How can we consistently show those in developed, consumer-driven countries that places like this exist? That, although, these places need clean water, sanitation, food and medical care, we need their hope, simplicity, community, and generosity?
How can we connect the two? Is there even a way?
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28 responses to “Question of the Day”
by blogging!
sorry for my early morning flippant answer but it’s the best I can do right now. I’m sure I’m going to be thinking on this all day.
My son, Tim, leaves in 15 days to go the Dominican Republic on his first mission trip. I hope that his eyes will be opened as mine were on my mission trips to Haiti when I was a teen. You can’t explain the smells and sights to someone who’s never experienced it before. I can still smell Haiti some 24 years later. I really had a heart for those people, poor, poor, poor, but they smiled all of the time and were very gracious. They gave up their food for feasts for us, they gave up their grass mat beds so that we didn’t sleep on the floor. They were so generous with what little they had. I suggest everyone tries to do something like this in their lifetime.
Blessings,
Sandy in Pinellas Park, FL USA
Like Spiky Sandy, I still have Calcutta in my nose some 9 years later.
The picture is beautiful, Anne…. I especially love the colors and the flowers on the right side. So, my first answer is through art and drama… catching people off guard… but then it risks romanticizing the real issues. My next answer is short term missions… but you can still live through one of those and come out clean and smug if compassion hasn’t infected you.
So Lord, may their be an epidemic of compassion
Read Glocalization by Bob Roberts
for most, i suspect a connect that results in lasting change (of heart) will not come about unless a person experiences it first hand
Top 10 Obese States
These are the 10 states with the highest levels of adult
obesity, according to a 2007 survey by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
1. Mississippi, 32.0 percent
2. Alabama, 30.3
3. Tennessee, 30.1
4. Louisiana, 29.8
5. West Virginia, 29.5
6. Arkansas, 28.7
7. South Carolina, 28.4
8. Georgia, 28.2
9. Oklahoma, 28.1
10. Texas, 28.1
Source: Associated Press
interesting that they are all in the ‘Bible
Belt’ – maybe we are too fat to care – sad, very sad
Anne,
I so feel you’re frustration. My only answer is to take as many people as possible to those locations so they can interact with the people.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, as well. At what point does the rubber hit the road and we put action in our faith? Christianity knows no borders, and it’s our responsibility to worship God through serving others. Heavy stuff that we tend to ignore here in there comfy West.
i don’t think that people DON’T know…i think so many are simply consumed with their own version of “survival”…in fact, for many, the very existence of places like this creates even more tension, more stress…more guilt…but no action.
The picture above is not a picture where my heart is torn out in despair for the less fortunate but strangely it gives me a feeling of hope for simplicity and closeness in family. I look at it and think…where is this? I want to be there! Though the walls are tattered and the obvious luxuries are not present, there is a sense of connection, maybe one many have lost and forgotten about. A connection we deeply long for. A simplistic connection.
Give me simple over congested freeways, overcrowded supermarkets and a schedule that permits me no time for family, friends or any sort of relational connection beyond my email and cell phone.
How to we bring this kind of community back?
How do we merge what we have with what they have?
We cant. So many Americans rely much on their own abilities and what it is they can personally provide with their own 2 hands. We rely on our relational connections via “big bright lifeless screens”.
Whereas theirs is a country, destitute and in need, who see’s the truth of their situation and is able to supply the only things they can to one another.
Hope, community, generosity, all brought about from the “simple” ways of living, much unlike so many of us.
And they do it face to face. No dial up connections necessary.
Boy how we have cheapened the meaning of relationships, community, and fellowship with those around us.
By becoming one of them. Just give it a few more years.
I agree with a lot of people who posted — there is no subsitute for first hand experience! We try to get as many people as possible to go and experience places like this for themselves. It definitley changes you.
I think doing exactly what you are doing! Speaking for myself, reading your blog has got me thinking more about sponsoring a child. I have even shown my kids the pictures of your trips. I think blogging is the new “Mission Sunday” of today – but not so boring.
We need to preach the Gospel.
We need to preach the Gospel here in America.
We need to preach the Gospel in the Third World.
We need to know the book of Genesis.
We need to know the book of Revelation.
We need to know that we ALL live in a fallen, broken World.
