Tag: Living With (But Not In) Poverty Page 6 of 8

Toxic Charity

On January 12, 2014

A friend recently asked me to describe our house in Dar, and I was telling her that we have a three-bedroom house, but are surrounded by families who live in one room. Not one-bedroom houses, one room houses with no plumbing.

She said something like, “Wow, it must be a struggle to be surrounded by so much poverty.”

Oh yeah.

Then she said, “And you never really get used to it, do you?”

You have no idea.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that it’s on my mind all the time. All The Time.

Being back in the States hasn’t changed that. But it has been interesting to observe the “other side”–the side of the givers—the churches, the people, the children who empty their piggy banks, who donate clothes and food, who fill up shoeboxes and send them to children all over the world.

And I see their hearts and how they long to help. And I see how they deeply desire to impart a spirit of giving and compassion in their children. It’s wonderful and inspiring to see from this side.

But I struggle. I struggle, my friends. Because I see the hearts of the folks here, and then I see some of the results of their kindness there, and it’s just not producing the results that they would anticipate.

“In the last fifty years, [Africa] has received $1 trillion in benevolent aid…..Country by country, Africans are far worse off than they were a half century ago.”

I struggle because I don’t want to sound judgmental. These are lessons that I have learned, that I have been forced to learn. To learn the hard way. And these lessons have so completely changed my life, my perspective, that I desperately want more of the American Church to get it too.

Consider this, my friends:

“[A]s compassionate people, we have been evaluating our charity by the rewards we receive through service, rather than the benefits received by the served.”

Read it again. Please, my friends, go back and read it again.

I resisted this statement the first time I read it. My heart got defensive. When I want to help the poor, when I give money or stuff or time, it’s not about me; of course it’s not about me! And maybe it’s not entirely. But how often do we really sit down and contemplate or discuss or ask questions about how our programs or food or donations really are benefiting the poor? Or is it more about what lesson it is teaching our children about compassion? Or how satisfied it makes us feel?

This is what I am going to ask you today. The purpose of this post was actually to give you a book review of this book, because he says it much, much better than I ever could.

My favorite book on this subject is still When Helping Hurts, which I have reviewed previously. That book changed my perspective entirely, and I recommend it first. But Toxic Charity is shorter, a quicker read, and more practical, so if you want a place to start, this is a great one.

“Yes, many of our motives are noble. We want to invest in the lives of others. We want to expose youth and adults to the needs of a hurting world. We want to engage people in life-changing experiences. Some of us are motivated by the teachings of Jesus–to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and show compassion to the oppressed.

Often, though, we miss the big picture because we view aid through the narrow lens of the needs of our organization or church–focusing on what will benefit our team the most–and neglecting the best interests of those we would serve.”

Please, my friends. I plead with you to read this book, to consider these issues. If you are a church leader, it’s extremely important. But really, this book is for anyone who has ever engaged in charity work–whether it be serving at a homeless shelter, donating items to a food pantry, or filling a Christmas shoebox.

Once you’ve read it, let me know. I’ll love to discuss it with you. Because I’m still learning too.

(all of the above quotes are from Toxic Charity)

P.S. In the next couple of days, I am going to post some ideas I have about helping to develop a heart of compassion for the poor in our children. I know this is heavy on a lot of mama’s minds, so I’ll let you know some of the insights I have gleaned by living in two worlds.

Feeling What She Feels

By Amy Medina

On December 6, 2013

In Other

I was crowned yesterday, for the first time. In my mouth, that is.

It was a big deal for me, considering I’ve never had braces or even a cavity. My crown was needed because of a cracked tooth, so I can still say I’ve never had a cavity. Thank you, Good Genes.

As I was sitting there miserably in the dentist chair, as a Very Educated Person hacked away inside my mouth, I found myself thankful. Because ultimately, she was fixing my tooth.

I remember the first time that Esta came to me for money for a toothache. We paid for her medical expenses, so I was okay with giving her the $10 she asked for to go to the dentist.

I was horrified the next day when she showed me the hole in her mouth. He had knocked the tooth out! She wasn’t surprised. Apparently that’s what you do in Tanzania when you have a toothache. I don’t know if he used anesthetic; I don’t know that word in Swahili.

