Have you ever been in shock?  I am not talking about culture shock or physical shock but another type of shock. 

Shock is when blood flow to the body is restricted, and death can be imminent if not treated.  There are several types of shock that range from anaphylactic- resulting from a major allergic reaction- to septic- due to a major infection.  In the missionary and expat community we have a condition we refer to as “culture shock.”  When a person from one culture is introduced into another culture, they are overwhelmed and can sometimes shut down emotionally.  Medically speaking, shock has claimed a plethora of lives; so too culture shock has claimed many careers of missionaries and expats on the foreign country of service.  There are so many blogs, books, and articles/posts that deal with culture shock that I am not going to deal with that in this post. (I recommend the book Cross Cultural Connections by Duane Elmer and a great article by Dr. Don Sisk.) Instead I would like to deal with another type of shock that is overlooked and sometimes not even considered.  I am talking about Poverty Shock.

Living in one of the poorest countries in the world, I am faced with the reality of abject poverty and the effects of disdain for the survival of your fellow man.  For example, a man has 5 children, and his sister leaves a 3 year old with him and his family and goes to another country.  This child is allowed to fall ill and become severely malnourished because the man already, in his own words, “has 5 kids of my own to take care of.”  Or a 20 month old boy is severely malnourished, and the mother receives vitamin reinforced peanut butter to feed him, but instead she shares most of the peanut butter with the healthy children and sells the rest to buy clothes for herself.

I have been asked many times from those that visit us in Haiti, “What are the reasons for this poverty?”  I am not going to attempt to address that question in this article because in every people group in every country there are the “least among them.”  As I said before, I want to deal with the effects of poverty shock on those that work among the poor.

What are the Signs of Poverty Shock?

Just as both physical and cultural shock have signs and symptoms, likewise poverty shock has signs and symptoms.  Here are a few that I have experienced and have seen in others.

1. It makes you want to give away all you have.
2. You begin to take on too many “hard luck” cases.
3. You never have any down time because you are constantly “helping those poor people.”
4. You just give out food, clothing, money, etc. without asking any questions about the circumstances surrounding the needs.
5. You view everyone around you as sacrificing more than you.
6. You feel as though your single gift can tip the balance in their favor.
7. You begin to think, “If I don’t help them, no one will.”
8. Although you realize that someone is not being truthful, you give anyway because you say to yourself, “I’m sure they will use it for something they need.”

I know that these seem calloused and hard-hearted, but I have gone through these and have experienced the false guilt that accompanies poverty shock.  Whereas physical shock can have a negative impact on you, poverty shock can affect you and can cause you to do things that you wouldn’t normally do, or it can put you out of commission in the very thing you tried to do – help people.

The Source of Poverty Shock and Why We Give

Any trauma doctor will try to locate and fix the problem that is causing a person to go into shock.  Poverty shock has a source as well, and that source is false guilt.  You feel guilty because you have so much and the poor have so little.  You paid more for your clothes than your neighbor makes in two months.  When you see a five year old girl eat a chicken leg bone (not chew or gnaw on it but completely consume it) from the scraps you were going to throw to the dogs because she has not eaten in 36 hours, it has to impact you in some way.  You must realize that it is not your fault, and you did not choose where you were born.  You must realize that the poverty abyss is deeper than you could have dug it.

False guilt causes your conscience to work overtime and then you think things like, “I couldn’t sleep knowing that that baby was sleeping on the dirt floor and didn’t have a warm blanket to sleep on.”  False guilt can also lead to burnout.  Most likely you are not the cause of their poverty, and most likely your one “blanket” is not going to solve their poverty.

Can We Give too Much?

In the area I live in Haiti, it is not uncommon for people to eat one meal or less a day, and I have seen many moderately to severely malnourished children that can tear at your heart strings.  One might consider it a necessity to start a rice distribution campaign.  Where would you start?  At what age would you cut it off?  How can you guarantee that the malnourished children received the needed food?  How much would you distribute?  Who will you get to handle the crowd control?  The questions go on and on.  You could feed 10,000 people today, but what about the next day, and the next?

I like the list following list below that Robert Lupton gives in his book Toxic Charity:

Anyone who has served among the poor for any length of time will recognize the following progression:

• give once and you elicit appreciation ;
• give twice and you create anticipation ;
• give three times and you create expectation ;
• give four times and it becomes entitlement ;
• give five times and you establish dependency.[1]

Who is Poor?

In his book Serving with Eyes Wide Open, David Livermore offers three questions.

We want to explore the “power of generosity” through three questions: Who’s “poor”? Who decides what the needs are? and To give or not to give?[2]

What are your criteria for calling someone poor?  Let’s face it, I look rich compared to some of the Haitians living around me, but I am very poor compared the Queen of England, and she is poor when you compare her net worth to that of Bill Gates. One Ugandan church leader said it this way: “We did not know we were poor until someone from the outside told us.”[3]

For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.   —Mark 14:7 KJV

In a conversation with a relief worker here in Haiti, we were discussing the living conditions of the Haitians.  He mentioned the fact that the Haitians “sacrificed” so much in their daily lives.  I could not accept his premise because in order to sacrifice something, you must have it to begin with.  How could they sacrifice something that they never had in the first place?  They do not live like Americans and neither do a lot of the people in the world. Did you know that 1 in 3 people, or 2.4 billion people, are still without sanitation facilities – including 946 million people who defecate in the open?  In 2014, in the USA, upwards of 1.6 million people are living without full indoor plumbing.

While researching information for this article, I found multiple studies and personal testimonies that explained the fact that some people do not want to change and are content with their day to day living.  Multiple families were relocated from living in a trash dump to a new house and land to farm, and then in 9 months to a year 80% of the families had sold their land and house and were back living in the trash dump.  No amount of giving is going to change their desire to stay where they are at.  And most importantly it is not your fault.

The Right Way to Give

There was a man that visited us in Haiti and noticed all the naked little boys working in the muddy rice fields.  He wanted to go back and start a clothing drive for boys clothing and send them back so they wouldn’t have to go around naked.  I told him to look closely along the sides of the rice fields, and he would see several stacks of clothes.  These boys had clothes to put on, but while working in the muddy rice fields they took them off so they would not get them ruined by the mud.  Maybe they needed help in paying for their school for one year.  Or maybe their mother needed to purchase prenatal vitamins instead of buying clothes for them.  I find the analogy of a car is useful here.  Can you drive a car without a windshield?  Of course, but isn’t it much better to drive it with a windshield?  Giving is not wrong; educated giving is much better. (Another good article)

In Conclusion

Some people who go to work with or among the poor never get out of the poverty shock stage and continue hurting when they think they are helping.  Orphanage prevention is much better than an orphanage.  I realize that there are good orphanages out there but there are not so good situations out there. When looking at the poverty around you, don’t look at where they are today, rather look for ways to get them in a better place tomorrow.

Serving Jesus,

HGP3

[1] (Lupton 2011) Lupton, Robert D. Toxic Charity: How the Church Hurts Those They Help and How to Reverse It (pp. 129-130). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

[2] (Livermore 2013) Livermore, David A.. Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence (Kindle Locations 1279-1280). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[3] (Schwartz 2004) Glenn Schwartz, “Two Awesome Problems: How Short-Term Missions Can Go Wrong,” International Journal of Frontier Missions 20, no. 4 (2004): 32