We need to know that God will one day heal it and redeem it.
I echo what everyone else is saying. We need to have as many people as possible go to such places and send back images and stories to the rest.
I get so frustrated in NZ sometimes to hear people say things like “charity begins at home” (well it might but it doesn’t need to end there) and my favourite “what about poor people in our country”… My answer to that is that I pay taxes… I get really frustrated that the majority of people here just don’t get the leve of poverty that most of the world live in. Though isn’t modern technology amazing… so great to be able to read your updates so fast!
my dream is to see these two worlds collide. it keeps me up at night.
i’ve never felt more at home & free than when i was in ethiopia. one of the most refreshing times in my life.
my wife & i have close friends in which we are trying really hard to make life decisions that allow us to live simple & focused on community.
i think it will have to happen in small pockets before it can, if ever, be brought across the board.
This is a great question. I often feel like I learn a lot more on these trips then I model and teach.
We have a lot we can learn from each other.
fwiw, i’m in haiti as i type thinking through these and similar questions.
i think experiencing it first hand is key because honestly, even if you know the “facts” it’s hard to truly understand til you see it. and as you say, smell it.
Yeah…we need to find the answers together. I am praying for you!
I’ve just returned from a 3 week trip to Mozambique. I’ve found it very difficult to express to people here, what the poverty is like there and how diffferent the spiritual climate is. Jesus has a special place for the poor. That’s where the kingdom of God is. You can’t understand it fully unless you’ve experienced it.
I too struggle with how to reach those who have so much (us) and let them really grasp what those in poverty deal with. Modern technology today (blogs, web, etc) help as they raise awareness with phots, stories and the like. At the same time, pictures never tell the whole story and are easy just looked at and the person moves on to the next picture or web page.
The Boston Globe recently started publishing a site called ‘The Big Picture’ (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/)with detailed high definition pictures surrounding a story they recently published. Someone sent me the link and i was blown away by the stories the pictures tell. Two of the stories deal with poverty:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/xenophobia_in_south_africa.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/ethiopia_in_food_crisis_once_m.html
Raising awareness is one of the first steps in fighting poverty. Websites like this help immensely…
I found out by experience.
It’s easy to think about, want the sense of community, and admire the generosity while we’re in another country and even in the few weeks after we return. But it’s really tough to not get sucked back into the American culture, rationalizing our behavior, deciding “that” person is just expecting too much, that we need “boundaries,” and voila we’re back to living just the way we were. But I guess the more we’re exposed to a different way of relating and the more we appreciate what other communities share–we can take small, permanent steps toward living more like the way we’re intended to live.
Thanks for sharing about your trip. We’re praying for you all.
You know, the Bible talks about the poor, the hungry and the orphans and calls us to acts of compassion. I get that. But it also talks about the widows. I watched my grandmother spend MANY long and lonely days in her last years and she was ignored by the Church as if she didn’t exist anymore. I’ve watched my own parents being pushed to the back in several Churches they’ve been in and they just look older (very young at heart mind you)
I sometimes wonder if the church models it’s compassion and gets it’s marching orders from Bono and Chris Martin (Coldplay) or from Jesus Christ? Let’s face it, Bono made compassion COOL… but the Church was there in the third world long before they came around.
Is it going to take a Rock Star’s interest to kick start our care for the widows and elderly? I think so.
they have to care about it first. trying to connect people to something they don’t already care about is really hard.
I care for a faith community here in NJ.
Located in the Nations poorest city.
We have those in our parish that have no running water – no change of clothes…
Diane Sawyer did an interview recently with an 8 yr old who stated their dream was a piece of bread…
Poverty is all around us – this issue is however we need to first define poverty.
to me Poverty is not just being poor – but rather lacking the power to change ones situation.
If you cannot change your situation because you lack the education, skills, etc… then the cycle will continue.
We – the church – need to become Pro-Active not just Re-Active to these needs.
True help will come in the form of education, caring, loving, in the ability to build relationships and programs that enable the simple fact that the lack of power to change ones situation is no longer lacking –
We need to Resource and provide these folks with the ability to self-Resource.
just my 2 cents.
Just as people see what they want to see, they also don’t see what they don’t want to see. I find the most damning evidence of our fallen nature to be the fact that we have set up a world system where we can live like this while they live like that…