thoughts on the (overwhelming) task of feeding the hunger of poverty

“I’m not qualified for this.”

That was the prevailing thought running through my mind as I settled into my room for the night. I couldn’t be more excited to teach the next day, but somehow I couldn’t shake the feeling of being unworthy of teaching these beautiful people anything.

I saw the way they looked at me. Like I was something special. Maybe I was. I have knowledge that they don’t have. I have enough money to not worry about my next meal. Heck, I have (or at least have access to) enough money to fly halfway around the world to even be in a class like I was with them.

But our presence there gave them hope.

You could see it in the way they looked at us. I could tell that they believed in me. They believed that I had something to give them that would change their lives.

And having someone believe in you like that has the power to change your life.

This is an excerpt from my book, The Unlikely Missionary: From Pew-Warmer to Poverty-Fighter. Get it on Amazon.com to read the full story about how one person can make a big difference in the world.

This was most apparent to me in the eyes of Bishop Renison Mbogo of Embu, Kenya. Renison was subscribed to the email feed on the blog when I announced that I’d be coming to Thika. He sent me an email telling me how excited he was that I’d be coming to Kenya, and that he desired to meet me there.

Apparently I had a whole lot to learn about the cultural differences between our two worlds. It seems that me saying, “I would love to meet you in person, please come to our classes that we’ll be teaching,” meant that I was now financially responsible for him during his visit.

One morning at breakfast time, he and his associate had a humble breakfast of toast and tea at the table next to our team. When everyone got up to get ready to go, I asked him if he was okay (financially) to cover the cost of his breakfast. Looking me dead in the eye he said to me, “No, I am not okay.” So I bought him his breakfast, and made sure that they had enough to eat before we left for our classes.

Where he lived in Embu is approximately an hour and a half drive under normal (American) travel circumstances. But for a poor preacher in Kenya it’s about a six to eight hour trek while hitching rides where you can.

Part of me, that is a BIG part of me, was quite impressed that someone would go through such trouble to come hear me teach.

And while it was only about $20–30 or so out of my pocket, I was happy to help cover some of his cost for lodging and meals while he was in town.

I could tell that Renison was hungry. He wanted desperately to pull himself and his congregation out of the poverty that weighed heavily on them every day of their lives. And I felt responsible to help him in any way that I could. But I felt limited in what I could do.

That’s another feeling that I wrestled with while I was there.

I wanted nothing more than to be able to fix everyone’s problems. But these problems are so big that one man on one trip couldn’t possibly make THAT much of an impact. But this trip is about planting seeds… not fixing everything. If the people were going to break the cycle, then they’d have to do it themselves. I could only help make sure that they were doing it on good soil.

I still think of Renison often. I can still see the look in his eyes, and hear him saying, “No, I am not okay” like he just said it to me.

That’s one of the things that weighed heavily on me as I taught my sessions. This wasn’t one of those trips where you go do something so that you can feel good about yourself. There are real people out there who are “not okay” and are looking to the rest of us to give them a hand.

They’re not interested in handouts. You don’t hitch hike for about seven hours because there’s a man you’ve never met who might by you a meal. The hunger for something more is a deep one.

No pressure…

Dan King is the author of The Unlikely Missionary: From Pew-Warmer to Poverty-Fighter and the co-author of Activist Faith: From Him and For Him.

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