God has continually put in my heart a desire to understand what it means to be poor. I have come to understand that there are many different levels of poverty. In America, many claim to be poor if can not buy the latest clothing or a new car every few years. Others say they are poor because they have to be very frugal and resourceful in order to provide for their families, and maybe they hold two or more jobs to make ends meet. Then there are those who rely on government assistance programs to meet their needs, because they have been unable to do it on their own. Poorer still, are those who have no place to call home. Those that peddle in the streets, or dig in dumpsters for their daily rations.
I realize, that we could debate on and on about what qualifies as a need, and why people are in the positions they are in. That’s a whole separate issue, that I am not going to address here. My question is, what really defines poverty and how can we understand it?
In Peru, I saw people living in mud brick houses with tin roofs and dirt floors. They crowded 13 people into a small 2 story house. Were they poor? By our standards, yes. I imagine the people living in palm huts along side the mountain passes might have a different perspective.
In Kenya, I saw 1.4 million people living in a slum that is only 1sq mile. They lived in little mud shacks with open sewers flowing down the streets, mixing with the mud they had to walk through every day. Were they poor? Absolutely. Kibera is the largest slum in all of Africa, but they were rich compared to the people I met in Eburru.
Eburru is a little village in the mountains outside the Rift Valley in Kenya. Outwardly, they appear pretty well off. There little mud houses are spread across the landscape, with fields of maize in between. It looked charming, like something out of an old movie. But these people are dying of starvation.
A four year drought has left them without food and water. Upon closer inspection, you could see that the maize was drying up before it was ready to harvest. There only source of water is collecting steam from the volcano beneath them. Series of pipes cover the hills, collecting and condensing the water vapor. What results is a small trickle of water that they stand in line for hours to purchase.
Every time I think I have seen the worst, my eyes are opened to new levels of poverty that go beyond comprehension. How do we respond to that? How can we, as Americans born into a life of incredible wealth, understand poverty? How can we truly know what it is like, or sympathize? How can we be passionate about changing something we do not understand? I don’t believe we can.
Further more, I don’t believe we can truly understand or appreciate our wealth until we gain a better understanding and experience of poverty.
On so many trips, I have spent the day walking among the poor with a drawn out face, feigning compassion and sympathy. Only to find myself hours later consuming a “nice” meal, reasonable by American standards, but expensive enough that I could have fed 10 or more of the hungry people I wept about that day.
At the end of my trip to Kenya this summer, God really convicted me of this hypocritical attitude. While preparing for this race, I vowed that I would not repeat that kind of selfish and heartless behavior. I vowed that I would not allow somebody to go hungry in my presence. I wanted to surrender all of my possessions and live like the people I was ministering to, whatever that meant. I wanted to experience their lives as much as possible. I wanted to know what it was like to live like them; to be in their shoes.
Then I got here. Instantly, the coffee called out to me at the airport. The ice cream called out to me on the hot days in Palenque. A nice dinner here, a little treat there. Now I find myself, a month into the is journey, in Antigua, Guatemala. The team treated themselves to a “nice” breakfast at a cute little café down the street. I was fasting, but I treated myself to a nice late and orange juice – with a blue sugared rim.
The owners of the café also happen to have a spa next door. Immediately, we all started dreaming of massages and manicures. Before the end of the day, we had a price list in hand. I had a little tinge of guilt even thinking about it, but I just ignored it and justified it with “all of our hard work”.
A few hours later, I went to the park to spend some time with God. It was already on my heart to write this article, so I began to read scriptures about wealth. They all had a very common theme. Love for money is a trap that leads to death. Granted, it’s not the first time I had heard this. God has already been convicting my heart about my careless spending. It wasn’t a surprise really, but it was that little push that brought me out of denial.
The truth is, God has blessed my with wealth in my past. I had a very comfortable life. But it wasn’t enough. The reason I am on this trip is because I know there is more than that. I have seen joy in the faces of people that do not know where there next meal is coming from. I have seen incredible generosity and hospitality from people who have no shoes on their feet. They have something I don’t understand.
Through their poverty, they have discovered the richness of Christ. It is something I take for granted. It get lost in the pursuit of earthly possessions and pleasures. I want to know that kind of wealth. It’s a wealth I will not fully understand until I am willing to completely surrender the material wealth I have depended on my whole life.
I do not think that material wealth is a bad thing. I believe that God likes to bless His us with nice things, and wants us to experience luxury at times. But I also believe that He wants us to understands what it means to be completely dependant on Him. I believe He wants us to understand the suffering and poverty of others, so that when He blesses us with wealth, we will have the heart and understanding that allows us to poor out those blessings on others.
That is my desire. To understand what it is to be poor, so that I can understand my immense wealth in Christ. Then out of that understanding, I can truly walk in compassion and love for others.
That is more valuable to me than anything money could buy. That is what I am here for. That is the desire of my heart.
