Long Blog #2: Made to Serve

Why help the poor when our government can help them for us? I mean, it's not our fault they're in their predicament, why should it be our responsibility to pull them out of it?

I guess this is a valid point. We're busy enough with out own responsibilities and problems and neither have the time nor the desire to go out of our way to serve someone face-to-face. As long as the poor are getting help, what does it matter if the help comes in a personal form or not?

I personally believe that nothing can substitute personal help--help in which you meet the person where he or she is at. It's beneficial both to the helper and the helped. In this type of service, the helper can find out exactly what a person needs and can make sure they get it. Government help, on the other hand, is very iffy. Are all the changes in taxes really helping those who need help, or are the rich just simply getting richer? If we're really concerned with the answer to this, why not figure it out on our own? We can never truly find out the answer to this until we meet the poor where they're at. Until we go to their environment, converse with them on how life is going for them and what they would like it to be, we really can't know if they're getting the help they need.

Not only is personal service more direct and effective, on an emotional level it lets the person know that someone cares enough to do something about it. Imagine that you needed help with and assignment. Everyone around you sees that you need help, but no one offers a hand. But, you see, the school you're attending has a system in which you can get help by simply putting your request in a box. Excited, you write down your request and slip it into this box, anxiously awaiting the help. The next day, much to your chagrin, you return to school to find the assignment that you needed help on, sitting neatly on your desk, properly completed with your name on the top. You didn't want manufactured help, you wanted someone to converse with you, to work with you on the assignment, helping you help yourself.

I think government help works in the same way. Instead of having someone coming to where they live, and having a personal interest in them, the poor are receiving food where they live, and having a personal interest in them, the poor are receiving food stamps. Instead of hearing a kind word from someone, they're getting lower taxes. Although this help is better than no help, I suggest that we meet people where they're at, instead of assuming the government will take care of everything, like it always does or is supposed to do.

That's why I like organizations such as the Acumen Fund and the Peace Corps. The Acumen Fund is a global fund that recognizes that the poor don't need charity, they need dignity. In order to empower the needy, Acumen makes long-term investments with businesses to create patient capital. According to the official Acumen Fund website, "Patient capital is understood as a debt or equity investment in an early-stage enterprise providing low-income consumers with access to healthcare, water, housing, alternative energy, or agricultural inputs." The Peace Corps is a volunteer organization through which volunteers get to make enormous differences in the lives of others. From integrating new teaching methods, and promoting awareness about certain health issues, to working with small farmers to increase their food production, the Peace Corps is also restoring dignity to the poor. Organizations such as these, meet a person's basic needs while empowering them to live better lives.

Instead of focusing solely on charities, we need to find other ways in which we can better people's lives for the long run. Donations will always run out, but life changes will never die, continuing to impact generations to come.

Saved to Serve, Part II

Essay #1

Money cannot buy you everything. That is a reality that must be reckoned with. Money cannot buy me joy or peace. Those things depend on my attitude and surrendering to the will of God. It cannot buy me love, although it can be a sign that I love or am loved. It cannot buy me salvation. As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is true when God says "every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills" (Psalm 50:10). If anyone would have had enough money to save me, it would've been God. But nothing that belongs to Him is worth enough to pay for my salvation except the blood of His Son. Without sacrifice, there is no reconciliation. There had to be sweat, blood and tears on my behalf. That was the example we were given as Christians. That is the example I must follow.

If I die to self, if I offer up myself as a living sacrifice, God is able to use me to show the beauty of reconciliation between humanity and the Creator. There are many wonderful organizations that can do amazing things with my donations, but the donation of a living sacrifice will always go beyond the value of the dollar. All the money in the world would do no good to help the poor if there was not a human being to put that money to the right use. And when I serve, I am served. That is the perfection of the process: God asks me to go out on a limb for His glory and then He forms my character in that process so I can become more like Him. Even then I can only have the slightest understanding of Christianity when I give of myself and not just my money. It is a win-win situation when I serve in a direct way. Jesus knew there was the potential for many win-win situations upon walking this earth. Not only would the person He served be saved, but He would eventually be able to secure their company in Heaven with Him.

As a Christian, and having wrestled with the concept of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20, I have come to the conclusion that my life is about service. In my junior year of college I responded to a call to go as a student missionary with the understanding that I should give God a year of my life. At least that is what I gathered from many of the appeals related to missions. In my time as a student missionary in Austria, I realized that the Great Commission never spoke about serving Jesus for one year of my life or even a few years of my choice. The gospel has always been about complete surrender from Adam to Armageddon. Abraham was asked to surrender the son of his promise while the woman at the well was asked to surrender her five previous lovers and her distorted perspective of love to drink from the Well that never runs dry.

Jesus is the best example of surrender I have experienced although He was perfect while on this earth. One might think that He had nothing He needed to surrender, but even Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” He experienced character development while humbly working around the carpenter shop. His ministry was not primarily about giving money to causes because He had very little money and what He had was under Judas’ care. Even the money He paid for taxes to Caesar was taken out of a fish’s mouth. If someone needed healing, He did not give them money to go to a doctor because He was the highest rated Doctor in town. If Jesus is my example, then the playing field has been leveled out when I call myself a Christian. I am to give of myself and if I happen to have money, I can give of that, too. And perhaps I will be happier if I do, trusting that God will provide for me. What a joy it would be to find out in Heaven that someone there was saved because I served, not just with my money, but with all my means.

