Lord, teach me...

Lately I've been asking the Lord why?  Why do millions of dollars get poured into poor countries with so little change?  Why do strongholds remain?  Why do countries continue in destitute poverty?

There are many answers.  Natural disaster.  Greed and corruption.  One main one is worldview.  How we think about God, live, ourselves, others, the land, etc... has extreme consequences.

But I'm not looking for the quick answers.  I'm looking for God's answers.  And so I wait.

A Jolt about the Poor

"Here in the US, we even have climate-controlled storage units for our stuff, with cement floors, cinder-block walls and solid roofs.  Our stuff has better living conditions than moms, dads and kids in other parts of the world have."




"Stuff--An American Phenomenon" p 17 Mark Hanlon Compassion; Fall 2012 Vol 6 No 3

Gleanings

The last month in the midst of packing up a house and putting it into a suitcase, I've managed to rapidly ready and continue to study some books on poverty and the poor.  Here are some gleanings:

• We as Christian often are wonderful in the "relief" stage of giving.  We hand out money to those in need eagerly and joyfully.  Our challenge is that we tend to stay in the "relief" stage and not move to the development stage.  The relief stage should be very short and mainly for disasters while development is much longer.  In the development stage we help people get back on their feet and see them to the point where they have ownership of being independent.  If we stay in the relief stage too long and don't do the hard work of development, we've stripped the poor of their dignity, opened the door for a poverty mentality and created a system of "relief" with no end in sight.  Some of our most well-intentioned giving is often the most destructive.
• Assett Based Community Development.  This is about surveying the community and discovering the corporate strengths that empower them to escape their poverty.
• In Scripture the fields were not to be thoroughly picked so that the poor could gather the gleanings.  How this translates today is that the poor need opportunities to work and the ability to do so. 
• We often impose our ideas on what the poor need when in actuality they have all the resources they need, they just need a little help to get a hand-up.
• The best way we can help the poor is to live among them to truly understand the issues.
• Putting all the poor together (low-income housing developments) is about the worst thing you can do.  Poverty mentality is infectious and we need to diversity of income neighbors to challenge us.
• Westerners tend to define "poor" and "poverty" in regards to money.  In a massive survey that was conducted by (I think it was the World Bank), the monetarily poor described their poverty in terms of shame and loss of dignity to be able to work to provide for their families.
• Many of the poor have an inability to save so when disaster strikes it is devastating.  Nor can they save up to advance themselves.  The reason they struggle to save is that in many 3rd world nations a borrow has to pay to put money in a savings account, people steal savings that are hid in their house, and there's a strong social obligation that if there's a need among the relatives, those who have any extra money must and are expected to surrender it to meet those needs. 
• There is a way of helping people save by mutual investment in each other called Savings and Credit Associations.  They are not easy to explain right here, but they've been very helpful and exist all over the world.  See ministries called Hope International and the Childers Institue.
• The poor have something we don't that we need.

So these are some of the things that I've received from reading multiples books from those who minister to the poor.  It's made me re-evaluate many things.  Are the food for the homeless drives more helpful or hurtful?  Do our clothes closets and Food Pantries at our churches empower people to get back on their feet or are they just enabling folks to get stuck in the relief stage?

I have a fear that the very act of rethinking of these things may cause me to think twice before I am generous.  I don't want to be that way.  Nor do I want to empower people to be victims.  I've worked in that system for the last year and it destroys people.  I'll be honest when I say I don't know where I want to go from here.   I want to freely give as God has given me, and I want to help people to lift themselves out of their situation.  I just don't know the next step.

We tend to judge the poor as lazy.  But look at it this way.  We have a teenager girl who gets pregnant and the family kicks her out of the house.  She has the baby and can only find a McDonald's job that doesn't pay the cost of raising her kid.  If she goes on unemployment and welfare, she can make it.  If she works to get a higher paying job, her welfare and unemployment are cut and she can't make it anymore.  Without an education she can't get much past minimum wage.  She isn't making it.  So she has her boyfriends move in with her.  They treat her terrible and she doesn't like it, but how can she live without them when they contribute to some of the cost and help of raising a kid?  She moves to low-income housing where everyone else is in the same boat.  Her kid starts growing up thinking this is normal.  Along with the crime that is rampant among the low-income housing sector.  It's a nasty cycle.  Who helps her up?  She can't afford childcare to give her time to study to give her a chance at a good-paying job.  In the meantime being around people like her create an environment of low self-worth.  She's doesn't believe she can be any better than where she is, or is even worth much for who she is.  It's a nasty process.  But intervene we must. 

Ministry Highlight

http://www.garagesale4orphans.org/

Here are some thoughts from Erin Krabel of Chrisman, IL, who recently hosted a Garage Sale 4 Orphans. Enjoy.