The following year, she asked me again for $10 for another tooth. This time, I told her to find out if she could pay more to have it fixed instead of knocked out. She came back and shook her head.

I felt helpless. The only dentists I knew who actually fixed teeth charged western prices. We have insurance for that, but we were Esta’s insurance, and we couldn’t afford that. So I gave her the $10 and she came back with one less tooth. Again.

Recently I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the first time. I was profoundly impacted. One of the major things that stuck out to me was that white people kept assuming that African-American people thought and felt differently than they did. They justified so much of their horrifying behavior this way.

[Two southern women were discussing the practice of selling off the children of slaves. One woman asked the other,] “Suppose, ma’am, your two children, there, should be taken from you, and sold?”

“We can’t reason from our feelings to those of this class of persons,” said the other lady.

I was struck by the fact that even though I can’t imagine ever doing such despicable things, I am guilty of thinking that people who are “of a different class” must somehow think or feel differently than me.

We pride ourselves on not being racially prejudiced. But are we prejudiced against the poor?

Half the world lives on two dollars a day. We hear that a lot, don’t we?

And we think, how is that possible? What does that even mean? We think:

It must be different for them. The standard of living must be cheaper. In the pictures, the children always look so happy. They’ve learned to be happy with less. And losing multiple small children to preventable diseases, or living without clean water, or losing all their possessions to a typhoon–well, they are used to a hard life. And they probably didn’t have many possessions to begin with. It’s probably not as hard for them as it would be for me.

We can’t reason from our feelings to those of this class of persons.

So let’s consider this. Here’s what I’ve observed.

Yeah, some things are cheaper. Sort of.

Housing is cheaper, if you’re okay with your whole family living in one room with no plumbing or electricity.

Transportation is cheaper, if you’re okay with cramming 20 people in a mini-van. And waiting an hour for it.

But food? Food in the third world costs the same as in America. (On average, with some exceptions.)

Imagine feeding your family, in America, on $100 a month.

Food in the third world costs the same as in America.

Impossible, you say. We would starve. After all, even welfare recipients in America get $400 a month in food stamps.

You wouldn’t starve on $100 a month, if your grocery list consisted of only:

dried beans

lentils

oil (the cheapest kind)

tomato paste

tea

white rice

flour

You would never eat out. Never have Starbucks. You would grow your own vegetables, and maybe have a chicken or two running around your yard eating bugs. If you ever buy meat, it would usually be organ meat such as heart or liver. Soda would be for special occasions.

That’s how they live on two dollars a day.

I’m not about guilt here. And I’m not about judging. I spend a lot more than $100 a month on food for my family, and we do eat out sometimes–even in Tanzania. I’m not about throwing more money at some “good cause” just to assuage our consciences, because as I’ve written before, often that makes things worse.

I’m about identifying with the very poor. Trying hard to feel their pain and their fear and their joy. I know I can’t; I know I probably never will–but I want to try. Because that’s the first step to really understanding how to help. After all, we’re talking about half the world’s population. And we are the aristocracy.

Last week I saw a magazine picture of a Filipino woman sitting beside her small, dead son after the typhoon. He was carefully wrapped in a blanket, and the photographer had captured the look of absolute despair on the mother’s face.

I wept. And I allowed the grief to wash over me.

She is not different. Her grief is not different. We can reason from our feelings to those of this class of persons.

Like what it would feel like to have another tooth knocked out every time I had a toothache.

To whom much has been given, much will be required.

“And they tell us that the Bible is on their side; certainly all the power is. They are rich, and healthy, and happy; they are members of churches, expecting to go to heaven; and they get along so easy in the world, and have it all their own way; and poor, honest, faithful Christians–Christians as good or better than they–are lying in the very dust under their feet.”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Compelled by Love

By Amy Medina

On July 9, 2013

In Other

The hardest years were 2006 and 2011. Those were the years that Tanzania had massive power shortages, resulting in power cuts that went as high as 40 or even 60 hours per week.

It’s always hot there, but during power cuts, it’s stifling. I felt like I was sitting in a dark, stuffy cave. Or covered with a wet blanket in 90 degree weather. I could not sleep. I didn’t want to cook. I didn’t want to work. I didn’t want to play with my kids. I wanted to sit in the bathtub and feel sorry for myself. For days.

