Dealing With Suffering & Poverty

I recently got back from a month in Uganda, and, as is likely when you do any missionary work in a third world country, we saw a lot of poverty. People with few clothes, if any, whose homes were dirt, mud, and trash. Children walking up to piles of trash and digging for some sort of cardboard to use as toilet paper, since they relieved themselves on the ground moments before. This is how I’ve learned to deal with seeing such things.

First, immediate reaction. Be happy. Smile at those children, because regardless of what state of life they are in, they are in it, and they are just kids, and honestly, most of them are happy to see you, so return the favor. Smile and wave and yell and laugh, even if you’re just in a bus passing by, because in a lot of Africa, if you’re white, you are a big deal, so regardless of what exhausting other exhausting ministry you’re doing, do the kindness of showing those kids the love of God in whatever way you can.

Second, remember what you’re doing there. You wish you could do something to help every person you see. You wish you could give them a proper home, a balanced diet, pants, shirt, underwear, socks, shoes, attention, love, safety, and a myriad of other things. But often, you cannot do all of that. In fact, attempts to “fix” some things could kinda go against the way their culture works, and that’s something only they can “fix”. No, what you need to do is remember what your ministry is doing, what you are doing, what you did earlier that day, or the day before, or are going to do. Otherwise, you’ll die of empathy. It’s only healthy as long as it brings out the humanity in you, but if it’s forcing guilt or something else bad on you, you need to stop. You are doing precisely as much as you can, and God is working through it all, both ahead of you and behind, and He orchestrated for you to do as much or as little as you are doing.

Last (or maybe not, but we’ll say so for now), learn about what you’re seeing. Culture shock is difficult to deal with, but it needs to happen. Find out why poverty is so prevalent, and to what extent, and what is being done, and what is not being done. Are the people lazy? Is the government corrupt? Is anything being done? Asking questions will make it possible for you to know something when you get back, maybe even enough to raise support for some of those people suffering across the world.