What is poverty?

Lazarus came to England a few years ago to volunteer for a year at a Christian retreat centre on the Isle of Wight.  I asked him about his experiences from that time.  He said that when he arrived he didn’t know where to go to catch a bus so went to a café and asked a lady sitting there.  She apparently shouted at him to go away which he found really upsetting as that was the first English person he had spoken to and not a good welcome to our land.  He then approached a black man who turned out to be from Ghana, who let him use his phone to call his UK contact and helped him find a bus.  We could only apologise on behalf of that lady whoever she was for being so rude but it made us sad too.  L   He said he was shocked when he was in England that every home had running water and electricity, that people had two cars each and could eat whatever they wanted.  He found it hard going back and getting into his life in African again after being here amongst such plenty for a year. 

Visiting Lazarus and his family at their home.

Lazarus has started a small business with chickens.

Lazarus's daughters were delighted with their little bags of goodies!

A remarkable and beautiful family - we are so honoured to call them our friends.

We had the honour of visiting Lazarus and his family in their home and like everyone we met in Uganda, they showed us great generosity of hospitality.  There is so much need in places like this that it can be a bit overwhelming.  The material need is great but there is such wealth in other ways that we don’t have here in the affluent west.  When we lived in Guyana I wrote a blog on ‘What makes a person poor?’ and thought it was a good time to revisit it.   It was based on thoughts from a book I read called ‘When Helping Hurts.’

The book talked about four different kinds of poverty:

Poverty of spirituality is to do with our relationship with God.  It occurs when we try to live our lives without God and make it on our own.  We are meant to be in a relationship with God and when we ignore him or reject him, we suffer a lack of spiritual intimacy in our lives. 

Poverty of being is to do with our relationship with ourselves.  If we have too high an opinion of ourselves we can become proud and insufferable but if we have too low opinion of ourselves we can suffer poor self-esteem so we need a healthy balance. 

Poverty of community is to do with our relationships with others.  Sometimes our relationships break down or we don’t make time for people who are important to us and when that happens we suffer a lack of community.

Poverty of stewardship is to do with our relationship with creation – the world around us.  When people suffer from lack of material goods through their own fault or because of corrupt, unjust or oppressive systems.

The premise of the book is that when you look at different types of poverty we discover that actually all of us are poor in one way or another.  We in the West often think of the poor people in the third world who need material goods but forget that we are often poor when it comes to building relationships, in the ways we view ourselves or in our relationship with God, so there is no ground for us to feel superior in any way.

 

This ingenious boy made a car out of old bottles - an engineer in the making!

In Africa, as in other parts of the world, we have seen the most dreadful material poverty and yet a richness in relationships both within communities and in the deep rooted faith of the people.  Conversely we have seen people in our own country who have everything money can buy materially but are poor in their relationships, community, self-esteem or faith.   

I close today’s blog with a story from Heidi Baker who works in Mozambique and has seen God move in many miraculous ways amongst her people:

‘One time a preacher visited our tribe. He was not from Africa and did not know what to expect. He had prepared to preach on the story of the lost coin in Luke 15:8–10. As part of his talk, he asked if anyone had a coin he could use as a visual aid. Not one hand went up. He turned around and asked the senior pastors on our team for a coin, but not one of them had a coin.

He was getting flustered and incredulous. I watched his face as it suddenly dawned on him. The poverty in that place overwhelmed him. His eyes filled with tears and he wept, right there and then, for the lack he saw in front of him—a lack he had never experienced before, a lack he had never personally been challenged by.

Certainly our tribe is financially poor. No one has anything of monetary value. But that does not stop us from being rich in other ways or making our offerings to God. Our people might not have cash to put in a bucket, but they have a different kind of gift to give to the Lord. They worship Him in dance. Their whole bodies are given over to Him. They might not have money, but they have no shame in dancing as an offering of praise.

They will walk for three days to go to a meeting and dance for God. They will travel through hot and dusty villages, without food or water, to give the only thing they can offer—themselves.

My people are some of the richest on earth. They are some of the most joyful. They do not consider themselves poor. They rejoice that they have been found. They see themselves as blessed and rich and whole. They are full of passion for God, full of His glory and full of His presence. When I look at them I do not see lack, but plenty.

May we all, regardless of our monetary wealth, give all we have to the Lord. May we worship Him with our whole selves, extravagantly, like my people in Africa.’