POVERTY ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Mother Teresa

Born over sixty years ago in Yugoslavia, she responded to God’s call on her life while still a teenager. A missionary’s strong challenge to give her life to teaching in India resulted in her appointment to the city of Calcutta. Some months later she saw a sight which completely revolutionized her life, and would ultimately bring her world-wide fame as Good Housekeeping magazine’s “Most-Admired-Woman” selection. What was the sight? A homeless, dying woman lying in the gutter, being eaten by rats.

Compassion compelled her to beg an abandoned Hindu temple from the government and convert it into a crude, make-shift hospital for the dying. A comment of hers became her life’s thrust: “If there is a God in heaven, and a Christ we love, nobody should die alone.” This woman who established colonies for over 10,000 lepers in 28 cities was interviewed by Malcolm Muggeridge from the BBC News. “Mother Teresa, the thing I noticed about you and the hundreds of sisters who now form your team is that you all look so happy. Is that a put-on?” She replied, “Oh no, not at all. Nothing makes you happier than when you really reach out in mercy to someone who is badly hurt. Service is its own reward. True mercy begets genuine joy.”

SOURCE: Robert Schuller, The Be-Happy Attitudes, pages 135-137. Bantam Books, Reissue edition (July 1, 1987).

2. Give Away Your Clothes

On one of Matthew Rogers’ recent work trips to the Dominican Republic, everyone in the group was encouraged to leave behind any clothes or gear they didn’t want, because someone there could certainly use them. He was just going to give away some of his old worn out clothes, But as he put his dirty work clothes in the pile, he had a change of heart. He thought to himself, “I don’t want this stuff, so why would anyone else?” He put all his dirty, worn out work clothes back in his bag, and pulled out the clothes he still wanted to wear when he got home. Because he loved the people there, he didn’t want to just give junk. Instead he gave away his best. And wore home his worst. He got a lot of stares at the airport when he arrived home, walking around in dirty, ragged clothes and ripped up shoes. But what a wonderful feeling!

Source: Matthew Rogers, adapted by SermonCentral Staff

3. Orphans

C. H. Spurgeon preached once each year for his orphans. At that great meeting, many would come to hear the famous preacher, and an offering would be received for the orphanage. After one of these meetings he was leaving the sanctuary when one of those “super-spiritual,” narrow-minded, nitpicking individuals accosted him with the charge, “Why, Mr. Spurgeon, I thought you preached for souls and not for money!” Spurgeon gravely replied, “Why, Mr. So-and-So. Normally I do preach for souls and not for money. But my orphans can’t eat souls and if they did, my brother, it would take at least four the size of yours to give one of them a square meal!”

Source: Brett Blair www.eSermons.com, October, 2001

4. A Dollar a Day

A February 2002 issue of National Geographic says the Worldwatch Institute has issued its annual State of the World report. Almost every global environmental indicator has worsened over the last ten years and the gap between rich and poor has gotten wider. Over 1 billion people live on $1.00 a day while people in developed countries are suffering from an epidemic of obesity. The report emphasizes the link between environmental decline and human quality of life. More than 1.1 billion people on the planet lack access to safe drinking water, and nearly 3 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. Besides the poverty of which this speaks, it also means that waterborne diseases claim the lives of between 14,000 to 30,000 people a day. “That is the equivalent of several September 11th tragedies, every day, year in year out, but without the media attention,” the report author notes. “You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.” “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well feed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?” (James 5:5, and 2: 15-16).

Source: SermonCentral staff. Citation: Mayell, Hillary. “Green Group Gives Earth Failing Report Card.” National Geographic News, January 10, 2002. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/01/0110_020110worldwatch

5. Desperate in Mogadishu

“We were in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in East Africa, during a famine. It was so bad we walked into one village and everybody was dead. There is a stench of death that gets into your hair, gets onto your skin, gets onto your clothes, and you can’t wash it off.

“We saw this little boy. You could tell he had worms and was malnourished; his stomach was protruding. When a child is extremely malnourished, the hair turns a reddish color, and the skin becomes crinkled as though he’s 100 years old.