“I recently finished reading some books that have really changed my life, namely Radical by David Platt, Crazy Love by Francis Chan, Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis and finally 7 by Jen Hatmaker. Through these authors, God has been challenging me to examine my life and my priorities. It has been a difficult process, and I found myself wondering what to do.

It’s an overwhelming question, really. What do I do? What can I do?

Compared to the staggering need in the world..I can’t do much.

Compared to what I’m doing now…a whole lot more.

So I continued puttering through my life with all this conviction and confusion swirling around in my head, and found myself reading Jen Hatmaker’s blog. (Warning–stay far, far away from this woman and her writings if you want to continue enjoying life as is. Jen will mess you up for Jesus). It was there that I learned about Garage Sale 4 Orphans. And that’s when I knew what I was going to do first!

Every time I read about these girls aging out of their orphanages at 12 or 13, I get teary. I cannot wrap my mind around that kind of hopelessness, loneliness and destitution. For all of my life, I have had family surrounding me. I have always known that no matter what happened there were not one or two, but dozens of people who loved me fiercely, and would be willing and able to care for me if I needed them to. In fact, I have never really given the matter much thought. I’ve been able to take for granted all my life that I would always have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on my plate. To consider life otherwise is unfathomable to me. But it is reality for so many around the world.

The purging began. I was looking at everything we owned with new eyes. ”Do we need this?” ”Do we need this more than those girls in Haiti need a house?” Lots and lots of stuff was set aside to sell. Friends and church family donated generously. Pretty soon, the space of our business began to look like a thrift store.

We held our sales in two different towns on two consecutive Saturdays. By our second Saturday, we had received so many donations that pricing each item was impossible. With the exception of a few bigger ticket items, we just asked shoppers to make a donation. People were incredibly generous, and by the end of the day, our grand total was over $2900!!!

That would have been a remarkable ending to this story alone. But God wasn’t done working through this event yet. Just this weekend, I was given an amazing gift to match what we raised during the yard sale and complete an entire safehouse project!

I never would have believed that a yard sale could be one of the most faith-building experiences of my life, but it has been. I am humbled at how God takes our feeble efforts and does mighty things with them.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~ Ephesians 3:20-21

Two Coats--Luke 3

"If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor."

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Taxes.  They can seem oppressive but they were much moreso in the first century.  Tax collectors made "extra money" exploiting it out of those who couldn't stand up for themselves.  There was a built in portion that went to the tax collectors, but then the tax collectors would find a way to suck out that "extra."  They were even less popular then than they are now.  In fact, these regular scoundrels were hated by the masses.  Their actions were evil and wrong.

Police soldiers.  They too would often play the part of the evil one.  Falsely accuse someone, exploit them and they would have a few extra bucks in their purse.  Why not?  They deserved it?  Right?  And what's wrong with a little extra?  At least that was their justification.  They took advantage of the system.  One thing God says in the Bible that he "hates" is false witnesses.  Hates. 

John the Baptist reflects this sentiment.  "You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with repentance."

"What should we do then?" the tax collectors asked first.

"Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.

The police soldiers ask the same, "And what should we do?"

"Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely--be content with your pay."

John the Baptist:  "The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

And if we're in the crowd we're probably saying, "go get 'em Jesus" because we too would be suffering from this tyranny.  We like guys like Jesus who fight for our protection and deliverance.

But I left one out of this trifecta of blood-boiling evil.  And that is the question of the crowd.

"What should we do then?"  the crowd asked.

"John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."

Oh no.  Somehow I find myself in the crowd and it is uncomfortable.  I not only have two tunics, I have many.  I not only have one pair of shoes but I have a rack (Ok, two of them) to hold them all.   I not only have food for today, but food for the next week.   Somehow greed gets redefined when that demon is found in my closet.  It's just a little less evil.  I mean really, we can't practically live without several pairs of shoes for different aspects of life in this modern world can we?  And we can't really live without our summer clothes, winter clothes, work clothes, play clothes, dress clothes, etc...?  And honestly, isn't this country and the West in general one of the most generous nations in the world? 

"Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.  At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need.  Then there will be equality, as it is written:  He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little" (2 Cor 8:13-15).

It's not the issue of condemnation, it is the issue of inequality.  And we all know the statistics.  Those of us in the West, especially America consume about 95% of the world's resources.  And somehow it doesn't seem as sinful as the tax-collector's greed or the soldier/policeman's greed or worthy of such a strong rebuke from John the Baptist calling us "brood of vipers."  I wonder if the tax collector's and the soldier policeman had the same excuses.

We don't need to live in shacks, but somehow 95 % or even close to that percentage doesn't spell-out equality and until it does, fruit-filled repentance will be the only way we can avoid the starvation of the soul. 

