Unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power

On Monday, January 31st our family waited in line for about an hour and a half to pick up our "cedulas", or resident visa ID cards, from immigration. In some ways, this was a momentous occasion for our family and a significant milestone in our journey as missionaries--the culmination of more than two years work gathering documents, having them translated into Spanish, chasing down stamps from various government offices across San Jose, all at the cost of several thousand dollars (thank you to all who gave!).

We could've hired a lawyer to shepherd us through the process, but I guess we were itching for a fight and thought we'd be good stewards and save two or three thousand dollars by going it alone.

As we left immigration that day, I didn't feel as exuberant as I'd hoped. Something was bothering me. You see, we turned in all of our documents back in April of 2010 and were told that we could expect our visas within a month. We had completed all of the requirements to gain residency, but during the next seven months we were lied to, ignored and mistreated.

Twice I had to take the chairman of the board of directors for Christ for the City in San Jose with me to immigration to get past an imaginary hurdle. Eventually, a Costa Rican friend of ours intervened and talked to a friend of his at immigration. Within a week, we received formal notification of the approval of our request for residency. Three more mysterious, maddening months would go by before we received our visas.

Reviewing all that had happened in my mind, I realized that what was bothering me and had taken the joy out of us finally receiving the cedulas was the fact that I felt totally devalued by the entire process. I was treated as less than human because I am a foreigner, and they had the power and I did not (the title of this post is Webster's definition of oppression). For someone growing up in one of the richest counties in North America, this was not easy to swallow.

But gratefully, I realized what a gift it was. That fleeting bitter taste of injustice in my mouth didn't taste so bad when I compared it to the cruel exercise of power that the young people in La Carpio live under daily. I realized that it was a gift--that temporal taste of oppression, was a glimpse into what it must be like for people in poverty.

I believe the root cause of poverty is spiritual. The non-poor oppress the poor for monetary gain, taking advantage of their lack of power or resources to subjugate them, which is sinful and unjust. Likewise, the poor often manipulate, lie and cheat their peers in order to try and survive. There is very little romantic or holy about poverty in a slum like La Carpio.

An eight-year-old girl told Andrea and I this weekend how her mother locks her in a small room for hours so the mother can go out and drink. This young girl loves to go to school, to flee her mother. She wanted to spend the night with us, but without her mother's permission, we had to refuse her.

Through the prophet Amos, God told the people of Israel that they would be exiled for oppressing the righteous and depriving the poor of justice. He rejected their sacrifices and ceremonies, saying he preferred that "justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a swift-moving stream."

We know there's no hope for the people of La Carpio except the kingdom of God. Please pray with us that the kingdom of God, and justice and righteousness, would roll on like a river through this slum.

With hope in Him,
Seth