“Our photographer had a grapefruit, which he gave to the boy. The boy was so weak he didn’t have the strength to hold the grapefruit, so we cut it in half and gave it to him. He picked it up, looked at us as if to say thanks, and began to walk back towards his village."

“We walked behind him in a way that he couldn’t see us. When he entered the village, there on the ground was a little boy who I thought was dead. His eyes were completely glazed over. It turned out that this was his younger brother. The older brother kneeled down next to his younger brother, bit off a piece of the grapefruit, and chewed it. Then he opened up his younger brother’s mouth, put the grapefruit in, and worked his brother’s jaw up and down. We learned that the older brother had been doing that for the younger brother for two weeks.

“A couple days later the older brother died of malnutrition, and the younger brother lived. I remember driving home that night thinking, I wonder if this is what Jesus meant when he said, “There is no greater love than to lay down our life for somebody else.”

Contributed by: Dr. Bruce Emmert. Source: Jack Kelley, USA Today reporter, from message “The Stories Behind the Headlines,” given at Evangelical Press Association convention in May 2000.

6. Prayer Matters

In the early 1900’s through the 1960’s Broadway Presbyterian Church was a powerful witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Upper Manhattan, but from the 1960’s to the 1990’s a subtle change began to take place, a change in emphasis stole in as massive feeding programs for the homeless were undertaken church membership slipped from over 1000 to 120. In the soup kitchens, prayers were not even offered over meals out of concern that the clients might resent it. And it was discovered that the same people were coming through the lines year after year, there was no change taking place in their lives.

Source: World Magazine, 26 January 2002

7. I Am One

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something, and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

Source: Edward Everett Hale

8. American Fast food

American households spend about $240 a year on fast food, and typically only $5 a year helping children in poverty.

Source: Foster Letter 10/10/03

9. Seek the Good of Others

THE GIVING HEART The heart does not receive blood to store it up. While it pumps blood in at one valve, it sends it out at another. The blood is always circulating everywhere, and is never stagnant. The same is true of all the fluids in a healthy body; they are in a constant state of expenditure. If one cell stores for a few moments its particular secretion, it only retains it until it is perfectly fitted for its appointed use in the body. If any cell in the body should begin to store up its secretion, its store would soon become the cause of chronic disease. The organ would soon lose the power to secrete at all, if it did not give forth its products.
The whole of the human system lives by giving. The eye cannot say to the foot, I have no need of you and will not guide you; for if it does not perform its watchful office, the whole man will be in the ditch, and the eye will be covered with mud. If the members refuse to contribute to the general stock, the whole body will become poverty-stricken and be given up to the bankruptcy of death. Let us learn, then, from the analogy of nature, the great lesson, that to get we must give; that to accumulate we must scatter, that to make ourselves happy, we must make others happy; and that to get good and become spiritually vigorous, we must do good and seek the spiritual good of others.

Source: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc, 1990)

10. The Beggar and His Rice

A blind Indian beggar sat beside a road, fingering the rice in his little bowl. Wearing only a loin cloth, he sat in poverty beside a road that stretched into nowhere both ways. The scarce travelers occasionally gave him a little rice.

One day he heard the thunder of a chariot in the distance. It was the grand entourage of the maharajah. This was a moment that had never come before. Surely the great one would stop and give him baskets of rice.

Indeed, the golden chariot of the maharajah stopped before the poor beggar. The great one stepped down and the beggar fell before him. Then the sky seemed to fall in. “Give me your rice,” said the great one. A fearful, hateful, scowl masked the face of the beggar. He reached into his bowl and thrust one grain of rice toward the maharajah.

“Is that all?” said the great one. The beggar spat on the ground, cursed, and threw him one more grain of rice. The great one turned, entered his chariot, and was gone.
The beggar—angry, empty, and crushed—fingered the remaining rice he had hoarded in his bowl. He felt something hard, different from the rice. He pulled it out. It was one grain of gold. He poured out his rice, caring nothing for it now. He found one other grain of gold. Had he trusted the great one, he could have had a grain of gold for every grain of rice.

We rob ourselves because we do not want anyone to get our rice, and all along God is ready to pour out more that we can contain. The more of your rice you give, the greater the Master can make you live.

Source: www.e-sword.com