Usually
our church’s summer mission trips focus on giving aid to people who have gone
through a natural disaster: tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes. Last month, although we travelled to West
Virginia to assist flood victims, our efforts were directed more to people
struggling to get by in situations of poverty.
For example, Michelle, who owns the home where I worked, is a single
mother who is unable to work, trying to get by on disability checks and what
extra money she can earn breeding pedigree dogs. She is a giver, not a taker, helping
neighbors “with money I don’t have” with their own struggles.
It’s
one thing to help people going through a crisis, to help them get back on their
feet. But how can we best help people
like Michelle, or the residents of the Montana Indian reservation we visited on
our first mission trip? They greatly
appreciated our efforts, and Michelle now has a dry, insulated room ready for
the winter. She is grateful for that
blessing, but her overall situation still has not changed. She will still struggle to pay her bills, or
decide what necessities she can do without.
She still lives in a community with no jobs, even if she was able to
work. She will still have to wrestle
with the dark emotions that rise up from living in a seemingly hopeless
situation.
Our
week with her brought a ray of sunshine into her darkness, and we improved her
living conditions a bit. Or as we say
here at Old Union, we encouraged her and built her up. But how much of a difference did we make for
her overall? Did we give a glass of
water to someone in the desert, but leave her in the blazing heat? Did we pull someone out of a ditch, but leave
her stranded on the side of the road?
Jesus
told a story about a Samaritan who gave aid to someone who had been beaten and
left for dead (Luke 10). As he tells the
tale, “when he saw him, he took pity on him.
He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.” The Samaritan helped the man, but he was
still weak and wounded, unable to fend for himself. So he put the man on his donkey, took him to
an inn, and took care of him. He then
paid the innkeeper to continue to care for the man until he was fully
healed. The Samaritan was not satisfied
with half-way measures. He continued to
encourage and build up the man until he was restored to full health and
strength.
I
wonder if at times we are satisfied with half-way measures of our own. We fix someone’s house without addressing the
causes of her poverty. We give school
supplies to children in need, but do little to help them and their families be
able to care for themselves. Half-way
measures feel good, because we see immediate results. We can be the knights in shining armor,
helping them in their distress. We pat
ourselves on the back, pleased with the encouragement and up-building we have
done. But the sources of their struggles
remains.
How
can we be more like the Good Samaritan in the encouragement we give? I don’t know, but I hope that together we can
look for some answers.
