Empowering destitute people towards transforming communities

1Introduction

In chapter 3 the notion of missions with the destitute was explored. Part of this exploration included contextualizing such missions. Following Bevans and Schroeder (2005), contextualization was discussed as a concept taking into account both the faith experience of the past (recorded in scripture and kept alive in tradition) and the present context (personal and communal experience, social location). This chapter focuses on the second part of the dichotomy of contextualization, namely the personal and communal experiences of the destitute. Added to this is the social location of the destitute, which, in this case, refers to the socio-economic context of South Africa (considered in Chapter 2). Only if we grow in understanding of the personal and communal experiences of the destitute, can we really do missions with them as God intended.
Peter Marin ((in Grigg, 1992: 97), has written powerfully about the ways in which “our supposed sources of support….have caused the problem in the first place.” He explains the refusal of many people to accept the offer of help as “a mute, furious refusal, a self-imposed exile” that reflects our inability to provide any relief to the sense of isolation of so many of our fellow citizens. Instead of gratefully accepting our offers of help and shelter, “they are clinging to their freedom and their space, and they do not believe that this is what we, with our inadequate and grudging programs and shelters, mean to allow them”. We need a better understanding of the destitute if we are to bridge problems like those stated above.
Often a helper’s current understanding of destitute people is simply lacking. The destitute are often targeted as an “object group”, with the assumption that all destitute people are basically the same. In the process we forget that destitute people are individuals, people representing the full range of individual variety, people experiencing different reasons for becoming or being destitute, people reacting differently to these experiences. Probably we should go back to the start and redefine missions with the destitute by realizing that the destitute are individual people, people experiencing God (in their own way), people trying to protect their own fragile dignity, people living with their own feelings and problems in the midst of their situations.

2The destitute are people…

This sounds obvious, but it is not. Who are the destitute, for me, as I try to journey with them? My personal journey with the “affluent church” convinced me that non-destitute people see the destitute as people without faces. Added to this, the destitute tend to be stigmatized as lazy, or stupid, or “bad”. The affluent church also tends to view the destitute as a good “project” where we can help as we wish, while consciences are soothed. Missions with the destitute in the affluent church are mostly seen as something we do to them or for them, never with them. The destitute then become a convenient target for our noble welfare efforts, while we still perceive them as stigmatized faceless people.
Wagers (1998: 1) writes:

The presence of destitute people in the midst of tremendous affluence points not only to an economic crisis, but also a spiritual crisis. In a society obsessed with wealth, power, and the imperative of success, homeless people are stigmatized as personifying moral degeneracy, powerlessness and abject failure. From the vantage point of liberation theology, however, if one takes the "preferential option for the poor" seriously, the most destitute in our midst become the agents of transformation in "God's Today.

In this way the destitute are often treated as “objects” with which we work towards our goals. Some of those goals are very noble, but this approach contains fundamental problems. When we start to view the destitute as people, individuals in their own right, we are suddenly faced with a different approach. Suddenly they become people with their own ideas, and those ideas become important. Suddenly the question is not about our goals anymore, but about theirs, about what they want to do with their lives. Suddenly they become people with a say, people we should listen to. And, shockingly, they become the people that God uses to change us, to convert us – but only if we start treating them as people. While they remain objects only, we can safely keep them at a distance, where they cannot come into our world of comfort.
Doing missions with the destitute as individual people requires a conscious effort to listen to them and try to understand: in this way we can gain an understanding of the SHALOM they dream about, so that we can journey with them towards their goals.

3The destitute are people experiencing destitution

What does it mean to experience destitution? This process begins with the basic definition given in the first chapter – “People who are lacking the basic means of human existence, and are therefore wanting, because they are extremely poor… in addition, the condition of being ‘destitute’ causes a whole range of personal and social problems, from a breakdown in self-image, to the inability to break out of the vicious circle of poverty.”
Yet somehow this seems too vague; what are destitute people really experiencing? In an article posted on the Web in 2003, the perspectives of a person trapped in chronic poverty are voiced. It helps us to understand what poor people really experience. It is also sobering to think that the destitute are even worse off, since they represent the poorest of the poor.

Being Poor^17 Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs. Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV. Being poor is having to keep buying cheap cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you. Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away. Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours. Being poor is living next to the freeway. Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last. Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help. Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house. Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt. Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have to make dinner tonight because you're not hungry anyway. Being poor is Goodwill underwear. Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you. Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground. Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you. Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support. Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet. Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw. Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall. Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids. Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours. Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes. Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner. Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it. Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk. Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home. Being poor is ten rands short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap. Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere. Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid. Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy. Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap. Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first. Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old. Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful. Being poor is knowing you're being judged. Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by. Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter. Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so. Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away. Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up. Being poor is a lumpy futon bed. Being poor is knowing where the shelter is. Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so. Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor. Being poor is seeing how few options you have. Being poor is running in place. Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave. Posted by John on September 3, 2005 12:14 AM

Destitution most often also means entrapment in the poverty cycle (described in chapter 2). According to Wikipedia, in economics and sociology, the cycle of poverty or the poverty cycle is a social phenomenon in which poverty-stricken individuals exhibit a tendency to remain poor throughout their lifespan and in many cases across generations. The Hutchinson Encyclopedia (2007:1) adds that the poverty cycle often requires external intervention if it is to be broken:

The poverty cycle represents a set of factors or events by which poverty, once started, is likely to continue unless there is outside intervention. Once an area or a person has become poor, this tends to lead to other disadvantages, which may in turn result in further poverty.
The cycle of poverty has been described as a “catch-22 and a feedback loop”, since it occurs because the resources necessary to climb out of poverty, such as financial capital, education, or connections, are not available to the poor.

Possibly the best effort to understand the experiences of poor people is available in a participatory research study conducted by the World Bank between 2000 and 2001. In this study Narayan et al. (2000) collected the voices of more than 60,000 poor men and women from around the world in an unprecedented effort to understand poverty from the perspective of the poor themselves. It chronicles the struggles and aspirations of poor people for a life of dignity. The study reveals in particular that poverty is multidimensional and complex.

In sharing their lives, hopes and needs, poor men and women highlight hunger and other material deprivations but also speak forcefully of social, physical and psychological dimensions and of lacking freedom of choice and action. According to a poor woman from Latvia, “Poverty is humiliation, the sense of being dependent, and of being forced to accept rudeness, insults and indifference when we seek help.” Poverty is voicelessness and powerlessness. It is insecurity and anxiety.

The many disadvantages that poor people endure cluster around ten dimensions. What especially emerges from the Voices of the Poor study is that these dimensions are not only multiple, but that they are often tightly interlocked, making it difficult for poor people to better their lives.