by Chris Horst | Sep 15, 2010 | Blog |
Three weeks ago I entered into a new stage in life. I joined the ranks of parenthood. My days and nights have been filled with things I have never experienced before: Diaper blow-outs, oft-interrupted nights of sleep, excessive amounts of laundry, pacifier strategies and car seat carrying workouts. We have entered into the glorious chaos of life as new parents.
What I have cherished most about welcoming Desmond into this world has been experiencing how God uniquely gifted Alli and I to provide for him. Seconds after he was born, Desmond began “rooting” – actively searching for his mother’s milk, which has been has sole sustenance thus far. He is fully dependant on us for his feeding, sleeping, clothing, protection, and diaper changes. It is our biblical mandate as parents to provide for his needs:
“But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith.” 1 Timothy 5:8
If we believe that to be true—that God created parents as providers—shouldn’t Christian charity affirm that principle? Conversely; Christian charity which undermines or supplants the role of parents is not aligned with God’s design. This does not apply, of course, to children whose parents are incapable or unwilling to provide for their children. These children – orphans in many regards (at least emotionally, if not physically) – are our responsibility as the Church. We are instructed to care for these children as if they were our own.
Our obligation, an area where we often take charitable missteps, is to the parents who are capable and willing to be providers. Frankly, it’s much smoother, quicker, and often more fulfilling, to provide direct assistance to children than it is to equip parents to provide…and I am the chief sinner! A few months ago I wrote about how I personally eroded the dignity of several parents via a Christmas gift giveaway. Likewise, I have been on missions trips and service projects where we have circumvented parental involvement because involving them was deemed too messy.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to watch as a complete stranger showed up every few hours to feed Desmond or change his diaper, despite our desire to do so ourselves. It would break my heart to feel as if I was incapable of providing for him. And yet, that is what the mother felt like when I showed up at her door with Christmas gifts for her kids while her children looked on.
It is not wrong to serve the needs of children. Alli and I have had overwhelming support even in our first month as parents from friends and family who have taken shifts watching him, provided meals for us and have held Desmond closely while we caught up on basic things like cleaning our apartment and showering. The way in which we have been served, however, has actually better equipped, rather than supplanted, us in our God-given role as providers. Our charity should do the same.
by Chris Horst | Aug 17, 2010 | Blog |
Down the road from Joshua Station, where my wife and I live, stands the second worst school in all of Denver. Greenlee Elementary School is failing. Last year, after four years of severe underperformance, Denver Public Schools terminated over half of the staff in an attempt to resuscitate it. The challenge for local families is that for most; Greenlee is their only option. This summer, the balance shifted.
A new school put down roots in our neighborhood. A branch of West Denver Prep, an innovative charter school with higher student growth rates than any other school in Denver, came into the community with a flurry. For this expansion branch to survive, the principal needed to fill the seats. And he refused to circumvent the at-risk families in the community. He came to Joshua Station, a transitional housing program home to two dozen low-income families, multiple times to recruit new families to join West Denver Prep.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/6788567 w=500&h=300]
Maria and her daughter were one of those families. Maria is a spirited and protective mother and she did not go soft on the young principal when he showed up. She pelted him with tough questions: How do you handle school violence? How tough are your teachers? How do you engage parents? Resiliently, he answered each question with candor and compassion. Maria left the meeting impressed and determined to enroll her daughter at West Denver Prep. She shared that with me proudly.
He came to my apartment three times and answered my questions honestly. Greenlee’s leaders only came after I told them I wasn’t enrolling my daughter there. They tried to convince me not to leave, because my daughter is a great student, but they didn’t fight for us like West Denver Prep.
Maria, a single, formerly homeless mom experienced the privilege of influence in a profound way. When Greenlee was her only option, she had no choice. She had no influence. That school, her only choice, was failing and there was very little she could do about it. She was on the receiving end of a bad gift which she was unable to refuse or return. This is a circumstance which plagues under-resourced, low-income families across the globe.
