Poverty :: Paradigm Shifter

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.

~ John Berger

From The Hole in our Gospel:
"I don't like the word poverty. It is one of those loaded words that carries with it a great deal of baggage and stigma. It sounds like a disease or a bad character trait that some people have and others don't. It's also a word that divides the world into 2 unequal groups, the poor and the rest of us, as though somehow we are different. Each of us brings different associations to the word poverty based on our past understandings and misunderstandings. In America, which has prided itself as being the "land of opportunity," it is not uncommon for us to make value judgments about those who are poor. If they are poor in America, we reason, it must be for a reason..."

A reason like laziness, stupidity, corruption, they don't work hard, ineffectiveness, or some sort of bad decision. So consider this to crash your paradigm...

Bill Clinton on Poverty:
"I want you to imagine what would have happened in your lives if there had been no connection whatsoever between how hard you worked and the results you got, because that is exactly the situation faced by more than one billion people who live on less than one dollar a day. The connection between how hard they work and the result they will get has been broken."

This removes all kinds of judgment in me and challenges me to be an agent of justice and equality for those who don't have a voice. We have much to be grateful for, and much will be required.

Why Adopt a Girl?

We have been asked on a number of occasions about why we wanted to adopt a little girl (NOTE: we are open to adopting 1 girl and 1 boy). Africa has a saying that we resonate with:

If you educate a man, you simply educate an individual,
but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.

In Rich Stearns', President of World Vision (world's largest NGO), opinion, "the single most significant thing that can be done to cure extreme poverty is this: protect, educate, and nurture girls and woman and provide them with equal rights and opportunities - educationally, economically, and socially."

In our world today, being female isn't what God intended gender partnership to look like.

Sadly, in our world today, being female often means being sentenced to a life of poverty, abuse, exploitation, and deprivation.
Compared to her male counterpart, a girl growing up in the developing world is more lifely to die before her fifth birthday and less likely to go to school, since girls are often forced to work rather than attend school...She is less apt to receive adequate food, health care, and economic opportunities... [R. Stearns]

Here are some other heartbreaking realities:

• 500,000 women die every year from complications in childbirth [= 1 women/minute].
• Female babies are killed in some countries just because they aren't boys.
• Women own less than 1% of the world's property, but work 2/3 of all the world's labor hours. They earn just 10% of the world's wages.
• Girls in developing countries are often forced to quit school when they get their periods.
• 2/3 of the world's illiterate population are women.

In the words of Annie, "It's a knock life". So, if Brian & I can be a part of protecting 1 or 2 girls' future, we choose girls. And we believe and trust that our daughter(s) will be a part of the global change for women's rights!

The Greatest Problem of our Time

President Jimmy Carter's known for his work among the poor, specifically Habitat for Humanity. He was asked to share in a speech in 1999 what the world's greatest challenge would be in the new millenium. Wanna guess what he said?


Fast forward a few years. The year was 2002. President Carter had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his accomplishments post-presidency in fighting poverty, disease, and promoting democracy. In his acceptance speech, he said this:

At the beginning of this new millennium I was asked to discuss, here in Oslo, the greatest challenge the world faces. Among all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the 10 wealthiest countries are not 75 times richer than those who live in the 10 poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them. The results of this disparity are root causes of most of the world's unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict, and unnecessary illnesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS.

Where's the church in all this? Why aren't we doing more to prevent what would be unacceptable in our own families, communities, and neighborhoods? Why aren't some of the loudest voices against injustice followers of the God of Justice?

Again, I'm not just preaching to you. I'm preaching to me, too. These are problems we can solve as the body of Christ. Jesus said the world would know we love him by our love for each other, and especially means the poorest of the poor. Take a look at Jesus again. Notice who he touched, spoke to, spent time with, preached about.

I wonder what could happen if everyone who even read this blog did something! Wanna sponsor a child? There's a start. Visit http://y-malawi.org/.