Some Ponderings On Poverty

Reflections from Lisa since our trip to the dump...

In college I fell in love with a song by Caedmon´s Call called ¨Too Tender¨. It´s worth downloading, but here´s a sampling of the words.

Water water everywhere, and I complain about my thirst
The prescription's in my hand, while the pain I curse
I know the longer, I know the harder the walk will be
With my calloused feet and my too tender knees
Stumbled upon the truth; Wished it'd get out of my way
When I see the light I pull down the shade

It´s so easy to pull down the shade, so to speak, and to block out the truth that is so real in so many places of the world, because when I think about it, my heart literally hurts. Tangibly. It is more convenient not to think about it. The problem is that I just can´t live this way anymore.

I've been thinking about poverty a lot lately. It's something that I've always known has existed and felt genuine momentary sorrow over, but I had not felt personally connected to it before this year of traveling. I can no longer escape the constant ache that nags my heart, an ache that whispers to me:

"How many people went starving today?
And how many times have I thrown out perfectly good food without a second thought?
How many sleep amongst the rats and roaches where they share the smallest of spaces?
And how many Americans wish for bigger and fancier houses that they want but do not need?
How many children are robbed of an education because they are needed to go out begging or to work for what little income the family can bring in?
And how many children complain daily about going to school without realizing the opportunity and privilege it provides that is accessible to so few in the world?
How many people die each day of preventable diseases?
And how many times have I complained over a cold or a cough with a cabinet full of medicine at my fingertips?"

I was told the other day about this photograph (shown below) taken by a man named Kevin Carter, a South African photojournalist. He took the picture in 1993 during the famine in the Sudan and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for it less than a year later. Two months after receiving the honor, he committed suicide due to the horrific images he had seen that haunted him. The picture depicts an emaciated little girl trying to make her way to a food center still kilometers away while a vulture patiently stalks her. Without Christ, it's no wonder the photographer lost all hope.



The poverty that we see and live amongst in Nueva Suyapa is very real, but it is nothing in comparison to this picture, or what many countries around the world experience still. Children often go hungry in Nueva Suyapa, but they do not starve to death. We talked about the dump in our last entry where people live in some of the most horrifying of circumstances. Babies do die of starvation there. Children do die of infections from accidental needle sticks by syringes carelessly thrown into the trash. It is hard for me to imagine a poverty more tangible and suffocating than what we have seen in Honduras, but harder for me still to digest the fact that deeper poverty exists, like in the Sudan.

I feel so helpless in so many ways. I want to do so much and do not even know where to start. But I know that my feet are too calloused. My knees are too tender. I do too much on my own and spend too little time on my knees. How can I best impact the world? How can I most effectively show compassion for the poor? There is too much poverty... too much injustice... too much pain... and it is so overwhelming. I have nowhere else to start but on my too tender knees.

I´ll end with another set of Caedmon´s Call lyrics (from the song ¨The Truth¨) that I really resonante with. They remind me of the hope I have only because of Christ, and after feeling incredibly burdened over issues of poverty and injustice the last few days especially, it´s a reminder that I desperately need as I sort through everything we´ve seen, what we´ve learned, and as Reade and I try to figure out what God wants us to do about it.

'Cause there was life before my life
There was provision before my need
There was redemption before my sin
For the sake of the world I thank the Lord
That The Truth's not contingent on me.