Poverty Discussions

Last night we had the first of our weekly discussions on poverty. In future weeks we will actually be studying scripture, but for the first week we just talked about poverty and had a brief teaching from Kristin. It was interesting to see all of the different places and experiences people were coming from. I was also deeply struck by some of the difficult realities of poverty.

One situation in particular really struck me. There is a family in a village outside of Kolkata that have a better house than those around them thanks to the generosity of some past Word Made Flesh staff. They still don't have a lot, but I am glad for what they do have. This has created a large problem. The family is trying to get their daughter married off. In India, that requires giving the husband-to-be a dowry (Don't get me started on how much I hate those). The specific man can clearly observe that the family is better off because of the American money. As a result, he is requesting a completely unreasonable dowry (A house in Kolkata!). On top of that, the current relationship between that family and Word Made Flesh staff has been hurt because the family just expects money from the WMF staff. It is a really messy situation resulting from moving money around without changing the underlying structures.

When we were done with the discussion our team just took some time to pray about issues of poverty in the world. It was a really great time of coming together in Christ and letting our hearts be broken for the things that break God's heart.

A closing thought: If you are helping to fight poverty by giving money, but aren't willing to be directly involved, in your heart are you really helping, or just paying not to have to deal with the difficult issues of poverty?