Some reflections on "When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without hurting the poor"

Here at Healing Waters we do a book study, bible study or prayer time on Friday mornings. It is a chance for the staff to touch base and focus and reflect on our work from a spiritual perspective.

We have just started the book When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor. . . and yourself.

This is a great book and should be required reading for anyone that is doing any sort of missions work, local or global. Most of the examples in the book focus more on global missions, but the content is relevant in either case.

I wanted to share a few quotes and reflections with you as we study this book.

"We write this book with a great deal of excitement about the renewed interest in helping low-income people that is so apparent among North American Christians. While materialism, self-centeredness, and complacency continue to plague all of us, nobody can deny the upswing in social concern among North American evangelicals in the past two decades. There is perhaps no better illustration of this trend than the exploding shor-term mission movement, much of which has focused on ministering to the poor at home and abroad.

But our excitement about these developments is seriously tempered by two convictions. First, North American Christians are simply not doing enough. We are the richest people ever to walk the face of the earth. Period. Yet, most of us live as though there is nothing terribly wrong in the world. We attend our kids' soccer games, pursue our careers, and take beach vacations while 40 percent of the world's inhabitants struggle just to eat every day. And in our own backyards, the homeless, those residing in ghettos, and a wave of immigrants live in a world outside the economic and social mainstream of North America. We do not necessarily need to feel guilty about our wealth. But we do need to get up every morning with a deep sense that something is terribly wrong with the world and yearn and strive to do something about it. There is simply not enough yearning and striving going on.

WOW! This is difficult to read and even more difficult to digest. I think my first reaction is to get defensive. I do a lot of social justice and poverty alleviation work, where do they get off talking to me like that? I pursue my career and take beach vacations, should I feel guilty? While the authors state that "we do not necessarily need to feel guilty about our wealth," it is really hard not to after reading this. But I think the key lines in this passage are right after that (which is why I italicized them in the original passage.)

We DO NEED to get up EVERY MORNING with a DEEP SENSE that something is TERRIBLY WRONG with the WORLD and YEARN AND STRIVE to do SOMETHING about it. There is simply NOT ENOUGH YEARNING AND STRIVING going on!

Ok, let's take some time to reflect and pray on that. And let's ramp up our striving and yearning. . .

Re-Post of NY Times Op-Ed Piece about International Relief work and Global Missions

This op-ed piece was just too good to not repost. I will be honest with you, I think it is going to make some people uncomfortable. It made me a little bit uncomfortable, but as Christians, I think we are called to live with a little discomfort. Enjoy!

Learning From the Sin of Sodom
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published in the New York Times: February 27, 2010

For most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”

Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.

A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?

It’s not Save the Children, and it’s not CARE — both terrific secular organizations. Rather, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization (with strong evangelical roots) whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.

World Vision now has 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.

A growing number of conservative Christians are explicitly and self-critically acknowledging that to be “pro-life” must mean more than opposing abortion. The head of World Vision in the United States, Richard Stearns, begins his fascinating book, “The Hole in Our Gospel,” with an account of a visit a decade ago to Uganda, where he met a 13-year-old AIDS orphan who was raising his younger brothers by himself.

“What sickened me most was this question: where was the Church?” he writes. “Where were the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time? Surely the Church should have been caring for these ‘orphans and widows in their distress.’ (James 1:27). Shouldn’t the pulpits across America have flamed with exhortations to rush to the front lines of compassion?

“How have we missed it so tragically, when even rock stars and Hollywood actors seem to understand?”

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

The American view of evangelicals is still shaped by preening television blowhards and hypocrites who seem obsessed with gays and fetuses. One study cited in the book found that even among churchgoers ages 16 to 29, the descriptions most associated with Christianity were “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “too involved in politics,” and “hypocritical.”

Some conservative Christians reinforced the worst view of themselves by inspiring Ugandan homophobes who backed a bill that would punish gays with life imprisonment or execution. Ditto for the Vatican, whose hostility to condoms contributes to the AIDS epidemic. But there’s more to the picture: I’ve also seen many Catholic nuns and priests heroically caring for AIDS patients — even quietly handing out condoms.

One of the most inspiring figures I’ve met while covering Congo’s brutal civil war is a determined Polish nun in the terrifying hinterland, feeding orphans, standing up to drunken soldiers and comforting survivors — all in a war zone. I came back and decided: I want to grow up and become a Polish nun.

Some Americans assume that religious groups offer aid to entice converts. That’s incorrect. Today, groups like World Vision ban the use of aid to lure anyone into a religious conversation.

Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. We mustn’t make Haitians the casualties in our cultural wars.

A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.

If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality.

Amazing, Inspiring, Profound and Thought-Provoking speech. . . excerpts below

A child in Guatemala. She lives in poverty

without safe drinking water or other very basic things

but represents hope for the future. All of us need to

believe in a better future, no matter where we are

or where we come from.

My mother-in-law sent me the speech below. I have taken excerpts out of the speech to share with you. If you want to see the whole thing click here http://www.paulhawken.com/paulhawken_frameset.html
Then click on "Multimedia" and you will see the speech as a PDF.

This speech was given by Paul Hawken at the University of Portland graduation this May, 2009. Paul's short bio is: Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

Here are some amazing excerpts from the speech:

Healing or Stealing?

The Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland

May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there. Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. . .

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way. . .

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity.

Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history. . .

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. . . We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Tears of sadness and joy

God Bless you Claro. You are an inspiration

and you will be missed.

Me, Brock, Kerrie, Claro and

Mario (Healing Waters Guatemala Director)

Brock, Kerrie and Claro



Graham Johnson, one of the members of the
Wellshire team that went to Guatemala

Standing with Claro in front of his new house

I wrote about an incredible missionary family that I had the privilege of spending time with in Guatemala when I was there with the group from Wellshire in March. You can read that post here: http://blogadegregorio.blogspot.com/2009/05/great-ministry-in-guatemala.html

I was checking in with that family today, reading their blog and sending them an e-mail when I stumbled on this blog post written by Brock, the husband and father of the missionary family in Guatemala:
Claro

Claro died today.I have only known Claro for a few months, but I loved him. God
connected us, which always builds a friendship bond at a faster pace than
otherwise.

We met after his nephew came to us and asked if we would come visit his home. He had heard our ministry built houses in the community, and said his uncle Claro was in great need.He was right. Claro’s house was more like an old tool shed. Made of cornstalk, there were gaps everywhere, allowing space for the cold, rain, and wind to make life miserable. The inside was barely big enough for a twin-size makeshift bed, and a fire. The floors were dirt. His only belongings were a few dirty pieces of clothing, a some filthy dishes caked in soot, and a machete. He cooked over an open fire about 2 feet from his bed, giving him a constant inhale of smoke and dirt. No
electricity, no water, no plumbing… his house was cold and dark.

But Claro was a joy.

He smiled and talked. And talked, and talked... He told us how cold and dusty his house is, and how it always makes him sick. At 65 years old or so, he is difficult to understand (even for the locals), because he blurs and joins his words in a unique mutter. But he said “thank you God and thanks to you” no less than 20 times every time we talked.

When we finished his home, roughly the equivalent of a concrete block 2-car garage, he stood inside and cried. “Never in all my life did I think I would have a home like this.” That statement froze me. I wondered what kind of home I could envision myself standing in that would warrant the very same comment from me.

The house only has two small rooms. Instead of basking in the glory of his new space, he immediately moved his son, daughter in law, and granddaughter into the adjacent room.

2 weeks ago, with some friends that were visiting, we delivered Claro a new bed. When we moved out his old one, made of stiff hay, he said “don’t throw that away, I can sell that and make a little money!” We all laughed. He sat on his bed. We could tell he was amazed at how soft it was.

A few days later, some other friends had decided to bless Claro with a new chicken coup they had built. We went to his house to surprise him. After yelling for him and getting no answer, my friends waited at the street and I went up to see if he was home.I peeked in the front door and saw Claro lying in his bed. He was on top of his blanket, which made me smile as I realized he wasn’t cold. I felt bad waking him up, so I stood there and just looked at him for while. He looked comfortable.I called out his name and he popped up…said he was just taking a quick nap. We gave him the
chicken coup. He was very grateful. He told us he could manage the baby chicks
without a problem, and he was excited about the new micro business
opportunity.

That was a week ago. Today, I ran into Claro’s son on the street. Sobbing, he gave me the news that Claro has passed away suddenly in his sleep. Unexpected. Just like that, Claro was gone.

I just got home from the viewing in Claro’s house. He was lying in an open coffin, in the exact place that he had served us his famous fried chicken just over a month
earlier at his home dedication. As I stood over his coffin, looking at his face,
I could hear his scratchy voice: “Gracias a Dios, Gracias Ustedes.”

