Need. It confronts. It demands to be met. Take for example a stone in our shoe. Even the tiniest pebble can cause reduce our gait to a hobble. What’s the response? Well, it’s impossible to negate, and limping to avoid the stone usually only lasts a few steps. Basically our feet demand that we sit, take off our shoe and get rid of the stone.
Here in Mérida, poverty is a need that demands to be met. The poor stand in doorways and wander the streets looking for those who will help them out of their situation. Even those that do work are trying to make ends meet on $5 US each day, and unlike the tourists in the picture above, we can’t leave their need behind when we return to our hotel or board our plane.
After my run in with the Ronald, the con-artist that took us for $8 in Costa Rica, I searched for a way to avoid the needs. I believed that a policy would help protect me, or maybe I would be able to direct people to ministries that could lend them a hand in their situation. Still, the need kept nagging.
Reading the Bible didn’t help either. Jesus, when confronted by the clamoring masses, would usually reply, “What is it that you want me to do for you?” He had no policies, no list of places to which he could direct them and wash his hands of their problems. He was personally involved–feeding, healing, touching.
Today, I was on a search for some items to get our house finally set up. Taking the wrong way to get to Home Depot, I stopped at a local hardware store. In the parking lot, there stood Raul, a disabled, middle-aged man, who, along with his wife, had been looking for garden work so that he could pay for his kids’ school supplies and uniforms. He asked me if I could help him. My schedule was free, but my impulse was to say that I couldn’t. After all, I had just cut my lawn the day before, and my ministry is equipping not compassion. Still, his need was clamoring for attention, and the example of Jesus from my devotionals was fresh in my mind. “What do you want me to do for you?” I asked.
I decided to get personally involved. I talked to him and called one of the references that he had given me. Then I spent the next 30 minutes praying and driving them to the places that they needed to go. As we said good-bye I gave him about $20 towards the uniforms and some dry goods that we had been carrying in the car so that his family would have food to eat. He gave me his address and an invitation to visit him.
Did I do the best thing? It’s hard to tell. I would rather have taken him to buy the shoes and uniforms that he needed, but at that moment I couldn’t. So perhaps I settled, or perhaps I was used as one response to the prayers of a desperate couple with a need that wasn’t going away.
Photo Credits: “Left Behind” a photo taken by gerriet available at: https://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=43491111&size=l and used under a Creative Commons License
