A challenge for you!

On Compassion's blog is a post about listening.  Read it, and then consider this challenge:

For one week (not less than one day!), listen to yourself, your spouse/significant other/family, listen to people around you wherever you are, wherever you go.  Listen for conversations, questions, statements, comments--anything that you would not hear among people who live in real poverty.

I read the post on Compassion's blog and immediately thought about some of the conversations at our house having to do with vacations.  Vacations give us a break from work and, depending on how we plan them, a chance to catch up on some rest, time to just sit and reflect, time to go deeper into God's Word, to watch in leisure as boats and sea planes go in and out of a bay...as we plan to do in June.  Vacations give us a chance to have some fun, whatever that means to an individual:  rock-climbing, surfing, deep-sea diving, kayaking, fishing, skiing...fill in the blanks for yourself.

But the poor never get a break from their poverty.  Even the children who are registered in a Compassion-assisted student center continue to live in their poverty. Yes, they receive a good meal, every day that they are at the center, as well as education assistance; health care, and nutrition assistance, as needed; a safe place to play and develop social skills; a life skill, which will enable them to provide for themselves and their families; many opportunities to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and to learn the Word of God; and so much more.  Most of those who are sponsored will exchange letters, periodically, with their sponsors and receive small (to us) birthday and Christmas gifts.  But they go home to a very small structure, often very shaky, which typically houses far more people than can reasonably be accommodated.

The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is enough.  Anything more than that is more than we need, and we have a responsibility to share.  So take the challenge, thank God for all that you have and remember that, as we say at my church, "We are blessed to be a blessing."

Comments

[Beverly]

Your last paragraph should speak to us all. I think I did learn that after living in Haiti. Enough...people who have never had the opportunity to go to a third world country can look at pictures all they want, but until they go and see it and smell it in person and visit in the homes of some of these dear people can they begin to understand what enough is.

I realize my sentences are run-on and everything else. Sorry :-(

[Vicki Small]

Nothing wrong with your sentences; they're perfectly grammatical, and besides that, you are correct. Poverty has to be seen in person, touched, felt, "smelt," and heard, to be grasped.

I knew this would resonate with you. Thanks for leaving your comment.

[Hulagirl]

You are so right, Vicki. We need to be thankful that we are a blessing to others, and sometimes we won't actually know those blessings immediately, but they will show up later, if not here, then we will hear about it in Heaven.

I also agree that people need to actually visit the countries where poverty is so prevalent to see for themselves what it is really like. And yet I noticed on my trip to the Dr in 2007, the people seemed so happy with so little. We should be the same.

[Vicki Small]

Hey, Barb - I should have known who Hulagirl was!

Thanks for your comment, and yes, I noticed the same in DR, generally. Joy is, of course, one of the "pearls of poverty" that Wess has talked and written about. It is also a quality that I would guess most Americans miss, because they're striving constantly to get more.