Sometimes I hide from the people I want to help the most. I stay home, keep busy doing other things and basically avoid the needs around me. What kind of missionary am I? I ask myself often. The truth is I just don’t know how to help, so I stay home.
When you think of helping some one, what do you think of doing for them? If you are like me, and I guess most people, you want to give them something. Think about it. When we help some one, especially someone a lot less fortunate than us we want to give them a gift.
Food. Blankets. Clothes. Toys. Candy. School supplies. Money. A car. Anything,
In the end we feel good for helping someone and as a bonus are free from something we probably didn’t use or want anymore. It’s a win win situation right? Not really.
I often go and visit a certain community, it’s fairly poor and I got to know a few families there when we built the house for Altagracia. I love visiting the people, but I hate the expectations they have of me. I drive up in my shiny SUV, and am immediately surrounded by children and their mothers too, if they are around. They wait expectantly as I open my door to see what I have inside, wondering what the white girl brings today, is it cloths, food or toys? Some days I do bring some of those things. Other days I just bring myself, offering my time to visit with them. Either way it is never enough. Next comes the questions…
Hermana (sister)do you have backpacks? My kids need some!
We need a tarp for our leaky roof, can you get us one?
I need baby formula for my baby brother, can you help?
Do you have clothes?
How can we have a house built?
We need blankets, it’s cold!
My kids need school uniforms…
It goes on and on and on.
I usually have very few of those things to offer them. But the truth is, NO amount would ever be enough.
I drive home in my SUV, now covered in thick red dust, my heart feeling a little more broken because I know I’m not really helping. As much as I want to be a super missionary, and bring a load of great donated “stuff ” to give away to the poor, I know it’s not enough. I have seen countless missionary groups come here to “save” people, and without them knowing it they have left doing more damage than good. Sure they brought some great “gifts” to give people, told them that Jesus loves them but in the end, sadly, not much had changed. You see, after the same situation has been repeated over and over again the poor are no longer thankful. They are expectant. They no longer humbly ask, but beg, demand, and even fight for what is theirs. At the end of the day, they are just as poor as they were before, and even worse as they depend on the missionary, not God. Kind of a hard thing to swallow… especially if you have gone on a short-term mission trip before.
Now I am NOT saying we should not give to the poor. And I am not saying we shouldn’t go on mission trips.
We should. Jesus says so. Their will always be people who really need the basic needs in life to simply survive, and we should be meeting those needs, and many people genuinely appreciate it.
What I am saying is that we have to do MORE.
I am so tired of helping people in poverty, I want to help them get OUT!
Now the questions is, how do we make that happen?
I don’t want to hide anymore.
yes Amber, you are right…thanks for being open, and brave enough, to say it. Don’t give up, I’m praying that God will answer your questions: good for you for asking them!
The old adage is true:
Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
Perhaps there’s something you can be teaching these people that will better their lives.
Amber, have you and Saul ever read “When Helping Hurts”? Tom and I just read it as preparation for the mission field and it is an awesome book on this topic. I highly recommend it!
Ugg. I’ve felt those exact same feelings down there! I think that’s why we found it easier to go deep into a few peoples lives rather than focus on “helping” masses of people. I have NO idea if that’s right or wrong but it was the only thing that seemed to have some effect and actual life change. We most often visited our friends without bringing anything along to give them (which was so hard because they always need something). We wanted to focus on relationship not stuff…although we did bring the stuff on occasion we tried to not set them up for expectation. It can be SO discouraging. The drive by “missionary” has done a lot of harm in the area. I LOVE sacrificially giving to legitimate needs, or even just treat someone, but when they start to rudely demand it and even try to scam you for it…that happy bubble pops pretty hard. i guess that’s where real love comes in..loving people in their wretched greedy state …like God loves us. It’s been a learning curve…one we’re still figuring out (glad we’ll have you to help us know when to give and when to leave the stuff at home and just bring Jesus love…which is SO much more valuable.) We want to be the gospel lived out, spoken, embracing them, and pointing them to the Father who is able to provide and free them from Spiritual poverty. Those cycles of poverty are hard to break but don’t underestimate HOPE in a persons life. Looks like we’ll have LOTS to chat about in a couple weeks!! Can’t wait!!