The Hole in Our Gospel

I'm in the midst right now of reading The Hole in Our Gospel, a book by Richard Stearns, the current President of World Vision. The bulk of the book thus far has put forth what should be a powerful wake-up call to the people sitting in American church pews each Sunday - the people who have the resources and the calling to change the lives of the world's poorest people but aren't living up to their potential. If you're reading this blog, then you probably have a better perspective on international missions than most of those people, but I would still recommend the book to anyone. If you read it and don't feel convicted about the awesome potential that you have to help other people around the world, then pass it on to someone you know who has extra "stuff" laying around!

In proposing his challenge to the American church, Stearns spends a portion of the book describing the reality of poverty in the developing world - especially trying to answer the question, "why are all these people so poor?" One reason, which comes from an annual conference for the Clinton Global Initiative, struck me as especially relevant to the people that CARE for AIDS is seeking to help:

"For most of the poorest people in the world, their hard work doesn't matter. They are trapped within social, cultural, political, and economic systems that do not reward their labor. The result of this entrenched futility is devastating to the human spirit. A person, no matter how gifted or determined, cannot escape the trap in which he finds himself. He has lost the one thing that every person needs to thrive: hope - hope that he will somehow overcome his curcumstance, that tomorrow can be better than today, and that his children might someday have a better life than his. Such people discover that they are in an economic and social prison from which there is no escape - unless something happens to change their circumstances and to restore the link between their effort and their reward. (Stearns, 119)"

Many of the clients that we work with have been severely hampered by the systems that surround them, leaving them completely lacking in hope. Hearing from their society that they are worthless, denied education and healthcare, facing a total lack of market for their skills or products, and suffering from a hand-to-mouth existence that leaves no time or energy for personal development - it is easy to see how hope can vanish.

Amazingly, it doesn't take much to restore hope and connect a person's effort with his results. By educating and encouraging the clients, we are able to show them that they have value and are worth just as much as someone who is HIV-negative. By equipping them with skills and teaching them to use them efficiently, we are empowering them to make a profit for themselves - a profit that turns into a lifestyle improvement - an improvement that over the course of time turns into a transformation.