1 John 3:17 challenges us:
"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" This verse rings in my mind as I spend time in poor communities visiting friends from church, eating lunch with english students, chatting with people sitting along the path and building relationships.
I see one couple from church trying to rebuild their termite-eaten house one side at a time so they still have two walls and half a roof to sleep under for the several weeks it will take them since they don't have the money to hire help. The have been able to buy some timber and tiles with money they have saved up from her $8 a day 4 day a week job since he stopped drinking and she stopped gambling, but it has now run out. I should mention too that they look after her 10 year old grandson whose parents were both sent to jail on drugs charges and are now both dead, one from a disease, the other from capital punishment. My whole being wants to use funds donated by our friends around the world to give them all they need to have a decent home that will not fall down around them again in another year, as well as the money needed to request electricity connection to their house. As you read this you're probably thinking, well what's the problem, why don't you??
To put it simply, poverty is not just about lack of material things and so is not fixed by just giving material things. For example, we don't want to cause a dependence on charity, especially from foreigners, to replace a dependency on gambling, or worse, to take the place of a dependence on God. We have already agreed with our pastor that most of our giving should be done through the local church and are thankful for the wisdom he has shown in meeting the needs of the poor.
We did give an agreed amount through the church to the above family to buy good timber for the posts and tiles for the roof, and the men from the church helped with labouring one Sunday afternoon. It still is not the house of their dreams, as they had to use the corrugated iron from the old roof to make the walls until they're able to save up enough again to buy fibro for the walls.
Meanwhile, I'm still struggling with the questions of who to help, how best to help in a way that will bring people closer to God, and how much of my desire for people to think well of me is tied up in my desire to help. Most importantly, I'm learning that this community needs God's love even more than any material help we can give, as addressing their spiritual poverty will go a long way towards 'fixing' their material poverty, which brings me back to the verse I began with:
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." (v16-18) And let us not love just with money, but with our whole lives. Isaiah 58:10 tells us to
"spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry," not just to spend our money on them. There are so many other stories we could add to this one which show that our first response is not always the best, so please pray for Godly wisdom for us in everything we do.
