by Chris Horst | Mar 17, 2011 | Blog |
It was a moment when personal convenience trumped common decency. Desmond, our six month old, was in his cheery post-feeding bliss. And, as I moved him through our hotel room, Desmond performed a response not uncommon for full babies: He spit-up. And the carpet caught the brunt of his act.
It was in this moment where I miserably failed a test of honor. I simply and soullessly watched as the spit-up pooled on the hotel’s beautiful carpet. Without any ethical reservations, I smushed the spit-up into the carpet fibers with the sole of my shoe. With just a few spineless swipes, Desmond’s deposit disappeared. I can’t even pretend I waffled with the decision. The whole sequence lasted just seconds.
Since that regrettable moment, I have attempted to identify what motivated me to do it. Despite its incivility, there have to be at least meager grounds for what I did. This is what I know: I would never have done that in my own house. In fact, I recounted a number of home floor-scrubbing memories, moments where I busted out specialized cleaning products and bristle brushes to clean even minor blemishes, exhausting my arm and back muscles in the process.
Ownership was the difference between these Mr. Clean moments and the hotel room villainousness. I am deeply committed to maintaining my home. It’s a place where I have invested personal energy, money and time. The hotel room, however, was just rented space. I knew I would never see that room again, so I was unconcerned about the long-term cleanliness and vibrancy of the hotel’s carpet.
While I am deserving of scorn, don’t furrow your brow at me just yet. You’re no different from me. I’m betting you’ve Andretti’d more than one Hertz rental in your lifetime. Or, perhaps you’ve left a bathroom stall in a condition which your mother would not approve. The principle applies beyond carpet stains. It’s the reason dormitory bathrooms teem with innumerable bacterial varieties. It’s why my fellow Coloradans feel no shame in abusing their rental skis while shredding the mountain. It’s why old Soviet apartment buildings look worse with each passing month.
At HOPE, we are committed to not dictating to our entrepreneurs the type of businesses they should start and run. We avoid coaching them into specific ideas for the same reason I vigorously scrub our home’s soiled carpets. If we conceive it, they don’t own it. Business challenges become as dismissible as hotel room infractions. When our clients pursue their own dreams, no stain—a rough sales month or tough weather—is uncleanable.
by Chris Horst | Feb 16, 2011 | Blog |
At first glance, the article reads like a first-hand account of a post-disaster country: “Streets once devoid of commerce in towns like this and in Havana are gradually coming to life…” The scene Victoria Burnett described in her New York Times article was not of a country recovering from a natural disaster or civil war. Instead, it depicted her journey through Cuba, a country whose people have been reawakened. She experienced the buzz of vibrant entrepreneurship: Unshuttered storefront windows, machinery re-tuned and whirring along till late in the night, rich smells of freshly-ground coffee beans, and the hum and excitement of restaurateurs promoting their newly-minted menus.
Cuba gives us a real-time snapshot into the spirit of innovation. For decades, unrealized dreams and untapped abilities were locked within the failed Cuban socialist system. The government-imposed chains have now been cut loose. In a move of genuine humility (at best) or desperate self-preservation (at worst), Cuban leaders have admitted that the Cuban people are better positioned than their government to innovate and to address their country’s problems.
The Cuban rebirth unearths the soul of HOPE International’s work. At the core, we believe that God—the innovator of the solar systems, mountain ranges, and human emotion—has planted a glimmer of his creativity in us. When given the opportunity to do so, people will put that gift to work. Architects, chefs, artists, entrepreneurs, electricians, florists, educators and scientists each apply their God-given creativity in uniquely profound ways. Now, for the first time in decades, Cubans have the chance to do the same.
Photo source: Jose Goitia, The New York Times
Our role as those with abundance is to do more than solely provide for those in need. Our calling is far greater than providing food for hungry bellies and medicine for sick bodies. We are surely called to do these things, but also called to unleash the God-given creativity of those in need. To fuel the imaginings of those without the privilege of exercising their creative muscles.
As I watch Cubans taking small steps toward these ends, my spirit is energized. Tomorrow, I will fly to another Caribbean nation – the Dominican Republic. While there, I will observe the fruits of Dominican innovation. I will feast on slow-cooked and fantastically-marinated rice and beans, enjoy the sweetness of freshly-harvested fruit smoothies, and perhaps purchase a bottle of home-brewed shampoo. I will meet entrepreneurs who are using the abilities and engaging the dreams which God has sowed within them. The Dominican economy and its people are flourishing. Let’s hope Cuba is right behind them.
by Chris Horst | Jan 12, 2011 | Blog |
I have never watched ABC’s hit series “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” without getting goosebumps, at the very least. A recent episode featured an incredible rehabilitation project at a school for deaf youth. My heart strings weren’t tugged. They were yanked. I was enthralled with the stories of the kids, and deeply moved by the incredible transformation which took place.
But, sadly, Extreme Makeover has been has had a very shaky record of success. When the projects ended for many of the recipient families, and the celebrities were replaced with utilities bills, their homes became a suffocating hardship. Six of the families have actually gone into foreclosure. For these six families, the Extreme Makeover experience made a big splash but became a big burden.The ongoing costs and maintenance required for heating these huge homes and keeping the swimming pools operable were exorbitantly and unaffordably high.
