It's Complicated

I used to have a simplistic view of poverty, basically there are poor people, it’s sad, when I can I should help them but not give money (because you don’t know what it’s spent on). When arriving in Belize I was shocked at the level of poverty, Belize is a very beautiful country but also a very poor one. While loved to look out at the abundance of palm trees, coconut trees, and jungle I could not help but notice the large amount of small, somewhat run down, houses scattered throughout. The typical house in Belize is a few rooms, one floor, and stone, some are painted and the nicer ones are wooden and on stilts. There is no “Stop and Shop”, no “CVS” there are fruit stands and gas station markets. Belize City is divided into two sections the south side is poor, the north side is wealthy. There is also a huge income gap. Seeing the poverty, kids who couldn’t afford to go to school, kids with literally nothing asking me for toys, it really redefined my views. My group had a long discussion on poverty and the conclusion is this, it’s complicated. On one hand we want to go out and everyone’s house and give to everyone we see and hand out lots of money to poor families but there is a problem, we end up creating a society dependent on help. There were many people coming up to us in the middle of work saying “When are you going to paint my house?” After a while people stop doing things for themselves and start waiting for people to do things for them. While that is true, we cannot stop serving others, I can’t say “I’m not going to Belize that only magnifies the issue” we all need to have a servant’s heart and a love for other people. If I were to stop serving that would give me a hard heart and go against the teachings of Jesus. So what do we do, serve until people are dependent on help, or stop serving altogether? The answer is this, it’s complicated there is no clear balance, no arrow pointing the right way, but there is what the Bible says about poverty and I don’t have room to write it here but I will write a post later.