If you’ve been to one of our Poverty Presentations, you’ll likely have seen these pictures. They’ve floated around online for a while too, and yet every time I see them I’m blown away. The following pictures show what people around the world spend and consume in one week.
Germany: The Melander Family of Bargteheide
Food Expenditure for One Week: $375.39
I’ve been thinking recently about some conversations I’ve had with people involved with LSM. Again and again, I hear passionate, heartfelt and emotional responses to seeing orphans live as child slaves or being exposed to the horrors women go through in Ethiopia. They understandably hit us on deep levels. They’re injustice at it’s worst.
It’s at times like these that God seems to hit us with the burden to do something. Sometimes people are called in big ways. Sometimes, it’s just that initial burden that gets us to do something.
It’s windy out today, and as I sit here looking out the window, I can see dust swirling on the street and trees waving. It’s a blustery spring morning, but I’m comfortable sitting inside at my desk. And as I sit here, it occurs to me once again that this very separation seems to permeate a lot of how my American culture views the world.
Do you feel the tug like I do? Do you want to make a difference, and not forget about the hurting, the orphan, the widow, the lonely? Does every day life still seep in too easily? Listen to this:
“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” – Mother Teresa
I think about the kind of loneliness that is worse that not having enough to eat, and I can’t help but think of some of the kids I’ve had the privilege of meeting over the last few years – kids that know what Mother Teresa’s talking about.
Poverty: the lack of food and shelter is one thing. But the lack of love? It pales in comparison.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
But words sometimes tell details we’d rather not know – about the reasons for the faraway look in his eyes, or the thing that caused those scars on that little girl’s arms, or the reason why this little boy was left to starve on the streets. Or why this little girl is forced to sell herself. Or why…
Today, we celebrate International Women’s Day.
As I think about the women we serve in Ethiopia, I can only be completely humbled. Too easily, we look at them from a middle-class American view and label these women as tainted, as if they chose their ‘profession’ because they wanted to be there.
Her story hit me forcefully as I gazed at her half smile as she posed for the picture. The room was barely big enough to hold the small bed where her tiny son laid amidst the bright colored fabrics. Here was the place she worked – the same place where she gave birth to her son, the same place where her pain and tears mingled every day. With tender hands, she wrapped her child in the cleanest fabric she had and gently lay him on the bed, as if wishing to shelter him from the pain she’s been forced to endure. She named her son Fickar. Love.
She was barely 18 years old when interviewed on a research trip to Addis Ababa, and was working in the Red Light District of Ethiopia. She came from the countryside looking for work to support her family. They had no idea what she’d been forced to do. Desperate poverty in a city where over 80% of the population is unemployed led this young girl to the depths of despair.
But in the year that she’d been working the streets, this young girl held onto something deeper. She held on to the tenderness in her heart, and chose to give her son a name of meaning – Love. Not bitterness. Not hatred. Not defeat. Love.
I think about this girl and her little boy Love, this Valentine’s Day. I think about the life she, a young woman, has been forced into, and it makes me wonder how love can still exists in the middle of a world so wrapped up in sin. I’m humbled at the courage of this young girl, who in the middle of her nightmare remembered that love hadn’t died.
This, I believe, is the greatest thing we can cling to on this day where we celebrate love – love that fosters hope. You see, God’s love is the kind that showers us in grace and courage in the moments where we think all has died. His grace and mercy cover us in the name of Love.
“God pursued, forgave, wooed them back, as a Lover. But of course, with God, that’s not the end of the story… Grace always triumphs over judgment.” –S. Claiborne and C.Haw
This is the third post in a series from the book “When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. With each of these posts, the goal is to look at poverty through different lenses and gain better understanding as walk forward, both as an organization and as individuals. To see the first and second posts, click on these links.
Participation is not just the means to an end but rather a legitimate end in its own right.
Why? It all goes back to the definition of poverty alleviation… The goal is to restore people to experiencing humanness in the way that God intended. The crucial thing is to help people understand their identity as image bearers, to love their neighbors as themselves, to be stewards over God’s creation, and to bring glory to God in all things.
It is impossible to accomplish such reconciliation of relationships in a blueprint approach in which the outsiders are the ones deciding what to do, how to do it, and how well it worked. Such an approach undermines the action – reflection cycle for poor people, denying them the opportunity to be what God created them to be: image bearers, who, through trial and error, unpack and unfold the wonders of God’s creation.
I am encouraged as I see Haitian couples raising up out of the local church to care for 12 children for a lifetime. I love hearing of the pastors who have taken detailed training and now advocate in their congregations for the end of the restavek (child slavery) system in Haiti. I see so much hope for families as men are given jobs at the Ranch project in Fondfrede. And I’m overjoyed to see the global body of Christ rising up together to change poverty around in many, many ways.
Take Action:
Check out Our Approach online, and see how we’re striving to enable people to lift themselves out of poverty.
Katie Davis, a young girl working in Uganda, described working amidst the poor to be like trying to drain the ocean with an eye-dropper. Looking at statistics of orphans, extreme poverty and human trafficking it can seem like these issues are insurmountable, like anything you’d do would be so minimal that it’d never be noticed.
Twenty years ago, a couple quietly began opening their home to vulnerable and neglected children through the foster care system. There was nothing glorious about their journey – in fact, it was hard. But they persisted, and in the wake of that process, their hearts were stirred for the orphan. Ten years later, this same couple felt their passions stirring to do more for the orphan. Again, it didn’t seem like a lot. A small organization was formed to assist families in the adoption process. But child by child, things began to change… to grow.
Today, LSM is touching countless people around the world. Over 136 children are currently in Home of Hope families in Haiti and Ethiopia. Over 100 women have been through our program in Ethiopia and are living dignified lives outside of prostitution – offering themselves and their children the chance to dream about a better future. Pastors have been trained and empowered to make a difference. American Christians have been mobilized to make a difference where they’re at. Over 4,000 families have been through our adoption process, empowered with the right tools and support to bring an orphaned child into their home.
Still an eye-dropper in an ocean? Maybe. But I know at least 136 precious children who have dramatically changed lives who’d say differently, and at least 100 women in Ethiopia who are confident that their lives will never be the same. This is the power of one. One, one-thousand, one hundred-thousand… precious lives that touch other lives.
By the grace of God, His people are banding together to start draining that impossible ocean.
Take Action:
Here’s an eye-dropper. Check out some steps HERE and join us.
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