Direct Service

Humans are social beings that thrive on love, friendship, and connections with fellow beings in general. It is part of our nature to have passions and areas of interest in which we invest our time, money, and effort. Many people have a passion for, or at least an interest in service of some form; some organization or cause that they feel they ought to back. But is financial support enough? Can one truly give back to the community in a purely monetary manner? I think not. Dr. Karl Bailey and his associates in the Behavioral Sciences Department of Andrews University conducted a study on religiosity and their results showed that high cost behaviors (such as tithing, fasting, being an elder, active involvement of some sort) resulted in greater happiness than those that simply attended.
Similarly, Bill McKibben brings up the Waltons of Walmart fame, who on the top tier of the financial pyramid “runs a budget deficit and can’t afford a new sewage treatment plant” in the town of Bentonville, Arkansas, the birthplace of the Walmart industry (pg.124). One of McKibben’s statistics stated that Americans who make between $50,000 and $100,000 give “two to six times as much of their money (in percentage terms) as people who make more than $10 million” (pg.124). These wealthy people that donate money at such low percentages don’t get involved in the organizations and programs that they financially support. If one doesn’t get involved in high cost behaviors, then one is not as vested in the programs as much.
People are wired to interact with one another, to help each other out, and to push themselves in areas that they are interested in/passionate about (otherwise no one would ever get a college degree, the effort wouldn’t be worth it), but if people aren’t involved in face-to-face service, it is hard to become passionate about a cause or program. Unless one has first-hand personal experience, the cause isn’t real to them. I’m not saying that there is no room for financial contribution, because without money virtually nothing can function. Also, a person may have multiple causes they are interested in helping, but one can’t feed people in Somalia, take care of orphans in Russia, and teach literacy in El Salvador simultaneously; few people have the time to dedicate years of their lives to service, and that is fine. One can contribute financially to those organizations, but I believe that it is essential to our well-being, and our Christian calling to change the world around us in some small way, for service is a truly selfless calling.

Made to Serve

Why help the poor when our government can help them for us? I mean, it's not our fault they're in their predicament, why should it be our responsibility to pull them out of it?

I guess this is a valid point. We're busy enough with our own responsibilities and problems and neither have the time nor the desire to go out of our way to serve someone face-to-face. As long as the poor are getting help, what does it matter if the help comes in a personal form or not?

I personally believe that nothing can substitute personal help -help in which you meet the person where he or she is at. It's benefical both to the helper and the helped. In this type of service, the helper can find out exactly what a person needs and can make sure they get it. Government help, on the other hand, is very iffy. Are all the changes in taxes really helping those who need help, or are the rich just simply getting richer? If we're really concerned with the answer to this, why not figure it out on our own? We can never truly find out the answer to this until we meet the poor where they're at. Until we go to their environment, converse with them on how life is going for them and what they would like it to be, we really can't know if they're getting the help that they need.

Not only is personal service more direct and effective, on an emotional level it lets the person know that someone cares, that someone outside of their situation cares enough to do something about it. Imagine that you needed help with an assignment. Everyone around you sees that you need help, but no one offers a hand. But you see, the school you're attending has a system in which you can get help by simply putting your request in a box. Excited, you write down your request and slip it into this box, anxiously awaiting help. The next day, much to your chagrin, you return to school to find the assignment that you needed help on, sitting neatly on your desk, properly completed with your name on the top. You didn't want manufactured help, you wanted someone to converse with you, to work with you on the assignement, helping you help yourself.

I think government help works in the same way. Instead of having someone coming to where they live, and having a personal interest in them, the poor are receiving food stamps. Instead of hearing a kind word from someone, they're getting lower taxes. Although this help is better than no help, I suggest that we meet people where they're at, instead of assuming the government will take care of everything, like it always does or is supposed to do.

Is Direct Service to the Poor Needed?

I was reading in Sachs (I am somewhat a glutton for punishment) and came across this statement (pg. 265): "Racial discord plays a critical role in determining beliefs about the poor. Since minorities are highly over-represented amongst the poorest Americans, any income-based redistribution measures will redistribute particularly to minorities...It seems people are more willing to withstand high rates of taxation if they know that their taxes are paying for programs that help people like them..."

I have always prided myself on being open-minded about race and about homeless people (or the poorest of the poor). I tend to agree with Sachs that 'taking care of the poor' (helping them out of poverty traps) will increase global prosperity and environmental health as well as increase global security. But then I read that statement in Sachs and I began wondering if I would personally vote to increase taxes in this country in order to fund social welfare programs. No. I don't think I would. Why should I let the government take my hard-earned cash and give it to some deadbeat Latin American, or American Indian, or.... you can see the disconnect.

I think there is a need for individual, direct service to the poor and disadvantaged--especially in one's own country--because it encourages sympathy. If, through offering direct service to the needy, I begin to see poor people as people who need help instead of minorities who need help, I will feel more inclined to act politically to change my government's priorities and maybe a collective government change will save the world.

Along with that, I completely agree with McKibben who says that Americans have too little community. He suggests one way to fix that is to do volunteer work or to join a group. If I join a group who is dedicated to helping the disadvantaged directly, then I have found a community that can support me as well.