An Answer...and a Few More Questions--Lev 25

On the post "The Rest for the Poor,"  I wrote this:

"I wonder how this worked.  Did they save up double in the 6th year like they did with the manna that fell from heaven?  How would provision come for year #7?  Did they find other work?  If so what did they do?  I don't really know and neither does Google.  Now that's a real crisis."

Crisis resolved.  Lev 25:20:

""You may ask, "What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?""  I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years.  While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in."

Still raises a few questions.

1)  What did they do for that year.  Did they have other businesses such as buying and selling thigns, or did they just rest?

2)  How do we apply this today?  It seems the famous rock star Bono has some thoughts.  I have put in a request for his speech/book at the library. 

Them and Us

A post from a friend at http://missionsunplugged.blogspot.com
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We use some pretty powerful words when we describe places or projects that we’ve been involved with, when we want to communicate a need. We’re not exaggerating- we’re telling it like it is. I’ve sat down at my laptop before and painted the most graphic picture I could of a family’s poverty.

I was in Brazil, in city called Bauru in the state of Sao Paulo. We went into a favela, also called a community, and visited families there and prayed with them. I was translating for a team made up of Americans, Koreans and Germans. Most of the houses looked poor, to my Western eyes… in Brazil they use orange bricks that look like tiles and in poorer areas they leave them bare on the outside, making the streets look run down. Homes are often nicer inside than out. But that day one house in the favela stood out. It was made of wood, but so badly- just random planks of different sizes, broken down and dirty, stacked together, with an uneven corrugated iron roof. It looked like it would fall down if you rested against it. When we went inside, I could see huge gaps in the walls, although it was dim under the bare light bulb, and six children and their mother slept in three beds. The floor was dirt, and the smell was awful. Apparently when it rained, water came through the roof and ran through the holes in the walls. The worst thing was that there was no bathroom. They said they went to their neighbour’s house, but later on our friends from the church explained that they had to go outside and use plastic bags most of the time. The oldest child was a girl about twelve or thirteen; I couldn’t imagine a teenager coping in a house like that.

When I posted photos and a description of this house on my blog, I had in mind my friends back home, my church, my whole culture really. How do you convey a reality like that to people who can afford to build extensions and holiday abroad and spend hundreds on electronics? Do you engage their compassion? Do you make them feel guilty? What do you do about the distance- the distance that means the difference between a person thinking ‘I have to do something about this’ and ‘This is far enough away from me to be someone else’s problem’?

I did have a practical reason for sharing this family’s home on my blog, a justification for holding up their poverty and lack and dirt and smell for all to see. The local church decided to try to build this mother and her children a new house. They had the labour but they needed money. I was able to pass on donations to them and a few weeks later the family were living in a bright, stable, clean home with furniture, bunk beds and a bathroom. I never doubted that it was worthwhile.

But I read articles and posts about the language we use when we describe our missions work. The way we talk about ‘them’ and ‘us’. How we take pictures of their need, often without even asking permission, and they end up on newsletters, blogs, church presentations.  Up goes a post of us standing next to a grim faced woman wearing rags, with a blow by blow account of her dire situation.

I struggle with this. I wonder how I can remind people here in prosperous England that yes, we are in an economic downturn but we are still some of the richest people in the world. I question whether the pictures of a broken down shack motivate people to give or just make them feel depressed or guilty. I think about compassion fatigue and I understand it, because I get so many appeals and I see all those Water Aid shots of children with flies on their mouths too.  I think about young babies who would be given the best of everything if they were born here in my country, but instead starve to death, and a feeling of frustration and anger at injustice wells up in me.

Jesus talked so much about the poor, and about giving. How can I talk about the needs of the poor without demeaning them, and still convey the urgency of their situations? How can I plead with the people of my country to give, and to care, and to pray, and to go, for God’s sake, without seeming to judge them or guilt trip them? How can I explain poverty that does not exist in my own country to people who have only seen it on a screen? How do I talk about all of this without perpetuating the idea that they are victims and we are their saviours?

Pornography of the Poor

I've been kind of down the last week or so and I'm not sure that it isn't from reading some of these books (although it could be stress as I'm getting ready for another big life change).  But I think part of it is the books.  Poverty is always presented in the saddest of stories and the most terrible of pictures in order to move us to action.  People starving, families working 20 hours a day for $1 and still can't provide for their family, children living on garbage dumps, etc... It has been called the "pornography of the poor."  Something about horror both attracts and repels us.