But the strongest emotion I felt was not frustration, or annoyance, or depression, even though I did feel all those things. Mostly I felt guilty.

Guilty because I was feeling frustrated, annoyed, and depressed. I would tell myself repeatedly, Billions of people all over the world, including many who live down the street from me, never have electricity. What’s wrong with you? Why is this such a big deal?

I felt weak. I felt whiny. I felt obsessed with my own comfort. And that made me feel even more guilty.

Many people we knew had purchased back-up power systems. We did not. After all, we were missionaries to Africa. We were tough. We should be able to put up with no electricity. And how could we live with the guilt if we owned a generator?

But after enough time, God worked on us. We came to realize that guilt as a motivator accomplishes nothing.

After multiple Friday night youth groups with no power, we realized that youth group is not very effective with 30 teenagers in a dark, stuffy house. We realized that our productivity went way down when we had no power–when we couldn’t use our computers, or get a good night’s sleep, or host people for dinner.

So we bought a generator. And a year after that, we bought a battery inverter system as well.

Yep, they were expensive. Your average Tanzanian would never be able to afford them. But I had gotten over the guilt and realized that it came down to our motive. We needed reliable electricity to do our ministry well, to do what people had sent us there to do.

My intention in my previous post was not to inspire guilt in middle class Americans. Being wealthy and privileged is not a sin. Only the love of money is a root to evil, not money itself. And if hearing about the plight of the rest of the world makes you feel guilty, then all that is accomplished will be throwing money at it every once in a while, to assuage your guilt.

I wrote that post because living in a third-world country for 16 years of my life has made me thankful. Deeply, achingly thankful for what I have been undeservedly granted. And it has given me a strong sense of responsibility to use what I have been given (not just finances, but my health, education, resources) to God’s glory. Not because I feel guilty for having those things, but because I feel like I have been entrusted with a sacred treasure that I must use wisely and carefully.

It’s kind of like salvation. If we feel guilty and indebted to God for what He has done for us through Jesus, all that we will be motivated to do is legalistic duty to get rid of the guilt. But if we are motivated by thankfulness for the tremendous gift He has given us, then it will be love that compels us.

You don’t know how good you’ve got it, Middle Class America.

By Amy Medina

On July 6, 2013

In Other

Reflections from a Week in Culture Shock

Yeah, you have some crime. But you don’t need bars on your windows, a wall around your house, and a private security company to keep you safe. You can walk down the street with a purse on your arm and not worry about it being grabbed by someone in a moving car. You can leave chairs on the sidewalk on the 4th of July, and no one takes them.

You can worship who you want, when you want, and where you want. You can even convert to a different religion if you want to, and practically no one will care. You certainly won’t be arrested for it.

Your stores are stuffed with food, and never run out. If they happen to run out of the exact flavor of cream cheese that you want, there are big apologies, and you just go to a different store. You even are given the luxury of worrying about whether or not something is “organic” or “genetically modified.” And if you are down on your luck, there are thousands of churches or food banks or welfare offices ready and waiting to pass out food for free.

When a woman goes into labor, sometimes you worry about the baby, but you hardly ever worry about the mom. A baby that dies in childbirth is an epic tragedy (as it should be), so much so that even strangers on Facebook send you their condolences. Losing a child (or two, or three) is not normal life for you. You don’t think about how you’re just happy to have survived childbirth yourself.

You have clean drinking water that comes out of every tap in your house. You don’t have to walk five miles to find water that’s full of cholera. In fact, you are even given the luxury of not liking the taste of that water, so you spend your money on water in bottles.

Your thrift stores are given so many of your cast-off clothes that they are only able to sell a small portion. Your family lives in an entire house, not just one room in a house. And even then, you have to rent a storage unit because you can’t fit all of your stuff into it.

Your children’s childhoods are valued. You have parks everywhere with colorful slides and Children’s Museums and kids’ menus at restaurants and swimming pools in your backyard. They are not expected, or needed, to haul water or dig farms when they are six years old.

