Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The poor can't help the poor


The poor can’t help the poor.

I heard this preached a few years ago when we were in a place of transition and I was wanting to fast track the process to come to Ethiopia.  I thought that maybe THIS was the reason why it still hadn’t happened.  We were far from rich and struggled to pay our bills even, yet trusted God always to supply our needs.  Ideas started rolling through my head about businesses I could start that would support us long term while we were in Ethiopia serving the “poor”. 

I arranged a meeting with a business coach to see how I could further my innovative ideas.  The whole meeting ended up being about how there was a LOT that I NEEDED to do before I even thought about moving to Ethiopia, all based on her theology about missions.  This totally left me discouraged and emotionally unrested about the possibility that her words were true!  Thankfully I had Connect Group that night and had friends who prayed for me and dispelled the lies that the enemy started placing in my mind. 

The poor can’t help the poor, was also quite possibly one of these lies.  Did Jesus come as a rich man to earth, desiring to be the financial solution for all those who had nothing?  No.  What is poverty anyway?  Is it relative?  Is it living week to week? Is it having nothing to call your own? Having no assets and a million liabilities?  Is it a spirit or mind set that can be broken? 

Like other situations in my life, where I’ve been told to earn more and displace other priorities in my life like my family, I decided to operate in the opposite to what I’d been advised.  As a couple we decided to sell our home, which inevitably made us poorer.  We had nothing to call our own as we left New Zealand, other than the belongings we carried in our 24 suitcases.  We had no business to feed into our bank account, no residual income, no interest accumulating in any investments we had made.  We literally left as poor people –not even sure of how we would make our monthly payments.

Poverty lingered in our destination and we had nothing to offer as far as money was concerned.  Oh, such an awkward situation to be in.  I mean, after all, aren’t all ferenjis (foreigners) meant to have stash loads of money when they come to places like Ethiopia?   Um, not these ferenjis.  We discovered that all we had to give was what we had in our hearts and in our experiences.
 
But somehow we saw God provide even though we had nothing.  Miraculously answering prayers and showing us how BIG He is and how much He loves to bless His children who walk in obedience to Him.  What was this?  HOPE we could share with those who had no hope about their own financial situation out of personal experience of God's provision - it became our testimony.  He also taught us that poverty is a mindset.  It’s a place of comparison where we think that we need MORE and desire to be like those who HAVE more.  Does that not describe most of the developed world?  It certainly described the environments where we came from and the people we worked with in South Auckland.

Through the process of trust that we went through and continue to go through, God has shown us His abundance, and He has done so even more in the past couple of months.  As I went to pay the USD$900 that we owed for our children’s visas and was thinking about how much money we were "wasting" God reminded me of a dream I had just prior to leaving New Zealand, after we sold our house.  My dream was about me making a cake for my friend.  I had to walk to her house along the road and through a school and as I walked along, people kept coming up and asking me for some cake.  I let them take some and piece by piece the cake became smaller and smaller until there were only crumbs left.  I asked God what this dreamt meant as it left me quite disturbed and I knew it was a God dream and didn’t want to miss the message He was sending.  I had my own interpretations which ended up being dismissed when I went to church that Sunday.  Ps Sam Monk shared a message about giving- I think he was going through a series at that time.  He said “Some people think that God’s provision is like a cake.  That we think that when God gives out that His supply runs out and that all is left are crumbs. But God’s supply is not like that…that His supply never runs out.”  This lesson has comforted me many times over the last year.  It changed my mindset before I left for Ethiopia.  My poverty mind set was gone and the mind set of abundance was born. 

God is a God of abundance.  He is able to create something out of nothing and He seemingly continues to do so in our lives . From this place, we are able to minister to those who may seem poor to the rest of the world, but whose faith and belief in what God is able to do is so much richer than most Christians in the developed world.  They have and continue to minister to us as we have ministered to them.  

Rev 12:11  And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 


Saturday, September 1, 2012

A New Season.


I never would have imagined ten years ago, that I would be sitting here in the Kuala Lumpur airport on my way back to Ethiopia.  I never would have imagined ten years ago, that I would have traveled as much as I have in the past year and have people travel to meet us and totally affect our lives so dramatically.  I remember being asked ten years ago where I wanted to be in ten years’ time and as a stay at home mother, I found it hard to see past the next day, let alone the next year or ten years.  Yes, I had dreams and aspirations, but they seemed far too ambitious and not very realistic.  Even the dream I held for Ethiopia.

I was sharing with a friend this week my thoughts on the whole stay-at-home mum season.  It really is a difficult season because there are no immediate rewards or appreciation.  Life is tough and you often feel isolated and frustrated because it feels like you aren’t really contributing to society or the better good…but now I see that actually you are…so much more than you can imagine. 

The season of staying home with your kids, with no audience or applause is really the season of character growth.  As attitudes and reactions manifest themselves through the pressure that is put on you by these little people who really have no idea what power they have on your life, STUFF is dealt with – if we so choose it to affect us in that way. 

Like I named my last blog post- Children are a blessing.  But sometimes it hard to see that through the mess they drag through the house, the continual requests (in tones often unpleasant to the ear) and the fights they have with each other.  I guess we are not anywhere near perfection yet, but sometimes there is a glimmer of satisfaction for all of those days spent at home, when one of my children says or does something that brings me great joy and makes me realize how actually amazing my kids are.

So that season has past, at least having little children at home has past…and I’m about to go into this new season as Ministry representative/Administrator for Blessing the Children Oz!  And I’m so excited about it.  And my children are excited about it and my husband has been amazingly supportive of it.  He is such a secure man right now. I couldn’t imagine ten years ago that he would be the man that he is today either.  I am so thankful for the changes God has allowed to happen in his life.

There is a challenge that lays ahead but I am thankful for the people God has placed around us to support us.  I am thankful for Glen and Catherine McIntyre and their belief in us to be able to do this thing and to hold down this responsibility.  I guess our gifts have made a way for us and as we inspire people to realize their gifts, that there will be a ripple effect of that. 

So BCO have a big vision and I guess I’ll unveil more as time permits, but please continue to keep us in your prayers.  Please keep believing that God can do far more with you than you could ever imagine.  Please know God’s grace to take someone like me and use me in such a way for the furtherance of His Kingdom around the world.  I am thankful that “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong”