The Poor Will Always Be With You

The week was filled with disasters all around me, and dark clouds hung over my heart as I never felt before.

Last week a friend was diagnosed with cancer, and another lost her husband.  One friend was going through divorce and deciding on one more heart operation, or saying: Enough!  Another friend lost her job of 20 years.  And the future of a friend, who hit his head in a fall over a month ago, still remains cloudy.  All around me people were being struck, and I was afraid for those near me.

But last week brought a great long-sought blessing --- only it seemed all the darkness was clouding around those associated with that blessing.

I first heard of the woman’s plight in June, 2017.  She lived in a big dirty trailer with her adult son.  Her trailer was so bug-infested that no one would go near her.  And I heard God tell me to help her.  All my initial plans for aid seemed logical, but they didn’t work.  Then God sent me angels, to help as they could, but those weren’t the answer either.  I resolved to throw any amount of money at the problem, but found that the solution was not there, either.  And along the way I met two wonderful, Godly women who became equally resolved to answer God’s call to help the poor woman, who became even poorer when a government aid program to her son was cut off.  She became totally dependent on us.

We got her onto a waiting list for a government-subsidized apartment, and we waited while finding or providing money for her to live on.  She tried to work, but with diabetes and other illnesses, could not.  And along the way she considered suicide, and was put into a prevention facility for a while.  Finally, last week, she was notified her number had come up, and an apartment was available.

That’s when the disasters began happening all around me.  On the day we began the move, one of the women helping me had to put down her beloved dog, which was suddenly stricken when I entered her house to pick her up that morning.  Nothing about this good deed we were doing came easy.

We started with replacing all the woman’s furniture and most of her treasured possessions, out of fear of transferring bugs.  We washed all their clothes and made them spend a night in a hotel, where they showered and changed into new clothes before entering their new apartment.  I tried to get dry-cleaned a few treasured coats of theirs, and at one cleaners was screamed at: “Come from bugs?  Out!  Get out!  No talk, out!!”  And the treasured coats, in sealed bags, and with the treasured memories, were trashed.

The adult son had his own difficulties with the move, wanting to take years of accumulated bug-infested papers (porn), which we refused.  But eventually, we have moved both into their new place.  They had a new start, and were very grateful.

And now what will happen to them?  Mother and son say they will start therapy again.  Mother, who probably hadn’t vacuumed in 10 years vows to keep a clean apartment with the new appliances we bought, and to find at least a part-time job at nearby stores --- if she is able.

And what will happen to us, myself and the two ladies who put so much effort to helping the woman?  By our nature, we’d like to continue overseeing their welfare, encouraging their change, but is change to what we’d call “normal” really possible for people who’ve forgotten such a life, if indeed they ever knew life as such?  Were we to continue to try to help, we’ve been advised, it likely would be a draining black hole for us.  God had asked us to help them, and we did.  It will have to be enough.

“The poor will always be with us.”  This is true, in part, because some never were taught to try and better themselves.  Throwing money at them will make politicians happy, but not them.  They don’t know how to handle money, and any pleasure from it is short-lived.  I’ve seen this before, when I worked on other programs in the slums of Detroit.  You can change the circumstances of poor people --- paint their houses, fix their roofs, put them in clean apartments, but you can’t change the poor people.  They have to want to, to work to, change.

Oh, don’t misunderstand what I am saying, changing their circumstances is a major ray of sunlight in their lives, until darkness often comes again.  And there ARE some who will change.  But in our culture today we don’t seem to be putting out school systems, or families, which encourage children to face challenges and overcome them.  No, colleges have “safe rooms” for kids to hide in when they see challenges.

The world is what it is.  There are people God puts in our path, and we know He wishes us to help them.  And we must, but doing His will most often means changing the circumstances of their lives, giving them the best chance to get better, if they can, with his help.  We only toss seeds; He has to be the light.

Jesus healed blind beggars.  I wonder how many continued to be beggars afterward?  He didn’t give them money, but hope, and love.

Can we do more?

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Arise then, Lord, lift up your hand!
O God, do not forget the poor!

But you have seen the trouble and sorrow;
You note it, you take it in hand.
The helpless trusts himself to you;
for you are the helper of the orphan.

Lord, you hear the prayer of the poor;
you strengthen their hearts; you turn your ear
to protect the rights of the orphan and oppressed
so that mortal man may strike terror no more.

Psalm 10