In the early 1990s the World Bank tried a new approach in their attempts to alleviate world poverty: they started consulting with the real experts on poverty-the poor. They asked over 60,000 people from sixty low-income countries this basic question: what is poverty? The results of this study have been published in a three-volume series of books-Voices of the Poor.

 

Here are some samples of how the poor described poverty:

 

• From Guinea-Bissau: "When I don't have any [food to bring my family], I borrow, mainly from neighbors and friends. I feel ashamed standing before my children when I have nothing to help feed the family. I'm not well when I'm unemployed. It's terrible."
• From Uganda: "When one is poor, she has no say in public, she feels inferior. She has no food, so there is famine in her house; no clothing, and no progress in her family."
• From Cameroon: "[The poor have] a feeling of powerlessness and an inability to make themselves heard."
• From Moldova: "For a poor person everything is terrible-illness, humiliation, shame. We are cripples; we are afraid of everything; we depend on everyone. No one needs us. We are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of."

 

Notice that there's usually a big difference in the way middle-class American Christians describe poverty. North American audiences tend to emphasize a lack of material things such as food, money, clean water, medicine, housing, etc. While poor people mention having a lack of material things, they typically focus on their sense of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, social isolation, and voicelessness.

 

People whose lives are steeped in poverty don't just need hand-outs from Christians.  They don't merely want material things that we can give them.  They also need relationships with Christ, and others who will help them to elevate their own feelings of helplessness and self-worth.  What would our world look like if Christians rose up and fostered friendships of honor and respect with the poorest of the poor?

 

Jesus set an example for us to follow, and sadly, many Christians actually believe that they can "purchase" their way toward helping others.  For many, well-meaning folks, giving assistance is something that they would rather do at offering time during a church service.  How would our world be changed if we actually DID what Jesus did?

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised..." Luke 4:18

 

Is a servant above his Master?  Lord, help me to have a heart that is filled with love and compassion for the "least of these," and make me a servant.  Amen.

 

Have a great day and God bless!

 

 

 

Pastor Mike / The Open Word