These past two weeks have been a crazy whirlwind of adventures and fun. Thanksgiving week we had the privilege of Stephen Bauman, the president of Relief International, come and speak at our school. We only had him for three days because of turkey day so we doubled up on class time Monday-Wednesday. It was amazing to see how humble this man was after all that he has accomplished and the place he’s at now. He spoke about urbanization and community development and how important it is to learn how to help people not enable them in their poverty. It sounds so simple but it is so difficult to know how to really help someone. My mind was blown by how something that seems great could actually devastate and make the problem worse, like putting a Band-Aid over it instead of getting to the root of the infection and scraping it out, so to speak. For example say there was a village in Africa that was starving, our first reaction is to send food, or send money. This would be the Band-Aid. If we sent trucks of food over it would be great, but it would also put the widow with three children who sells fruit out of business, in turn forcing her to take handouts. Did you know that Africa is one of the wealthiest countries as far as natural resources go, but they are not equipped to use them? I had no idea because Africa is usually used in the commercials for feed the children, or World Vision. I just assumed that they had no option but starvation and poverty, but they do. Another example is going to Mexico to build houses for families. Great idea right? Maybe not, if we go and build a house for a family it could imply to the husband that he is incapable of providing for his family, and result in him leaving. That seems extreme but it could happen. So maybe instead of building the house ourselves, we need to include the family, and have them contribute as well. This would also give the family a sense of ownership instead of just taking handouts. Yet again a problem that is more complicate then it seems. Community development would be sending workers over, not to do the job for them, but to teach and show the people how to use the resources themselves so they can become self sufficient. This applies to all areas of communities, water and sanitation, food, shelter, health care, AIDS, you name it. It blows my mind how long I have been thinking with the mindset of a Band-Aid instead of helping to have no more wounds. I am not at all saying that building houses, or sending food or money is bad. I think it’s awesome, but we do need to be conscious of how we are “helping” so we’re not making a bigger problem than is already there. This week went along really well with what Troy Sherman was teaching us. There are so many issues in this world that aren't problems or issues they are dilemmas. Like abortion, gay marriage,immigration and so much more. Allot of political stuff that is so controversial, especially in the church community. I've been struggling with how to vote and how to choose where I stand on the really hard issues like these? How do I love people the way Jesus did and still not condone things that will hurt our society or people?? For example the Bible says that murder is wrong, black and white, however if we vote to make abortion illegal then there will be more children who will grow up in fatherless homes which ,statistics prove, increases the crime rate creating more people who get stuck in our the messed up prison system or will contribute to injustice. On the flip side if we vote to legalize abortion will people understand the gravity of the decision they are making, are we promoting murder in our society, how many hurting women will be out there with no help, and what if we condone the killing of the next generation, will there be anyone left? I am not saying abortion is okay, what I am saying is that instead of saying something is wrong or right we need to train our minds to think about the dilemma as a whole, and what all the ramifications would result with the decision. In my opinion anything issue that can be answered with a simply black and white answer is foolishness and naivety. Hopefully that came across the way I wanted it to. I do think that we need to have opinions and know what we stand for and why, but we HAVE to be very careful and make sure we are thinking about every angle of the issue.
This school has opened my eyes so much to see what the problems out there really look like, and how I need to prepare myself if I want to work in areas of injustice. I naively thought that all these problems could be fixed in a simply way, but what I’m discovering is that if I want to make a difference, and truly help people it is going to take a lot of time, and I will have to sacrifice a lot. After the things I’ve learned about and seen it seems impossible to go back to the life I was living before, so it looks like I’m going to dive in head first and pray that God will give me the wisdom and strength to do what I need to do. Whether that is going back to school, moving to a different country, doing an internship, or continuing on with YWAM I have no idea, but I know that if I rely on Jesus to guide my steps I can, we all can make a difference. It may not be pretty, and it will probably be painful but we will NEVER be alone if we trust and rely in him. He is the rock we stand on when everything around us is sinking, and he will never leave us or forsake us no matter what we face!