One of the greatest contributions we can make with our charitable efforts occurs when we shift the balance of influence to those who are historically without it. In the context of microfinance, one of the foremost ways we enrich the lives of our clients is through the provision of influence. Because they are customers, rather than recipients, they have a seat at the proverbial, and sometimes literal, bargaining table. If loan sizes are not flexible enough, interest rates are too high or branch offices are too far from their homes; they let us know. HOPE is a gift they can refuse. On the flip side, we are highly motivated to provide the very best services imaginable. Or our clients walk.
Jacqueline Novogratz, a leading voice in international development, describes this concept by comparing the market to a “listening device”:
If I give you a gift…you would be highly unlikely to tell me what was wrong with it. And in fact, when I visited, you might even put it out on the mantelpiece to make me feel good. That same thing happens with traditional charity. If I ask you to buy something from me, you suddenly become a customer with a big attitude as to what’s right about it and what’s wrong about it… So in that way, the market is a listening device.
When this transition happens, we change from the position of informing the poor about what they need, to adapters and listeners, responding to the demands, requests and influence of those we serve. We can empower and equip women, like Maria, when we open up the doors of influence.
by Chris Horst | Jul 21, 2010 | Blog |
In a conversation with a friend a few years ago, we began discussing international child sponsorship. We wrestled back-and-forth for some time, discussing both the good and the bad. Since that initial conversation, I have repeated that discussion time-and-again, including a lengthy conversation with a colleague who was himself sponsored as a child in the Dominican Republic. His insights have informed this post significantly. It is a sensitive issue and I pray, even while I write this, that my reflections are gracious and balanced.
Child sponsorship has been a wildly successful in connecting donors with poor children around the world. Billions of dollars are funneled every year to international organizations through child sponsorship programs. Letters are written back-and-forth and funds are given faithfully every month. But, is it doing long-term good? Or could it actually be perpetuating the problems it claims to solve?
I am reminded of Christ’s admonition to us… “Be shrewd as serpents and kind as doves” (Matt 10:16). In that light, I will highlight both the good and the bad of child sponsorship programs and allow you to disseminate accordingly. First, a few strengths of child sponsorship:
- Jesus had a special place in his heart for children (Matt 19:14). Without exception, children are our world’s most vulnerable demographic. Christians are mandated to defend and protect orphans throughout Scripture.
- The majority of people which enter into a relationship with Christ do so before the age of 18. How can we ignore this important demographic? The data supports this as a strategic age upon which the Church should focus.
- Helping children can change the future. As children are educated, equipped and mentored, we have the opportunity to train the next generation of leaders.
- Many organizations are “doing it right” and I am convinced that Compassion International, to be very specific, does child sponsorship better than anyone else. The centrality of the Gospel in their curriculum, their close partnership with local churches, their laser-focused precision on children, and their grounded and principled operations set them a notch above all others.
That being said, not all child sponsorship programs are as effective. While “helping children” is an amiable aim, we need to examine the long-term impacts. Several important considerations:
- These programs can undermine the role of parents. I had a friend who visited a community in Ghana and an angry mother chased him out of her neighborhood saying, “I can take care of my own children!” She thought my friend was with a child sponsorship organization. An extreme example, but worth considering. God’s design includes parents as providers for their children. Only a small percentage of sponsored children are truly orphaned.
- Child sponsorship can have the same impacts of a bad welfare system. In an email I recently received, a friend shared a story which communicated just that. “My sister is a missionary in Chile…She knows of families that live off the money they get from child sponsorship programs. As one child outgrows the sponsorship program, the parents have another child so they can continue to qualify for the funding.” Yikes.
- These programs can pitch wealthy Americans as the “great heroes” to the poor children in the developing world. Are we sending a message which paints a picture of the donor as the healer and the child as the patient? The nature of this type of relationship can be unhealthy.