I am so humbled, so honored, to have had the opportunity to show the love of Jesus to Claro in the last couple months of his time on earth. After a long, difficult life living in extreme poverty, Claro spent his last couple months in comfort. I wish it could have been longer, but I believe he went out with a sense of dignity, an appreciation for God’s blessing, and the ability to leave behind a safe, warm home to his son.

Peace Claro. See you again soon. I’ll be looking forward to feasting together at the
Lord’s table – and having another round of that fried chicken.

I cried as I read this post. I cried tears of joy that Claro could see the love of Christ through the act of building a simple house and that he lived his last few months in comfort. I cried tears of sadness because I had the privilege of meeting Claro when I was in Guatemala in March, and he had touched me and other members of my group in a deeply profound way. Despite his humble surroundings, his love for God was unwaivering. This man was truly an inspiration and his departure from this earth, while glorious because he is now dwelling in heaven, was sad because he will be missed by those who had the privilege of knowing him.

Claro reminded me a lot of my grandma, who died two summers ago, just shy of her 100th birthday. My grandma was in incredible inspiration, with a quiet but profound faith. I miss her too and reading this story of Claro brought back some of those feelings. I will post the eulogy I wrote for my grandma in my next posting along with some photos.

I am finally getting to the end of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson. Below is a bible study I led this morning on Chapter 13, a study on HUMILITY and Psalm 131. (You can read Psalm 131 by clicking on any of this sentence.)

Below is my bible study with quotes from the book:
“Christian faith needs continuous maintenance. . . Psalm 131 is a maintenance psalm. . . two things that Psalm 131 prunes away are unruly ambition and infantile dependency. . .” p. 149

“It is no easier to be a Chinese Christian than to be a Spanish Christian than to be a Russian Christian than to be a Brazilian Christian than to be an American Christian – nor more difficult. The way of faith deals with realities in whatever time and whatever culture.” P. 150

Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

“Our culture encourages and rewards ambition without qualification. We are surrounded by a way of life in which betterment is understood as expansion, as acquisition, as fame. Everyone wants to get more. To be on top, no matter what it is the top of, is admired. There is nothing recent about the temptation. It is the oldest sin in the book, the one that got Adam thrown out of the garden and Lucifer tossed out of heaven. What is fairly new about it is the general admiration and approval it receives.” P. 151

Is ambition a sin? What about ambition to see the success of a ministry? What makes it a sin if you think it is?

“The legend of Faustus, useful for so long in pointing out the folly of a god-defying pride, now is practically unrecognizable because the assumption of our whole society (our educational models, our economic expectations, even our popular religion) are Faustian. ¶ It is difficult to recognize pride as a sin when it is held up on every side as a virtue, urged as profitable and rewarded as an achievement.” P. 152

Does our culture value and glorify pride and ambition? If it is a sin, how do we get away from it if it is so embedded in our culture, down to our education system, economic system and popular religion?

Peterson defines aspiration as valuable, but ambition and arrogance as sins. (p. 152-153) How do you make a distinction between these two?

“There are some who conclude that since the great Christian temptation is to try to be everything, the perfect Christian solution is to be nothing. And so we have the problem of the doormat Christian and the dishrag saint. . .” p. 154

How do we strike this balance?

“Our Lord gave us the picture of the child as a model for Christian faith (Mk 10:14-16) not because of the child’s helplessness but because of the child’s willingness to be led, to be taught, to be blessed. God does not reduce us to a set a Pavlovian reflexes so that we mindlessly worship and pray and obey on signal; he establishes us with a dignity in which we are free to receive his word, his gifts, his grace. . . For God does not want us neurotically dependent on him but willingly trustful in him. And so he weans us. The period of infancy will not be sentimentally extended beyond what is necessary. The time of weaning is very often noisy and marked by misunderstandings: I no longer feel like I did when I was first a Christian. Does that mean I am no longer a Christian? Has God abandoned me? Have I done something terribly wrong?” P. 155-156

Is this weaning a one time occurrence or do we go through it again and again?

Because Eugene Peterson mentions having "faith like a child" so much in this chapter, it reminded me of the Jars of Clay Song:



Finally, I took some excerpts from the book and wrote the closing prayer below:
Prayer (p. 153-154): I accept God as my maker and creator; I will strive to grow day by day into an increasingly glorious creature in Christ, developing joy, experiencing love, maturing in peace. I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God’s business, I will not pretend to invent the meaning of the universe; I will accept what God has shown it meaning to be; I will not strut about demanding that I be treated as the center of my family or my neighborhood or my work, but seek to discover where I fit and do what I am good at.

Have a great weekend!