**Note: This is an issue I’m still working on in my own life.
Charities across the world take in millions – maybe even billions – of dollars every year, and distribute it to needy persons. In fact, within the last however many decades, the total amount given to world aid has reached into the trillions. So why is the problem still so huge? Why have those trillions of dollars not fixed the problem already? If people in different nations really can have all their needs met for only $1 a day, why is there still so much poverty? A huge part of the answer can be put this way: giving a little out of our ill-gotten wealth doesn’t stop the problem that causes poverty.
For example, it intrigues me that a person can sponsor a child or toss a few coins into a world aid appeal bucket, then go and purchase clothes produced in a sweatshop by workers who earn barely enough to stay alive. We buy into brands that have a huge reputation for devastating whole communities through slave-like labour, the taking of natural (and vital) resourcses, and any
of thousands of practices that destroy the local environment for people in places like Africa and South America. We allow ourselves to act out of the media-fuelled consumer mentality, which benefits the select few (the 20% of the world who owns 80% of the world’s wealthy) and crushes the majority who struggle to share out the leftovers.
We see images on television of emaciated children; shops raise money for sex slaves in south east asia; even in our
Western nations there is evidence of poverty and decay, hiding in alley ways and government housing. Though it shocks us to see these things, we never think to change our ways, to do something to reverse the situation.
Breaking out of the system is difficult – it is so ingrained, so loud, so tempting. Yet it is so necessary. Spreading God’s love means doing a bit of dirty work in your own heart first – mucking it out, throwing away the negatives, replacing them with positives like love and thoughtfulness and generosity. The work is hard, but I anticipate that the rewads will be more satisfying than a whole wardrobe of new clothes.