- Many of these programs are wrought with fraud. A friend who worked in Congo shared that one of the Christian child sponsorship program directors wrote (not translated) the kids’ letters to the donors. She would often come to his office and he would have piles of letters which he authored, pretending to be the sponsored children.
- Jealousy is alive and well. My colleague who was sponsored as a child talked about how it stirred up jealousy among his peers. He would receive special gifts (baseball gloves, toys, etc.), a better education, hot meals, and a chance for college scholarships and the un-sponsored children would not.
- Child sponsorship can encourage dependency. Poorly designed charitable aid can put a choke-hold on ingenuity and entrepreneurship. Our goal should always be to help those on the margins stand on their own feet so that continued support is no longer needed. I have met with countless friends working in orphanages and with sponsorship programs who have expressed concerns about kids who graduate from their programs being unable to fend for themselves.
I’ll end with a suggestion from an expert, Jonathan Martin. Jonathan was a missionary in Asia for over ten years and is currently a missions pastor in Portland Oregon. His fantastic book, Giving Wisely?, devotes a chapter specifically to this issue. He ends with a list of four hard questions which he suggests we all ask the agencies through whom we sponsor children:
- How does this program seek to get the children out of a cycle of dependency?
- How does it encourage work?
- How does it keep the responsibility upon the shoulders of the parents and the society to take care of its own?
- What time frame does the agency have for getting the community to stand on its own feet so sponsorship is no longer needed in a given village?
No intervention or program is perfect (as I’ve written previously) and this is not an indictment of an entire approach, but rather a call to prudence and accountability. Not all child sponsorship is created equal.
by Chris Horst | Jun 18, 2010 | Blog |
Three months ago I started a journey, in monthly installments, to two fictional cities—Assetsville and Needsville—both cities representative of poor communities in Africa. While the issues, such as education, health care and sanitation, in these cities are identical, the responses to these issues could not be more different—both in philosophy and methodology.
“Is HOPE the solution for global poverty?” It is a question I am asked often, and the question which inspired the past few months’ musings. My answer to this question is a resounding no. I do not believe HOPE is the solution to global poverty. Christ-centered microfinance is wonderfully effective, but it is not a miracle cure. What I do believe is that the principles undergirding HOPE, and the work of the fantastic organizations I highlighted over the past few weeks, are the solution.
Effective service and ministry to poor communities and individuals should affirm:
- Assets trump needs: All individuals, regardless of how great their needs, are created in the image of God and abounding in strengths, skills, and dreams. The doctor-patient approach to poverty (“you have problems – I can cure them”) will never achieve lasting change—it will simply reveal, and even create, more needs and deeper problems. Over time, this perspective will create unhealthy dependency, eroding the autonomy and creativity of communities and individuals.
- Their solutions over our ideas: Regardless of the clout of our graduate degrees, or the breadth of our professional backgrounds, the best solutions to community challenges reside within the members of the communities. We need to unlock ingenuity, not rest on our pedigrees.
- An exit strategy versus an empire strategy: Transitioning to (or starting with) local leadership should be the goal. It is financially—and even philosophically—prohibitive to employ Westerners to permanently staff organizations in communities abroad. All international (non-local) workers should be focused on working themselves out of a job.
- Dignity above desperation in our messaging: It is easy to motivate people to act with shocking images of babies with bloated stomachs and starving moms with flies in their eyes. But, easy is not always best. I believe we need to abandon guilt marketing and communicate the worth and beauty of all people and communities, even those who suffer from seemingly catastrophic material poverty.
- We are all poor: What if we viewed hunger the same way we viewed over-eating? What if we viewed the challenge of living in a shanty as the mirrored challenge of keeping up with the Joneses? What if we viewed the problem of not having enough money as a counter-problem to the addiction to money? Each person and community has issues, though some may be more hidden, more below-the-surface, than others. We need to abandon the “savior complex,” serve with humility, and recognize that we are all broken people in need of help.
