Deaf and Blind
By: Erica Harms, a student volunteer with the Nehemiah Teams

“The LORD sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and He exalts. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; He seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the LORD's; upon them He has set the world.” 1 Samuel 2:7-8, NIV.

My eyes are wide open like a deer caught in a headlight. Stunned. Disbelieving. Bewildered. Or am I? Do the statistics really surprise me, or force me to action? In a conversation with an IMB missionary who will remain anonymous for security purposes, I was forced to pry open the eyes that I’ve worked so hard to keep tightly shut.

In Luke 4:18-19, Luke records Jesus reading from a scroll of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor (v. 18a).” My initial question was, “Why focus the gospel on the poor? What’s significant about that group of people?” That’s when the statistics started pouring out of the missionary’s mouth and onto my heart like hydrogen peroxide on an open cut.

One billion people are chronically hungry; the hunger pains never cease. Every year fifteen million people die from starvation, over half of which are children. I looked out the window and saw a Filipino girl swinging happily from a tree branch, perhaps unaware that she could easily become part of the statistics.

But he didn’t stop there. Hunger has killed more people in the last five years than the total number killed in all the wars, revolutions and murders worldwide combined in the past century. My mind immediately traveled to Iraq, where I thought about my friends fighting in the war on terror, and back to Vietnam, a war whose soldiers remain silent today because of the horrific scenes they remember while serving their country.

Jesus stated that He was anointed to bring the gospel to the poor, but in Matt. 9:35-38, Jesus is seen actually living out that calling. “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them (vs. 35-6a).”

The next sentence out of the missionary’s mouth will forever be lodged in the forefront of my brain. “Compassion doesn’t come in the sanctuary; it comes by being with the lost.” Jesus had compassion when a crowd of poor, hungry, sick individuals surrounded Him.

Here in the Philippines, I too am surrounded by poverty. If a family acquires money here, the first thing they will do is put a tin roof over their heads. More than one billion people around the world survive on less than $1 per day. In my American way of thinking, the first thing I want to do is give money to them.

“We think  if we throw money at them, it will all go away,” said the missionary.

When I first hear the word “poor,” I think of having no resources. But it goes so much further than that. When the poor lack resources, they then lack influence in their community. And when they lack influence, they suffer from injustice of the government.

Seventy-five percent of the most impoverished people on the planet live among unreached people groups. No wonder Jesus’ focus was on the poor. 2 Cor. 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

The missionary I spoke with has strategically placed himself among the poorest of the poor, refusing to ignore the cries of the afflicted any longer. The billions that are dying from starvation are the same ones that have never heard the Gospel. When I have been given so much, simply praying for the poor or sending a check in the mail only represents that I’ve closed my eyes and shut my ears once more. After all, the problem is not with the harvest; it’s with the harvesters.

Pray that:

God will call the poor to Himself as His children meet their physical needs in the name of Jesus.

Christians will awaken to the responsibility to meet the needs of the poor while proclaiming the gospel.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.