Source: TV Guide
These families struggled with a gift they were not prepared to receive. Tracy Hutson, an interior designer on the show, responded to these foreclosures: “I think our hearts were in the right place, but we just got carried away.”
Tracy’s reflections to her failed charity projects mirror feelings we all have experienced after our own misguided compassionate endeavors. Like the producers, donors and celebrities on Extreme Makeover, we often swarm into poor communities with our cameras flashing. We generate a firestorm of enthusiasm, but so often our results fall woefully short of our noble and charitable intentions. Our hearts were right, but our outcomes were wrong.
To their credit, the producers of Extreme Makeover have since adjusted their approach to ensure a higher level of success: They are building smaller homes with more manageable upkeep and they are working with recipient families to ensure they are capable of maintaining their new homes. Likewise, the solution to our failed charitable efforts should not be to abandon Good Samaritanism altogether. Instead, we need to intensely scrutinize our efforts, retool where necessary, and ensure that those on the receiving end of our efforts are partners in the process.
by Chris Horst | Dec 15, 2010 | Blog |
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
How many times will you hear these wise words this holiday season? This is my favorite time of year primarily because of this season’s emphasis on giving. The charitable and gift-giving yearnings among us all are stoked and encouraged more in December than at any other time of the year. This spirit is encapsulated and affirmed in what might be our favorite Christmas saying: It is more blessed to give than to receive.
The axiom could not be truer. Giving is a joy. Research suggests that generous people are happier people. Generous countries are happier countries. Benevolence brings vibrancy to our faith. Historically, openhandedness and abundant giving have been the fragrance of the Church. Part of our mandate as Christians includes a call to a countercultural understanding of our role as stewards, rather than owners, of our time and treasure. I’ll just speak for myself, but my hunch is others will resonate: My charity often robs the poor of the opportunity to give, rather than encouraging generosity.
We hold a collective agreement that giving is more blessed than receiving. Accordingly, we need to invest more energy and intentionality around promoting generosity among the people to whom we give. When the poor become more than recipients, actually becoming donors and volunteers themselves, the very soul of generosity is unleashed.
Pay it forward-ism should be our rally cry. Stories from places Romania and Uganda compel me to give in this way:
Inspired by the generosity of donors to their country, a group of Romanians determined to replicate this generosity themselves. This month, 50 microfinance clients of HOPE’s partner program in Romania participated in funding and packaging over 12,000 Christmas shoeboxes for orphans in their community.
In Uganda, one man—Bishop Hannington—has catalyzed an entire community around this concept. Even though the town was recovering from a war, and poor in every way imaginable, he preached a surprising and seemingly impossible message of generosity. Even the very poorest in this community responded to his call to live generously. One woman, both elderly and crippled, put an exclamation point on Bishop Hannington’s message (4:57 in the video):
I heard what was taking place. And even though I am crippled, I, too, wanted to give.
What God did there through His church is nothing short of a miracle. The story will be an encouragement to you as we enter fully into the season of giving.
by Chris Horst | Oct 20, 2010 | Blog |
“Moonshine or the Kids?” Nicholas Kristof, writer for the New York Times, stimulated much uneasiness with this question in his recent column on global poverty. He said:
“There’s an ugly secret of global poverty, one rarely acknowledged by aid groups or U.N. reports. It’s a blunt truth that is politically incorrect, heartbreaking, frustrating and ubiquitous: It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households.”
Kristof went on to cite some clear data to highlight this disturbing “ugly secret.” At the same time I read this article, I heard a radio report about the rising prices of vodka in Russia. In the report, they interviewed an unemployed man who was frustrated by the rising prices. He said, “I just so desperately need to find a job so I can afford to buy more vodka.” The comment stuck with me. We work in Russia and I wondered if this man had ever attempted to start a business through HOPE to “grow his family’s income.”
It’s easy to romanticize the decision-making of poor people. Of course they’ll choose to send their kids to school over sending for a prostitute. Of course they’ll choose to feed their kids breakfast before feeding their alcohol addiction. But what makes us think that? What makes us wrongly assume that they don’t deal with the same brokenness that we do? This article and radio report made me uncomfortable as I contemplated whether HOPE’s work had ever helped poor Russians buy more vodka.
I’m more convinced than ever that helping people materially is not enough. Helping is enabling. My friend, Dr. Rob Gailey, articulated it more clearly. He said that “economic development is about increasing people’s choices.” If we help an alcoholic poor person – and there is no heart change – we will simply enable him to buy higher qualities and quantities of alcohol. Without heart change, as the BBC reported, helping families in India might actually be enabling them to perform sex-selection abortions, a problem which “prosperity is actually aggravating.”
In a sense, we could be enabling the oppressed to become the oppressors if we do not speak to more than business decisions. True change happens when we promote biblical values, boldly communicating the truth of the Gospel. Income growth is important, but it is only when hearts and minds are transformed that we will we see true change happen. When I hear stories like that of Mama Flores (video below), a salon owner who has trained and employed over 15 orphans through her business success, I am energized that our approach answers the unsettling questions which Kristof asks.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/8338439 w=500&h=300]