- Helping is enabling: If you help a vengeful poor person – and there is no heart change – he will simply become a wealthy tyrant. Helping individuals and communities without speaking to heart issues is like baking a cake with vinegar. The size of the cake, quality of ingredients and intricacy of the decorations are irrelevant if sin is not addressed. We are only enabling the oppressed to become the oppressors if we do not boldly communicate the truth of the Gospel.
Here’s my summary encouragement: Ask the hard questions of the ministries and organizations where you are volunteering and giving financially. Examine whether you would be more likely to find their philosophy, theology and methodology in Needsville or Assetsville. Our resources—time, talents and treasure—are finite and precious. We care called to invest them wisely.
by Chris Horst | May 20, 2010 | Blog |
Two months ago I started a journey, in monthly installments, to two fictional cities—Assetsville and Needsville—both cities representative of poor communities in Africa. While the issues, such as poor health care and dirty water, in these cities are identical, the responses to these issues could not be more different—both in philosophy and methodology.
Tomorrow’s leaders are currently studying in schools across our country and around the world. The importance of how we educate our children cannot be overstated. However, well-documented problems exist in the educational systems of even the wealthiest of nations, including our own, as we stare at a future where, for the first time in our history, illiteracy rates will be higher for our children than they are for us. These problems are only exacerbated in places like in Needsville and Assetsville, where infrastructures are broken, governments are corrupt, and safety nets are porous.
Needsville’s leaders are aware of the depth of the educational problems in their community. In some parts of the city, the schools are the issue. Accountability does not exist. Teachers rarely show up, or show up intoxicated, and students receive only a semblance of an education. In other parts of the community, government power-brokers perpetuate the problem. Teachers are poorly equipped and undertrained and some teachers have gone months without pay because the local government has withheld or distorted aid funding. To counteract the steady regression of Needsville’s youth, they have poured enormous amounts of resources and new strategies into resolving the problem. They have filtered huge amounts of foreign aid to government-run schools. Yet, the increase in funding has simply expanded a broken system, rather than driving positive reform, though it is not from a lack of clever ideas.
“Laptops for all!” was lauded as a quick-fix, but the actual citizens of Needsville had no role in the development of the final product, and the program failed due to limited demand and poor design. A few Christian missionaries have set up quality private schools, but the reality is that donor funding limits them to reaching just a fraction of the students in the community, and there are no missionaries in many of the city’s neighborhoods. Sadly, the future is not bright for Needsville’s children. The numbers are clear. Despite all the increase in funding, the schools are failing and 30% of Needsville’s children are still not attending school.
In Assetsville, the future of the city is brighter than its present because of recent reforms. Across the city, parents, frustrated with the quality of their children’s education, decided to take action. Fed up with the quality and bureaucracy of their city’s schools, dozens of aspiring parents became the solution. They started private schools, many held in local church buildings, to provide their children with a higher level of education. Students at their schools consistently outperform their neighbors in Needsville and attendance rates are much higher. The local government even got into the act. Encouraged by the results, government leaders began providing private school vouchers to families and training to these teachers.
These schools are run by “edupreneurs” who charge a small monthly fee to the students, though close to 20% of the students in these schools, predominantly orphans, are exempt from fees. This arrangement adds accountability for the edupreneur, as parents now have a real voice in their children’s education. While providing a much-higher quality education for the poor, the school is also providing jobs for the edupreneurs and teachers, and in many cases, bringing the community back into the church building. Encouraged by the progress, a new organization was launched to support these edupreneurs through teacher training, small loans for facility improvements through microfinance organizations, and through curriculum support. The Christ-centered curriculum is designed with the edupreneurs and emphases entrepreneurialism, with a vision of shepherding and equipping the next generation of Assetsville’s leaders. Next month’s final installment will look at the guiding values and principles of this series.
*Thanks to Professor James Tooley, whose research I drew upon heavily for this article
