The Man at Her Gate

I know. Third person is a poor mask for myself, but it was easier to write about "she" and "her" than to boldly claim this floundering woman's identity as my own. We get a lot of requests for financial aid. It takes a lot of wisdom to know whose story is true, who is truly in need, and how much you should help them financially. Unfortunately, we cannot help everyone, nor meet all the needs of the ones we do help. Our resources are limited, a surprising truth to many around us. While the following story was unfolding, others were coming to us as well. The frequency of the requests, the repeated calls, the feeling of being used as 'easy cash'. . .it wore away at me until you get the following episode, one with an unsatisfactory ending.

"Giving at the Gate" by Tyler

Her morning was interrupted by loud banging on the gate. The dog went wild, as it always did when a stranger arrived or, maddeningly, if the dog assumed one did. But this time through the crack between the tall metal gate and the cement post supporting it, she could see a briefcase. A stranger had arrived. 

She opened the gate and smiled broadly in welcome. Then her smile stiffened and swiftly froze into that plastic, molded kind of smile that means nothing. It was he. Months before he had shown up at the gate with his upper arm broken badly enough that a second elbow appeared to jut out painfully above the first. He had fresh vomit down the front of his shirt. Her husband had swilled the stranger down with water and compassionately heard the man’s story: “I’ve been in an accident and need money to get back to my family four hours away. I am not from the city and I need to get home.” The man slumped against the cement pillar of the gate and, even while speaking, drifted in and out of cognizance, his head listing heavily to one side, his chin on his chest. He looked terrible. Was he going to die at their gate? Very concerned, they gave him money to help him get home. They were truly glad for the opportunity to help one of the “least of these” that Jesus talked about.

But the “least of these” didn’t stay at his home four hours away. He returned to the city for medical help repeatedly and brought a procession of hospital forms with him to the gate, all of them requiring cash he didn’t have. 

He needed medicine for his eyes that were becoming 

glassy and fogged over, impairing his sight.

 Medicine for pain. 

Lorry fare to get back home. 

Medicines for other ailments.
More lorry fare.

By now compassion was wearing thin, at least for the wife. They were not with an organization set up to give aid like this. Their organization’s focus is church planting; their own job a supportive role in that. Any aid they gave came from personal funds. They tried to give wisely, giving something towards the amounts like their African friends do and never paying bills in full. Contributing towards on-going medical needs for a stranger who seemed to feel entitled to their help had worn away the genuine compassion she felt at the beginning. 

And, anyway, where was this man’s family? Weren’t there other people already in his life that could help him? What if –and she drew in her breath sharply- what if they were creating a dependency issue? African support systems within extended families are huge. African friendships carry obligatory demands like helping financially in times of need. Why, then, did he keep coming to the gate of strangers?

And now, there he was again, standing at her gate. And there she was, facing him with her smile as plastic as her compassion. He no longer slumped against the cement pillar as he did in the earlier days but stood erect. Physically he had improved. But mentally there still was something wrong, at least judging by his smile and stare and his occasional odd comment.

Oblivious to her feelings, the man at the gate handed her a new slip of paper, the by-now-familiar hospital logo stamped across the top. He needed medication for surgery. He needed money for the surgery itself. He was willing to show her the area that needed the operation if she liked, inappropriate though it was. She didn’t, appalled that he would ask.

This time her husband wasn’t home and, hoping that would deter him, she handed back the slip of paper and said, “Please, my husband has gone out.”

Undeterred, the man at the gate stood there expectantly, smiling and silent. Then he settled down to wait. She went back inside, a huge, ugly knot tying up her insides. It started to drizzle, but without her husband home, there was no way she could invite the man in out of the rain. She hated that he sat there in a drizzle. She hated that he came back over and over again. Hated that their white skin made people immediately think they were philanthropists with endless resources. And, worse, hated her lack of compassion.

