Vince Deagler

hi again.  last week i mentioned a great book i read this summer entitled when helping hurts.  in last weeks post i focused on how the authors go beyond a simplistic definition of poverty, choosing instead to define poverty in terms of a poverty of spiritual intimacy, poverty of being (identity), poverty of community, and poverty of stewardship.  b/c poverty is a multi-layered problem, we need multi-level solutions.  this is where i would like to focus this post.

the first thing we should understand here is not all poverty is equal.  there are times when life circumstances produce a crisis that demands an immediate response from the rest of humanity.  tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, war, drought, etc. can all produce what we might label “relief” emergencies.  an area has been devastated, resources wiped out, shock and chaos ensues, relief is necessary.  but at some point relief efforts must morph into rehabilitation.  once the “bleeding” stops, the community must rise up and begin to rebuild.  the last stage might be called development.  it is an ongoing process of change where the entire community (the helper and the helped) moves toward a fullness of life as measured through connection to god, confidence in identity, genuine community, and responsible stewardship.  one of the biggest problems i see in our efforts to eradicate poverty is too much of a relief approach and a failure to engage the needy community with the rehabilitation of and development of their community.  whether you call it top/down, outside/in, whatever…what we should have learned by now is a relief approach does not work if the goal is to eradicate poverty.  in fact it does harm to all involved.  please understand i am not saying relief is never appropriate.  no, in a crisis like a natural disaster relief is entirely appropriate.  just like when someone has a horrendous automobile accident they may need to spend some time in a hospital.  but eventually, if they are ever going to live a fully functional life, they will need to go to rehab for therapy and then once again engage life where they may be at that moment and begin the process of development that results in their personal fulfillment.  and this is where the problem often lies.

we can provide relief.  but rehabilitation and development are not done to a community or for a community, they are done within the community and by the community.  this reality is inescapable, but problematic b/c we are not all wired the same way.  for instance in the usa b/c of years of entitlement programs gone awry, and the politicizing of poverty, we have created an entire underclass reliant upon the very entitlement programs they were meant to lift out of poverty.  the ideas of rebuilding and development have not been introduced successfully with the result poverty persists and healthy solutions are resisted politically.  in the majority world we westerners face a different problem.  we value time, achievement, and individualism.  we want our efforts to pay off quickly and if in the process we are named the most valuable player, well that’s even better.  the majority world does not share those values.  when we try to eradicate poverty in these different cultures, b/c of the cultural clash, we westerners usually take over the process.  b/c we have limited time to get the task done, b/c we highly value achievement, and b/c we can’t understand why these folks don’t think and feel the same sense of urgency as we do, we often try to do for them or to them what they should be doing for themselves.  the net result is ineffectiveness. 

genuine success may be defined as working to reconcile the 4 foundational relationships (spiritual intimacy-god, identity-self, community-others, and stewardship-physical creation) so that people can fulfill their calling of glorifying god by working and supporting themselves and their families with the fruit of their work.  this takes time.  it is a more difficult process.  but it is the only one i know that has a chance of actually working.  the sooner our efforts start reflecting this the better.  as i mentioned last week, we have been waging a war on poverty my whole life both within the usa and internationally.  that war is being lost b/c our intentions are good but our efforts are flawed.  we want to help, and when we do in fact help others, we feel good.  how much better do you think we will feel if instead of continuing down the path we have been on my whole life, we decide to change.  in emergency situations we offer relief.  after that crisis has passed, we engage at the community level, get the community to assess their resources, and using those resources along with their personal gifts they start to rehabilitate and develop their own communities.  money would be freed up to use elsewhere, people would be liberated from the cycle of poverty, and the world really would be a different place.

we are trying to institute these principles in our efforts at prescott.  we have opportunities within our local community and through our missions program that will be tweaked to reflect this growing understanding.  we do not have all the answers, we are just as much the victims of poverty as those we often try to help.  but as i said last week, i am excited b/c these concepts represent a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.  i encourage you to read the book, grapple with the concepts, i think it will transform our efforts to love our neighbor.  thanks for reading.  i’d love to hear from you.  peace