Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

poverty

Why We Need to Stop Whitewashing the Reality of Poverty

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“One thing I noticed right away was how happy the people are,” a friend said as we chatted about my trip to Honduras a few days after I had returned. She, too, had traveled to Honduras a few years ago, and she admitted she had been charmed and impressed by the people she’d met there.

I nodded, agreeing with my friend’s observation. It’s true, the people I met in Honduras did seem genuinely happy. I noticed it too. They were quick to laugh and to smile. Many of them clearly enjoyed engaging and even joking around with “the North Americans,” as they called us. They exuded a sense of ease that was both disarmingly unfamiliar and deeply appealing.

And yet, ever since that conversation with my friend, I’ve felt uneasy. I can’t help but wonder: what if in declaring the people who live in developing countries as “happy,” we are oversimplfying both who they are and the circumstances in which they live?

The people are so happy. The people live such simple, contented lives.  The people have their priorities straight. The people value what’s truly important. The people are free from all the trivial, materialistic stuff that bogs us down.

There is truth to these statements. I witnessed genuine joy in Honduras. I saw a kind of life that was, in many ways, simpler and far less materialistic than my own life. I met people who value family and community, who work hard and who love God and their neighbors.

But that is only part of the story.

The whole story is much harder and much more complicated. The whole story is that in addition to smiles and joy, I also saw unimaginable poverty and suffering in Honduras.

I stood in a shack constructed of metal, wood remnants, bed sheets and tarps, a shack barely larger than my bathroom, a shack with a dirt floor and no plumbing that was home to five human beings.

I witnessed nearly 100 people wait outside in the broiling sun for hours to receive basic medical care.

I handed dozens of mothers deworming tablets for their children, knowing that poor sanitation virtually guarantees the parasites will be back before long to wreak havoc in their digestive systems.

I jump-roped, sang songs and played tag with dozens of laughing, smiling, exuberant kids who will likely not have the opportunity to continue their education beyond elementary school.

The reality is that my pet dog enjoys a more comfortable, secure existence than most of the men, women and children I met in Honduras. The animal who lives in my house and has her own bed, her own vet, her own toys and a steady supply of food, clean water and medicine has better healthcare, better nutrition and better living circumstances than most of the human beings I met during my eight days in Honduras.

I think sometimes we rewrite hard stories into more palatable versions simply so we can more easily justify our own privilege and comfort in the face of global poverty and economic inequality. But the truth is, whitewashing reality into an idyllic, romanticized half-truth is not only irresponsible, it’s also deeply disrespectful to the people who live that reality every day.

I don’t claim to have the solution to global poverty and economic inequality. Honestly, it all feels more daunting than ever, and I have no idea what my small role in the great scheme of things is or should be. But I do know this: we can start by telling not the story we wish were true, or the story that relieves us of responsibility, or the story that makes us more comfortable, but by telling the whole, unvarnished truth.

We are Called to Serve, Not Solve

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I heard the crying as soon as the engine died. It was hard to ignore, our respective vehicles only feet apart, our windows rolled down to let in the hot wind. Her SUV was pulled to the curb across the street outside the school, my mini-van on the opposite side. As soon as she turned the key, the quiet of the neighborhood settled around us. Glancing up from the book in my lap, I lowered my glasses. She was crying all right, sobs muffled as she held her head in her hands.

I read the same paragraph four times straight, all the while praying the woman would get control of herself.

I didn’t want to approach her. I didn’t want to ask if she was okay. I didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness, the discomfort. I didn’t want to walk straight into a stranger’s pain. I wanted to sit in my car with my book in my lap and ignore the sounds of distress. I wanted to push the button on the side of my door and roll up the automatic window so I didn’t have to hear or see or acknowledge.

She didn’t stop crying.

I put my book face-down on the passenger seat, clicked open the lock, swung open the door. I walked five steps across the street, my eyes on the pavement as I approached her window. “I don’t want to intrude on your privacy,” I said to the woman in the car, lifting my eyes to meet hers. “But you seem upset, and, well, can I do anything to help?”

Mascara was smudged like charcoal on both of her cheeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed, bloodshot and raw. “No, no, I’m okay, I’m okay,” she gulped, staring down at her lap. “I’m okay,” she said again, glancing up at me standing outside her window.

“Okay,” I said. I lifted my hand to touch her arm, but I stopped just short, resting it on the door frame of her car instead. “Okay,” I repeated. “I just wanted to make sure. Let me know if I can do anything though.” I stood there for a half-second, my hand on her car, grappling for something, anything else to say. But there was nothing.

I walked back to my car and slid into the front seat. I picked up my book again, but I didn’t read another word.

I didn’t do anything to help the woman in the car. I didn’t ease or pain or assuage her suffering. I didn’t solve her problems. The only thing I’d done was heed the nudge I’d felt deep inside me, the nudge I’d wanted to ignore.

I think sometimes we forget that poverty – whether poverty of spirit or poverty of circumstances — isn’t our problem to solve. Jesus didn’t command us to go out and solve the world’s problems. He didn’t instruct us to go out and singlehandedly obliterate suffering. He simply commanded we go out.

Go out and show compassion.

Go out and offer help to one person in need.

Go out and love our neighbor.

It’s easy to succumb to apathy in the face of the world’s problems. Pain is everywhere. Poverty is rampant. Everyone is suffering, everyone is carrying a burden. It’s easy to conclude, Why bother? What’s the point? What can I do, one person amid millions of suffering and burdened, millions of hopeless and sick. 