It was that lack of compassion that startled her the most. Deep inside herself, all she truly wanted was for the man and his problems to go away. To go back to his hometown four hours away and stay there always where his family would surely take care of him.

But what if this was one of the least of these? What if this was Jesus who comes to us in the form of the poor, like the story in Matthew where the sheep on Jesus’ right were rewarded with eternity after helping the needy, unlike the goats on the left who had turned a blind eye? Poor lady. She was torn. Torn between feeling hard and uncaring like the left-hand goats, and, sheep-like, feeling like maybe she should maybe dig into her own grocery money and help the man out one more time. But just how much should she give? And where were this man’s relatives, anyway? He said he was a Christian. Where was his church?

And then, oh joy, she heard her husband return and the weight of decision fell from her shoulders and onto his. He was finding his way in all of this, too, trying to juggle cultural expectations, Bible verses on giving to the poor, and his own finances. 

They knew they hadn’t seen the last of this man, yet things couldn't go on like this indefinitely. And then God sent another man, a Ghanaian, into the picture. He was truly a Good Samaritan, going well beyond his call of duty to care physically for the man and to locate his relatives. Through him, the loose segments of the story started to be knit together with sinews of detail.

The man had been normal until that horrible accident altered his mind. 

His family (yes, those people she thought were being negligent)
hadn’t known he was still alive.

When they knew of his condition, they put him in a camp designed to help men like him. But he escaped and came back to the gate.
And on his way home he was in a second accident, requiring surgery.

Eventually he was safely taken back home and his absence at their gate meant he must have stayed there, voluntarily or otherwise.

As the details were pieced together over a period of a few weeks, she felt chastised for not helping out more willingly. Her husband had been a wise man all along, just as she had suspected. He must have been laying up piles of treasure in heaven all along. She had not, for she was pretty sure reluctant givers don’t accumulate heavenly wealth very quickly.

It felt like a thousand lessons and revelations were wrapped up in the story surrounding the man at the gate: 

There were lessons in trusting a wise husband’s decisions, and
in believing the best of people -like the man's family whom she thought
defaulted on their duty.
Lessons in reaching out for God's grace in trying moments.

There were revelations of being tighter-fisted and colder-hearted 

than she ever imagined herself to be.

There was the revelation that treasures in heaven aren’t laid up very easily sometimes. Sometimes giving is rewarding and fun, like to the disabled folks begging along the street.

But sometimes it plumb hurts.

Though she had been in the wrong, she now felt humbled and chastised by the Lord. But, she thought to herself, there would surely be opportunities of redemption.

There were.
Once again, giving began with pure compassion.

The man-at-the-gate’s Good Samaritan called. 

His wife died and he needed money to pay a nanny who cared for his week-old baby. 

Then he needed lorry fare. 

And a few days later he needed food for his older children.
And more lorry fare to get to a new job.
He told them, “You are the only people at all I have to help me.

I don't have family and friends who can help me." 

Wait. That couldn't be true. The family wouldn't starve without them. African support systems comprised of extended family and friends take care of their own.
He was coming to strangers for money multiple times a week, an sustainable situation.
And, hey, where were his relatives, anyway?
This felt familiar.
Too familiar.
But, and she inhaled deeply, this might be her chance
to line that heavenly mansion with treasure,
her chance to show her husband how much she trusted his wisdom,
 her chance of redemption.
In truth, she wasn't exactly excited about this, but neither was she frustrated.

The Good Samaritan called again. 

He had fallen three stories and had been in a coma for four hours. 

His leg was broken badly. His face was messed up. 

He needed surgery. 

No, surgery wouldn't do it, after all. 

He needed transportation to a 'traditional' healer in the north. 

They looked at each other, knowing they didn't, couldn't, and wouldn't support the witchcraft that happens at many traditional healers. Plus, they had no way of verifying his story. They told him no.

And the Good Samaritan swore lightly into the phone. 

Maybe his support network of friends and family stepped in and took care of their own.
It must have.
Because the phone stayed silent.