I have been attending a Faith and Works symposium for the last three months, with the goal of answering the question,"How do we help people in our congregations flourish? How do we help individuals find their calling in the world (specifically the workplace, community and home) and then thrive as they use their gifts to bring God's blessing as his representatives upon the earth?" The last session discussed the complex topic of poverty. How does the church help the poor breakout of the chains they seem to be bound in? How do we as a church assist in helping those who seem to get the short end of the stick in society thrive? The speaker was an expert in starting micro-businesses in third world countries. He was fascinating. One statement in particular he made was how "the countries that have received the most international aid over time end up being the most impoverished. Desperation led them to become chained to a cycle of dependency." He explained the five stages of human drift, which I am going to elaborate and add to: (1) Emergency: Desperate need forces people to seek help. When they get that help it leads to... (2) Gratitude: Genuine thankfulness. If there is no solution to keep them from falling back to emergency mode and desperate need, the next couple rescue missions lead to ... (3) Anticipation: People start getting excited for help outside, they learn to wait for the heroes to come to the rescue. It is at this stage when human creativity, which a person needs to be self sufficient and helps them to survive, starts drying up. Personal solutions are eventually abandoned and bad habits of lethargy formed, which leads to... (4) Expectation: Gratitude does not last long in a human's heart. People start expecting rescue, and if it doesn't arrive soon enough, they demand; which really is a sign they are confirmed in their... (5) Dependency: This is a static state of despair where you rely on others for your safety and comfort, risk taking has been extinguished and hope is all but gone. In this stage of dependency, the speaker said you can visibly see defeat in the demeanor of a person. Shoulders are hunched, chin lowered, genuine joy becomes a relic of the past. Bitterness begins to poison the heart -- what once was gratitude for the one who helped turns to jealousy and the "wanting" of what they have. The good desire to help can actually end up stealing the soul of the person if your not careful. He gave an example about a lady in Haiti who refused to do major repairs on her house, not because she couldn't fix it herself or was really lacking in the tools to fix it; but because she was waiting for short-term missionaries to come and do it for her. She figured, if her house looked worked on, the short-term missionaries who "always show up in June" might pass her by for someone worse. So there she sat. I have seen this happen not just with relief help for people in poor socio-economic conditions; it can become a consistent pattern in other arenas of life as well. Let me offer two more examples: (1) Let's call her Betty. Growing up she was her mom and dad's princess; and as a princess she constantly lived in emergency mode. She needed money for a phone, she got it. She wanted 70 bucks to go out with friends, dad came through. Her mom had her laundry done, lunches made, meals cooked, bedroom cleaned, all Betty had to do was go to school and chill with friends. Betty went from a fun loving girl to a demanding teen. Ask her to clean the car, wash the dishes, help with supper - forget it, that wasn't her job. She eventually got married...poor husband, he was expected to continue her pampering, and if he didn't, mama wasn't happy. It seemed like mama was never happy. Eventually the couple thought children would fix her discontent, she had two, and they only put more gas on her fire of bitterness. They soon became a bother and a burden. The marriage became a nightmare. (2) Let's call him Bob. Bob was a bright student, straight "A's" in High School. But he became a social bug in college, constantly staying up late with friends and running the gamut of campus parties. He often skipped his first period class, "Weeks, can I borrow your notes? Weeks can you help me study for this test?" Often he would join my collaboration group as we worked on team projects, rarely showing up and expecting the rest of us to do the work. For our final presentation he was to give a five minute introduction of our project that he had to prepare for in advance. He only spoke for one minute and it was laced with "ummms" and numerous interjections of "You know what I mean?" The rest of the team did great, but our final grade ended up being a "C"; the rest of the team was furious. Eventually Bob dropped out of school. In our attempt to rescue others, if we are not careful, we can end up ruining them. Ironically, rescuers like to think highly of themselves, "Look at how good I am," while they could be soul stealing from others and never realize it. So what is the answer for the poor? I know one thing, it may not be handing them boatloads of money after all?
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