It is assumed your children will be part of the 7% of the world with a college degree. They have one teacher to 30 children, instead of one teacher to 100 children. They have books and markers and colorful room decorations. Each child has his own desk with his name on it, instead of three children crammed onto one desk. This education is free, and if you are not satisfied with it, you are given the freedom to educate them yourself, at home–and you won’t be arrested for it.

If your child is born with a cleft pallet, there is no question of whether it will be fixed. You don’t worry about polio or malaria or cholera. You have a fair amount of confidence that your child will live until adulthood. If your child is bit by a snake or breaks a leg, you call a number and an emergency vehicle will be at your door in five minutes. You don’t have to worry about how you will get your child (without a car) to a hospital (which may or may not have medicine that day) 50 miles away.

If you are pulled over by police, you are not expected to bribe them. Most of the time, you believe that the police are actually there to serve you and protect you, not rob you or rape you. If your house catches on fire, you are not forced to stand and watch it burn; you simply call a number and a fire truck will be there in five minutes.

For the most part, you know your taxes are not lining the pockets of your politicians. You get roads and schools and libraries. It is not an assumption that your elections are rigged, and the losing party will not start a riot that kills hundreds of people. Your government has checks and balances, and you are not ruled by a ruthless dictator who feeds people to his crocodiles for fun.

Middle Class America, I know your lives aren’t perfect.

But to whom much has been given, much will be expected.

SEWing Love

By Amy Medina

On March 23, 2013

In Other

Most people outside of Africa think that most people inside of Africa live in mud huts.

Well, in the cities, they don’t. We don’t.

But the majority of Tanzanians do.

Sometimes modern thinking wants to idealize village life, and that it’s only western influence that has damaged the noble savage.

There is some truth in that. There is a lot of beauty to be found in the simplicity of village life. And western countries certainly have screwed up Africa.

But it’s not entirely true. Tanzanians themselves have deforested their land for charcoal, destroying the ecosystem and reducing the rainfall. Lack of education has contributed to devastating poverty, chronic malnutrition, and stagnant economic growth. And sin, in the midst of it all, is also responsible for rampant promiscuity and all the heartache and disease that comes with it.

HOPAC has an outstanding service learning program. It’s one of the brightest, best parts of a HOPAC education. All secondary students take classes, year-round, on these very issues. Then they engage in projects to make a difference: teaching English at local schools, making water filters, reducing erosion….during every school week.

This is culminated in Service Emphasis Week (SEW) each March, when every HOPAC secondary student is put on a team to go out and serve throughout Tanzania: orphanages, disability hospitals, deaf schools….and villages.

This year, Gil and I got to lead a team of eight 11th grade students to the village of Mitengwe, about 3 hours outside of Dar es Salaam. We were privileged to work alongside some of our best friends:

Tim and Emily have been our friends for over 10 years. Our both sets of adopted kids have grown up together. We don’t get to see them often, but we are kindred spirits. So it was a pleasure for us to enter their world for a week, and experience all the things they have told us about for all these years.

Tim and Emily are awesome. Period. They want the people of the village to know Jesus, but they also want to help improve their lives. And they want to do it in sustainable, reproducing ways that will help people to change using the village resources….not American resources.

They live extremely sacrificial lives.

So. They have taught the people how to dig their own wells that they can maintain themselves (since all the machine-dug, foreign-funded wells in the village are broken and unusable). They are introducing drought-resistant, highly nutritious plants and teaching people what a difference they can make. They have started a pre-school. They are training people how to care for their own medical needs. Like I said. They are awesome.

So we had a blast bringing our 8 students into this village for a week. Our students worked hard. But they also learned so much. Our students, these ones who have the education, the resources, the connections….these students can make a difference in this country! And I pray that now they have a better picture of how that can happen.

Our primary tasks for the week were to help with the construction of a community center, and to bless the local elementary school by painting some walls and chalkboards.

These kind of schools have nothing. Literally. They have no books, no paper, no pictures, no colorful rugs. They have a few desks (not enough), chalkboards, and walls. Some classrooms don’t even have four walls.

The school has a relatively new classroom which was built about a year ago. Since then, they haven’t had the money to paint it. So that’s what we did.

But our students, our kids, and us….we were the ones who were far more blessed by this experience. To God be the Glory.