, in my mind, translated into “the study of how to save the world”…After about the first month of study, I quickly sobered up, and was humbled by the fact that saving the world really had little to do with just ME.

As a result of my optimism (and pride), I signed up for a tonne of mailing lists for a bunch of large scale international NGOs, most of which I have yet to get off the mailing lists of, so my inbox is filled with outdated emails giving me facts about recent world events and economic statistics and how ‘my small gift of ____$’ or my electronic signature can change all of that.

Today I got a message from one that I happened to read entitled “We know how to end world hunger”. In it was a story of a woman somewhere in Africa (I wasn't told where) who had been living in a crappy little hut until she got a micro-credit loan which changed her whole life, and now she has livestock, a proper roof over her head and children that go to school. I was told that this story was "a testament to the fact that U.S. foreign aid can make a huge difference in people’s lives".

I thought: 'This is how we end hunger? By giving people micro credit loans and enabling them to get out of poverty by participating in small scale international capitalism? Isn’t the structural inequalities caused by international capitalism what made them hungry in the first place? So we are setting people free by asking them to participate in the forging of the chains that bind them...'

The fact that this kind of ‘change’ is fueled by “Churches and businesses from the US” and people like me ‘playing my part’ in the ‘fight against poverty’ kind of makes me shudder.

I’ve been thinking this week a lot about what it means to for things to really change. Can you change things without sacrifice? I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if I would rather just be comfortable, then see things change. If things changing meant sacrificing my own comfort, would I really ask for things to change?

I am a person of faith, I believe that Jesus really does and is saving the world, setting people free from poverty and the chains that bind them. Sometimes when I am praying for this world or for my city, that His justice and mercy will pour out through these streets, that His love will come down and He will set the captives free, I think, do I really want this? Do I really care if God sets people free? Does it effect me?

Sometimes I even think that it affects me in a negative way. If every poverty-stricken person in the world owned a micro-credit enterprise, it would defeat the functionings of the global market place that undermines the poor and allows us to get our stuff so cheap. I like getting my stuff so cheap! So it benefits me to keep people living in poverty across the world poor, and yet I pray for them to be lifted out of poverty, to be set free. Is this not a contradiction to the very core of my humanity? So when I pray for change, do I really mean change?

I want to. And truthfully it is very humbling, to think that if God does have his plans to save the world, that he is doing it, either through me or in spite of me, whether or not I pray for it, and this includes what he is doing to me. For are we not as much, if not even more, a captive to our wealth and our money, our pride and our vanity, as others are in chains because of their poverty?

Let me end this with a sweet quote..

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

--Ms. Lilla Watson,an Aboriginal Austrailian woman addressing a missionary serving in her country

Study abroad. It's amazing.

One of the things that I love most about Champlain is its character- it seems to constantly offer an opportunity for adventure. I remember as a first-year student swan diving into the river, playing epic games of Ultimate Frisbee in the quad and climbing apple trees to bake delicious apple pies.

Champlain also houses the TIP office (Trent International Program), and through them- and the International Development department- I was able to enter my most recent adventure: a year abroad studying in Ghana, West Africa!!

Trent-in-Ghana (TIG) is a unique program because it allows you to create your own experience- completely. After 3 months of living at a homestay in a major city and going to school, I was sent off to find my own placement, anywhere in the country, with any organization, and my own living conditions; in a foreign country, culture and environment. That's almost as intimidating as trying to navigate your way through the jungle of university life in first-year !

I ended up doing a joint placement studying youth migration. In Ghana, there's a big problem with youth moving form northern rural areas into the slums to work petty jobs as head-porters or scrap dealers. They call it "Kayayei". This work is pretty dangerous, especially in the slum I spent the most time at, 'Soddom and Gamorrah' because there is a problem with e-waste (electronic waste).

You can learn more about that here: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/video/video_index.html

So I was living in town and going down into the slums every day, I was also hanging out with some nuns in the missionary of charity house (Mother Teresa's) close by. It was a pretty cool experience getting to just be around, get to know and do life with people living in poverty. I didn't have an agenda, I was interning at 3 different organizations at the time, so I just lived there and learned a ton. It was pretty humbling.

I then went up north and spent some time at a youth center for street kids in Tamale (a northern city in Ghana). I was living in a single concrete room with no bathroom or kitchen, nothing but a bed and a little block shower- and loved it. I've done some work at youth centers in Canada and I found both the differences, and similarities, striking. At this center, the kids were so eager to learn! I'm used to young people hating school, hating life, hating their families, hating themselves.. but at this place, the kids would come straight after school and stay til the sun set- learning. I never seen this attitude in high school. This was so encouraging to me.

But this is the thing that I've seen to be the same between the two, and I think that it's cool when we can make these cross-cultural observations: Poverty is challenging. The poverty we have in the west is very different than in the south- I often found myself wondering which one was more desperate. While one eats up the body the other eats the heart and soul (Or both.. depending) But I have seen that when a person lifted up, built up, offered up a spark of hope, the joy that comes out of that is life-time lasting. I've seen kids from both countries come from the most dire circumstances and live with the greatest joy. Its pretty cool.

Sometimes when I study IDS it gets depressing. The development industry seems to be tied up in the global corporate monster and it seems like there is no hope, no genuine good anymore. But when I've looked into the eyes of these kids- the ones that come from desperate poverty eager to learn and the ones that come from a place of hate to a place of joy- I see God, and I am reminded that there is hope.

So Study Abroad! Its challenging on almost every level- but pretty amazing too :)