But the point isn’t really what one person can or can’t do. It’s whether one person will or won’t serve.  Jesus asks us, commands us, to serve. Not to solve, but simply to serve. We won’t always make a noticeable difference. The story won’t always have a happy ending. But he asks us to hear the call and to heed it nonetheless.

“Poverty is not necessarily an issue to solve; it is an opportunity to serve. As we go through each day, our heart’s cry should be, Lord, where would you have me give, serve, and invest myself to bring hope to the poor?” — Orphan Justice author, Johnny Carr

 

If you’re hesitating to answer the call to sponsor a child in need because you’re discouraged by the enormity of global poverty, remember this: sponsoring a child isn’t an opportunity to solve a problem necessarily, it’s an opportunity to serve. If you are hearing the call to do something today, even just one little tiny something, listen and heed.

 

The Best and the Worst

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I was recently asked to write a story in 200 words or less describing the best or the worst thing that happened to me that day. This is what I wrote – in some ways, it was both the best and the worst, all wrapped into one experience. {and yes, it’s less than 200 words – no small feat for me!}

“Mommy, look at these!” he says, holding out the package of unblemished mushrooms for me to admire. Such pristine vegetables are a rarity amid the withered lettuce, brown bananas and squishy cucumbers piled onto the table — food that’s past its prime, expired, rejected by those who have a choice.

“I’ll take those, young man.” Noah turns toward the man with the weathered, flushed face. The cuffs of his jeans are ragged, and he leans heavily on a cane, but his smile is kind. “They’re really fresh,” Noah says, gently placing the small container in the cart.

“Why do the people only get the yucky, wilty food?” Rowan asks as we drive home from the distribution center. “Well,” I pause. “Well, because that’s the food nobody else wants. People who have enough money buy the best vegetables in the store, so the ones we gave out tonight are the leftovers,” I answer.

Rowan is silent for a minute, staring into the darkness. “Do we get to buy the best?” he asks, leaning forward, the seat belt straining across his chest. “Yes, honey,” I answer, glancing at him in the rear view mirror. “We get to buy the best.”

: :

My Compassion blogger assignment this month is to write about what giving Biblically looks like in today’s culture. This story is an interesting answer to that question. On one hand, I am grateful to the Lincoln grocery stores for donating such huge quantities of food to our city’s poor. On the other hand, Rowan’s question is a perceptive and difficult one: why do poor people only get the leftovers that no one else wants? Why don’t we skim off the top of our resources to care for the least of these, instead of from the bottom, after every one of our own myriad needs is met?

Thanks to my seven-year-old, I’m struggling with the answers to those questions myself. In the meantime, though, I want to offer you a small but meaningful way you can positively impact a person who is desperately in need this season. Purchase a gift from a wide range of choices in Compassion’s Holiday Gift Catalog — a meal, medicine, seeds, a goat — and make a very real difference today. 

Thank you!!

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Blessed are the Less-Than

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Today I welcome Shawn Smucker, a writer I’ve long-admired for his perseverance, his generosity and his love of adventure. Shawn leaves tomorrow for a World Vision bloggers trip to Sri Lanka. Will you join me in praying for Shawn and the rest of the World Vision bloggers? God is up to big, big things through them! {And Shawn’s words here today? They happen to be exactly what I need to hear.}

It is the 71st morning in my parents’ basement with my wife and four children. 71 days since we returned from four months on the road in a big blue bus. I wake up early and creep from the dark bedroom, trying not to wake Maile or our two youngest children asleep in the small bedroom with us. The door creaks behind me.

I sit at the small table in the main area of the basement without turning on the light and open up my laptop. It is the moon, and I make a list of the things I need to take on my upcoming trip to Sri Lanka.

Eye drops.

Bug spray.

Small gifts.

The list goes on.

The refrigerator hums loudly behind me. I think about something I read recently by Henri Nouwen:

How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich? Poverty has many forms. We have to ask ourselves: “What is my poverty?” Is it lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence? Each human being has a place of poverty. That’s the place where God wants to dwell! “How blessed are the poor,” Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty.

We are so inclined to cover up our poverty and ignore it that we often miss the opportunity to discover God, who dwells in it. Let’s dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden.

For the last 71 days I thought my poverty was being in a challenging financial situation. As I wait for a few new projects to start up, I’ve had weeks where I’ve made a grand total of $160, or had to get by with putting $5 in the gas tank, or delayed paying a bill so that we could buy groceries.

But as I sit here in the dark of my parents’ basement, waiting for the tide to turn, the quietest of voices hints at a truth I’ve been trying to ignore.

Your poverty isn’t in your finances. Your poverty is that you want to have your own way, and I’m telling you to wait, and you can’t deal with that right now. That’s where your poverty lies – your inability to trust.

And I know that it’s true, because I want the new projects to come through NOW and I want to find a new house and move out of my parents basement NOW and I want my life to begin looking the way I want it to look.

NOW.

So I make a conscious decision to embrace this poverty of uncertainty, and to seek out God somewhere in the midst of it. I prepare myself to meet people in Sri Lanka whose poverty will be so much more obvious and outward. And I try to be okay with my own less-than-ness, because, to paraphrase the Apostle Mark:


Blessed are the less-than…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Shawn Smucker, author of Building a Life Out of Words, leaves for Sri Lanka tomorrow to blog for World Vision. You can follow his trip HERE or learn more about the difference you can make by sponsoring a child HERE. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter.