My visit to one of the 800 million who are hungry

To highlight Anti-poverty week and the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Fr Peter O’Neill shares his experience of visiting a poor family in Pakistan.

As we drove along the narrow dirt road in the middle of the parched fields in the heat of the Pakistan afternoon sun, I saw two young boys walking barefoot across the fields herding a few goats. I thought to myself, “Why aren’t they at school?”  Then I realized I was in Pakistan where the majority of children live in poverty with no opportunity for education.

We shortly arrived at our destination, 1 ½ hours from the Columban parish in Badin in the diocese of Hyderabad in southern Pakistan. I was accompanying Fr Dan O’Connor, a Columban missionary from New Zealand, the parish sister and catechist to visit a parishioner’s family for Mass. The simple mud-brick home with straw roofing was situated at the corner of the fields. We were welcomed with great joy and affection by the father of the house. A few moments later the two boys I saw in the fields arrived home with their goats.  The father proudly introduced me to his two sons.

Fr Dan came well prepared to bring some joy and excitement into the harsh lives of the two boys.  When he produced the cricket bat and tennis ball wound in white tape their faces beamed with wide open smiles.  We went out onto the dirt road and set up our make shift cricket pitch.  No money could pay the price for the happiness and laughter we shared together in play.  The two boys will never have the opportunity to play cricket for Pakistan but they can share the story of bowling out the white foreigners from Australia and New Zealand.

We gathered for Mass on the floor of the attached stable that was home for the goats at night time.  By this time it was already dark.  There was no electricity but Fr Dan came prepared with a couple of torches.  As we listened to Fr Dan’s homily the two boys coloured in a picture of the gospel story.  This was the only time they had to express their creativity through art and colour.  When they were finished they proudly showed us their masterpiece.  After Mass they hung their artwork up on the stable wall next to the other pictures they had drawn during previous Masses.

After Mass the father apologised for not being able to offer us a meal because his wife had gone away for 2 weeks with his four older children to harvest the crops of a nearby landowner.  Instead he offered us a cup of tea.  I went with the two boys to draw water from the family well.  To my surprise we used a hand pump to draw the water.  Later on Fr Dan informed me the pump was bought through the generous donations of Columban benefactors.

I was wisely advised by the parish sister to politely refuse the cup of tea which I did.  My stomach would not handle the level of lead that was in the water. However, Fr Dan having lived in Pakistan for 30 years was no stranger to lead tasting water.

When it was time to say goodbye I had a strong urge to want to stay.  I had truly encountered the real joy of the gospel in the sacred lives of the poor and the sacredness of the Eucharist celebrated not in an ornate church but on the mud floor of a stable, similar perhaps to the stable of Bethlehem. Poverty prevents the two boys and their father from formal education but not from being educators on important family values. That day I was the one educated on what keeps a family together – love, loyalty, respect, generosity, simplicity, hospitality and a welcoming of the stranger.

Read more on Anti-Poverty Week – October, 2017

Columban Fr Peter O’Neill is the Peace, Ecology and Justice Co-ordinator for the Australia/New Zealand Region.  He returned to Australia this year after working in Taiwan for 26 years with the poor and abused migrant workers.

Related links

• Read more from the current Columban eBulletin