Poverty

I just returned from a visit to Denver with my Wife. I went for a sustainable building conference called "Greenbuild". It was very enlightening but not so much the way you might think. I was able to listen to Jeffery Sachs discuss extreme poverty in the world and its ties to sustainability. He first made the case for climate change and then showed that extreme poverty results in extreme responses i.e. people clearcutting all the wood in a region just to light fires to cook, fighting wars over water, killing over farmland. I will not try to make this point abundantly clear here because I am going to recommend reading his book The End of Poverty and then maybe checking out our website this week for a more thorough post by me.

Anyway I think I have started a paradigm shift in my thinking about poverty and the Lord brought me somone to help tonight. Right after dinner there was a knock at the door and I went to see who it was. There was a man there with a pleasant but pleading look on his face. He described to me how his youngest child was without formula and the cheapest stuff was $8.99 and he jsut didn't have the money. He brought his family here from Kingston, Jamaica because he said his daughter is a brilliant writer and he needed to bring her here to get her a real education. I told him I would be right back knowing that I didn't have any money to give him. I just went inside and stood there for a minute thinking about what he needed. I asked my wife if we still had any formula from when we were given it from the hospital with our kids. We didn't. I went to get some change out of my change jar and I think that God told me to give him the whole thing. I said to myself, I think there is probably at least $100 in this thing, do I really need to give it to him? Then I started to question whether he was even authentic, was he just another homeless guy looking for a handout? That I did not know, but I am sure that I was supposed to help. My wife then said we should give him the rest of our dinner in a container for him to take to his family. I bagged up about $12 in change and brought the food back out to him. I asked, to make sure, if he was going to bring it back to his family and told him it was good stuff and to please eat it. I gave him my card and told him to call me because I thought I might be able to help him find work.

I am not telling this story for any self recognition but just because I feel like I have to put it down on paper so to speak. It is not like anyone reads this blog anyway. I am very touched right now with how much effect we can have on oneanother when we look outside ourselves for a moment. Oh well, I will tell you two things I learned from Jeffery Sachs: 1) It would only take 1% of the world's income to put us on a course of sustainability to shift the ecological stress we have created and end poverty and 2) for me Ignorance Ends Today Negligence Starts Tomorrow.