A New Meaning for the word POVERTY

"...until we embrace our mutual brokenness our work with low-income people is likely to do far more harm than good."

                                             - Steve Corbett

I feel like each time I am in Kenya something I read/listen to completely blows my mind about bringing God's kingdom to earth now and serving the poor. I remember my first summer it was Irresistible Revolution and last summer it was the Radical Series by David Platt. This year it is the book I'm reading now- When Helping Hurts. I've read in words a lot of things that I've seen and felt but couldn't fully explain or comprehend. 

The book talks about God's call to serve the poor and free the oppressed but specifically how a lot of what we (mainly North American Christians) do that actually hurts the poor more than helps and hurts ourselves in the process. A World Bank study showed that people who are economically rich define poverty as a lack of material resources. But the economically poor define poverty as a lack of worthiness, feelings of inferiority, shame, powerlessness, and hopelessness. 

"For a poor person everything is terrible - illness, humiliation, shame. We are cripples; we are afraid of everything; we depend on everyone. No one needs us. We are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of." 

                                           -part of the World Bank survey from a person in Moldova 

Poverty in one from is a lack of material resources but poverty also includes spiritual poverty, mental poverty, and emotional poverty. He

Poverty in one from is a lack of material resources but poverty also includes spiritual poverty, mental poverty, and emotional poverty. The author uses an example of going to the doctor and the doctor either misdiagnosing you and giving you the wrong medicine or giving you medicine to relieve your symptoms but not actually fixing the underlying problem that is causing those symptoms. Kyle and I have been talking a lot about "When Helping Hurts". We are glad that we have relationships with the kids that we work with and have gotten to speak some into their lives about the material, emotional, spiritual and mental poverty. But we really have been wrestling through how this affects our scholarship ministry. We have seen issues of entitlement of students seeing sponsors as their "god", parents feeling they don't need to be responsible for their children anymore. It's difficult at times  because God is showing us our own poverty. And so good because He is also showing us He is the healer of emotional, spiritual and mental poverty.