Shalom

What is poverty? 

As part of our training this first month, we're reading the book When Helping Hurts. It's been eye opening as we study this research and come across thought-provoking questions that ensure everything we're (Back2Back, churches, individuals) doing here in Monterrey is beneficial to the Mexican children. We were asked that initial question before the most recent chapter of the book. 

If you took a minute to think about how you would answer, how does it compare to our response? Whitney and I initially answered "What is poverty?" in terms of lacking physical, material, and tangible things, such as a house, clothes, food, money, etc. 

What we've come to find out is fascinating: 

     "We have conducted the previous exercise in dozens of middle-to-upper-class, predominantly Caucasian, North American churches. In the vast majority of cases, these audiences describe poverty differently than the poor in low-income countries do. While poor people mention having a lack of material things, they tend to describe their condition in far more psychological and social terms than our North American audiences. Poor people typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness. North American audiences tend to emphasize a lack of material things such as food, money, clean water, medicine, housing, etc. As will be discussed further below, this mismatch between many outsiders' perceptions of poverty and the perceptions of poor people themselves can have devastating consequences for poverty-alleviation efforts." 

Which goes back to why we love Back2Back. We as a ministry believe in 5 basic needs of a child. Yes, there are definitely physical needs, but there are also educational, spiritual, emotional, and social needs. 

After last week, we're learning that this work can be exhausting. Pero vale la pena. 

This past Wednesday, Whitney and another co-worker spent the day (and night) with a group of teenage girls at one of the children's homes we partner with. Imagine waking up 6 teenage girls in a foreign language at 5 in the morning to get ready for school. Keep in mind these girls have never had anyone as a stable role-model for them to respect, obey, and learn from. The day had its stressful parts, but it also had really good parts. 

But after spending time with them, Whitney knows more than just their names. She knows a little of each one's gifts and talents, what kind of food they like, their hurts, favorite colors, and more Justin Bieber lyrics than she would care to know. 

With time, those relationships that are so vital will keep developing. Relationships take time. They take energy, work, and patience. In fact: 

     "...it may take years to help people overcome their problems. There will likely be lots of ups and downs in the relationship. It all sounds very time-consuming, and it is. 'If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday' (Isa. 58:10). 'Spending yourself' often involves more than giving a handout to a poor person, a handout that may very well do more harm than good." (When Helping Hurts).


--Nathan