One thing that I see though in real life is that some of those who are the most "poor" in the world are actually those who most understand joy.  They don't have much, but they have each other.  If you want to find generosity, go to those who have no money.  They will be the first to feed you their finest at the expense of feeding their children because they know it takes relationship to survive.  Relationship.  It is the basis of joy.  It's the understanding of everything that is important.  It's the strength of their joy.   It's we who don't get it.  Mother Teresa said of us that we are the poorest of the poor.   Loneliness is rampant.  Families so broken that they're hard to define.  Technology replacing relationship.   I wonder if we took a picture of our spirits who would appear poor and who would be rich?  

What if it were me?

What if I were the one who was a single mother with a couple of kids in an almost cardboard house?  What if I were the one who worked long hours but still couldn't make a quality life for my kids?  If someone were to raise money to build a house for me, how would I want to be represented?  Would I want people to take pictures of my mess and my despair and my ineptitude?  Or would I want them to see the reality so that they know my need is legitimate?  Could I even receive help?  Would my pride be hurt?  Would I be ashamed that I couldn't make it on my own very well?  What if it were me?  How would I want people to portray me and my house and my household to the world?

Love Journey

 "There isn't any formula or method.  You learn to love by loving." 
              Aldous Huxley

"Every few hundred years it seems that Christianity faces an identity crisis.  The fiery revolutions of God become institutionalized and stale, infected by power and triumphalism, suffocated by materialism, and begin to die.  The another remnant of Christ-followers goes to the deserts, to the slums, to the forsaken corners of our world to practice resurrections."
             Shane Clairborne

"I am convinced that the tragedy in the church is not that rich folks don't care about poor folks, but that rich folks don't know poor folks." 
              Shane Clairborne

"It is very fashionable to talk about the poor...unfortunately it is not as fashionable to talk to the poor."
             Mother Teresa

Disney Dad

I have a whole stack of books as well as the Bible that I've been reading through to discover appropriate love for the poor.  One of those books is Helping Without Hurting.  This has been making me think on things from several different perspectives.  One thing I've gleaned is that so often the Westerner comes in to save the day...and creates a Disney Dad Syndrome.

What's Disney Dad Syndrome?  It's where two parents have divorced and the kid (let's say an 8 year-old boy) lives with his mom.  Two weekends a month he stays with dad as part of the divorce decree.  Dad, wanting to be loving, tries to make every weekend meaningful.  He takes his son fishing and camping, to baseball games and Disneyland.  Every weekend that he is with dad is full of adventure, excitement and something special.  Then the son returns back to his mom where most of the time she is working long hours to raise a kid as a single mom.  Weekends are "normal."  On rare occasion they go and do special things but not often.  Mom is also the one who has him the most which means she is the main disciplinarian.  Soon, after a little bit of time, dad becomes the hero and mom becomes the boring, strict parent.  Her authority is undermined.  Dad didn't have bad intentions.  But the constant extra special fun weekends and the same ol' familiarity of mom make mom seem like the bad parent.  Resentment begins to build.  And there you have what is often called Disney Dad syndrome.

As Westerners with our big bucks lining our pocket when we come to do missions we often undermine the authority of the local leadership.  Have a need?  No problem, we'll fix it.  You say that surgery costs $8 and you don't have the money?   Here's a $10, keep the change.  Our intentions are good as we want to be generous but unwittingly we become like "Disney Dad" and unwittingly make the local leadership  look impotent.  Our problem is not that we are being generous, but that we aren't involving the local leadership and seeking their wisdom in being problem-solvers.

This is a tricky issue.  We don't want to stifle generosity because we're over-thinking it.  Generosity needs to be reflex.  But we also want to do so in a way that builds up and reinforces the local leadership, not be the swooping in hero who makes them look like less. 

What God Has to Say

If you read my last post you probably read that I'm in a season where God is beginning to stir my soul for the poor.  I dearly hope it is not just a "season" or a "fad" in my spirit as I have so many of those.  Too many.  But I've begun to read books and study about those who have worked with the poor.  Right now I'm reading "The Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearns, CEO of World Vision.  I've googled and come up with a dozen others that I'd like to read.  My list is long and my days that will be available to access these books with inter-library loan are short (more on that later).  But then I was convicted.  Why am I so eager to study the books from those who work with the poor first and foremost over what the Lord says about working with the poor?  Did I learn so little from my 40 day experiment of no books but the Bible?  (See the Be the Pleasure blog).   I am so quick to run to books and stories and such.  Not a bad thing but not exactly where I want to run to first.  So I've decided to begin a study in looking through the Scriptures at every place the Bible mentions the poor.  We all know that God is more than a little protective of the poor, but what are ways he established for ministering to them?  Our current cultural methods of dumping money into their hands have not been effective.  Perhaps God has a better way?  So join with me in this process.  And if you have any insight on particular Scriptures I'm studying, please join me by adding your comments.