Poverty

Filed in Thoughts on August 09, 2009



I have a short novel here at the house that I read from time to time called Nectar in a Sieve.  It is a sober book about a woman who lives a life of poverty in India.  The trials she goes through are immense.  One of her children is beaten to death when trying to steal something to sell for food.  Another dies of starvation in front of her eyes.  Her daughter becomes a prostitute to make money for food. 

At the end of the book, she and her husband are thrown off the land they have farmed for 30 years and become beggars in a city.  Even though they are more than 50 years old, they are forced to work for low wages breaking up stone in a quarry.  Eventually, her husband dies and she moves in with a son who does not have enough money to feed her.  At that point, the book just ends.

Pick up the book somewhere and read it and let it impact you (it is a short read of only a few hundred pages).  We must not forget the poverty that exists around the world right now.  It is easy to forget about that suffering, but the Bible is full of commands to take care of the poor.

There are two places I have been where I have seen extreme poverty--Haiti and Africa.  I am told that neither is anywhere near as bad as India, but I thought I would share some pictures.

Haiti is considered to be the poorest country in the western hemisphere.  Here is what a typical city street looks like.





In the second picture, you see a series of typical houses.  As you can see, they are crowded against each other and are made of concrete rubble.  They are roughly 10x10 feet and house a family.  These houses are technically illegal.  They are actually built by what we would call "squatters" who do not own the land the house sits on.  They build during the middle of the night and just start occupying that space.  From time to time, the government bulldozes these houses.

Raw sewage runs down the middle of the streets if you are so kind as to call them streets.  Dust and heat is everywhere.  In fact, everything in one these houses is likely to be coated with dust.

Haiti is bad but not as bad as Africa.  Of course, all of Africa is not poor.  In fact, Johannesburg feels in some places like Beverly Hills.  But if you go very far out of the city, you see the African version of squatter camps.  They look like this.









Hard to believe?  Yes, it is.  But it is the reality of millions of Africans.  Sadly, too many are children that are orphans.  AIDS has devastated this area.  In fact, it has wiped out almost the entire middle-aged generation in spots, leaving children alone or under the care of aging grandparents.

Churches have begun addressing this problem in unique ways.  For example, some churches are now providing care to orphans in the form of daily meals and shelter.  I visited one of those mission works with Dave Brown, area director for the mission agency Biblical Ministries Worldwide.    Here are some pictures from that work.



This is a woman working in a church preparing a food staple called poi (pronounced "pop").  Poi is a porridge that is nutritious enough (often fortified with vitamins) to serve as the foundation of the children's diet.  It is also fairly inexpensive. 



This is Marla (my wife) with some of the orphans.  Notice how well they are dressed.  Those are school uniforms.  Even the most impoverished families send their kids to school and I believe the government supplies uniforms.



And this is me with a few of the orphans.  We are standing beside a green water tank.  There is no indoor plumbing in this area.  That being said, this is one of the nicer areas in the region.  The houses are actually considered "proper houses" which means they are made to last even though they probably have dirt floors and no plumbing.

I will confess that I am looking for ways to help out in Africa with poverty.  I believe that while evangelism should be the primary goal of missionaries in these poor areas, you cannot turn away from humanitarian relief as well.

 



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Lenny
8/11/2009 10:45:33 PM

Greg,

This is great stuff. I am pleased to see you doing something in this important area.

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