Shaun Groves
Poverty and wealth are next door neighbors here in Guatemala City. And I’m not proud of this, but it makes me angry.
Long Distance
Today I looked out a raindrop speckled window at shopping centers, a BMW dealership, resorts and a massive McDonalds and seconds later gasped at the rusting gray and brown “homes” stacked on muddy cliffs beneath a well-traveled bridge. The distance between the haves and have-nots could be measured in yards.
How can those with more than enough – even a little more than enough – drive over their neighbors living in abject poverty and not notice, not care. Maybe they do. Surely they do. But how can this inequality exist between neighbors then? It makes me angry.
At home I’m not angry.
Though this poverty still exists in Guatemala, I’m not as bothered by it in America: the distance between my wealth and these rusting roofs is several hundred miles. A distance great for poverty to cross. So distance pacifies disgust.
But it’s not just the miles between us and them that feeds our indifference. There’s speed too…or a lack of it.
Slow Violence
When someone, because of war or insanity, brings death to a village or classroom all at once – in an instant – we’re outraged. When 3,000 people are sent to early graves by airplanes punched through skyscrapers, we hold telethons and fight back. But when 24,000 children under the age of five died from poverty related causes today – and yesterday, and the day before that – it didn’t even get a mention on CNN. Their deaths didn’t fling us into impassioned action either. Or even prayer.
Because poverty is slow violence.
A child is born under a rusted roof and a corrupt government. There’s love under that roof but love can’t buy books, bread, milk, produce, school uniforms, immunizations, medicine…life.
Years pass with poverty building hopelessness within her, one whispered lie at a time: You’re worthless. You’re ugly. You deserve poverty. You’re nothing.
Illiteracy, malnutrition, parasites, bacteria, violence…slow violence.
These blogging trips were created to close the distance between your computer screen and rusted roofs, to create in us all an appropriate holy outrage over the violence poverty perpetrates on the body, mind, emotions, spirit and hope of children today.
Are you angry yet?
Ask God what you should do about that. Adopt? Share? Volunteer? Pray? Study? Take a trip?
I’m praying He answers that question for you this week.
Mike says:
Shaun,
I live in Guatemala and have been serving as a missionary for over 2 years now. I love your blog today and my wife and I talk about this everyday. One of my biggest struggles is going out into a village and putting in stoves is shack dirt floor homes where people have to take turns sharing a bed to sleep. Then I drive back to my nice rented house with my american TV and my Xbox360 to keep me happy. We are so spoiled in America. When I turn on the US news and I here all of the politics it just blows my mind because there are thousands here every night going to bed cold and hungry at best. When people get on a city bus they have to wonder is this the bus that the driver is going to get shot today? Just in the month of January there were over 60 bus drivers shot in Guatemala City over money. SO I think it is time we give are money our time and our efforts to what God has called us to do. To help the least of these. I love Compassion and everything they stand for. Man what better way to help a child get off the streets and have hope. Our ministry is simple. We work to keep families together and try to help improve their lives. Wether it is a stove a water filter, or just a hug. It is giving everything we can to God and watching him work. In a year we have seen over 5,000 people come to know Christ and now we are starting to see kids hunger for the word of God.
Thank you for your words, for your stand, and most your heart to see people saved!
I am not sure if you remember me or not but I use to work for Love89 doing the morning show and had you at my church. Mt. Harmony Baptist Church in Knoxville. I still listen to your music but now I really enjoy reading the message.
misty says:
Mike,
Hey it is Misty Booker!
Shaun, I agree with Mike and it does make me angry! My family and I were in Guatemala in June on a mission trip with Mike’s families ministry. We feel in love with Guatemala and the people there. The poverty in Guatemala was astounding. I have been to Thailand twice but I have to be honest and say I witnessed more poverty in Guatemala than in Thailand.
Thank you for what you are doing in the beautiful country!
Sara McNutt says:
I’m with you 150%. I have a degree in International Studies and have traveled to almost two dozen countries multiple times; I understand what you’re saying. I am desperate for us to GET IT. I get so angry at our heartlessness and desensitized “realities.” That we think we need a play room for our children and a two car garage when real life human beings are dying from POVERTY. Keep doing what you’re doing and help us bridge the gap between their world and ours. In Jesus’ Name.
Robin says:
In our country we arrange it so that we don’t have to see the poverty; Gated communities, white flight, suburbia….anything to increase the distance between us and them. We walk by our homeless population with our eyes averted in fear that they will ask something of us and caution others not to give directly so the money won’t be misused.
As far as the rest of the world goes we work to keep the people from the parts of the struggling world to stay there, erecting high expensive barriers to immigration and refusing to intervene at all in governments exploitation of their citizens even going as far as to have foreign policies that make the situation worse.
Fortunately there are many many people swimming against this tide; moving back into distressed neighborhoods, bringing guests into their homes, going to other countries to help and financially supporting groups that make a difference.
I have the vision that if each Christian in this nation would commit to helping someone in their neighborhood they know (like an elderly shut in or a single mom) someone they don’t know; homeless or prison, examining laws and regulations that help perpetrate injustice in our country and working to change them and commit to helping organizations like Compassion International abroad we could make such a difference. I pray that we take Jesus’s command to love one another as he as loved us seriously.
Michelle says:
The words and images are hard to digest as I sit here in my warm, sturdy home with my stomach full of coffee and breakfast. It would be easier to go through life with blinders on, but once we have seen the reality of poverty on this earth, it is impossible to sit idle and do nothing.
I pray these words and photos touch hearts. I pray the Lord uses you all to plant seeds this week. May He provide travel mercies for the entire group.
Janet Oberholtzer says:
Excellent post.
And yes, I’m anger now … anything that causes pain to another human makes me anger. Wish I could fix the whole world, but I can’t … so I’ll do what I can, where I am, with what I have.
Pebblekeeper Angie says:
If I may call you friend, I have three friends there today, fighting for the children. All three of you are sending the photos and the stories. My Friend AnaMaria has my heart stirred to the children. Such precious little tiny helpless bodies! My prayers for you and Ann and AnaMaria today. As you walk. As you reach out. As you can lay a hand and pray. As you sing songs of hope. A reminder for me to pray for those families as well. thankyou.
Ken Summerlin says:
I don’t think that I’m as much angry as I am sad about the disparity that you describe. May the stories that you share with us this week move us beyond anger and sadness to action. Let us not wallow in nor waste these emotions but allow them to motivate us to be a part of the change that is needed.
Molly says:
Thank you for being God’s voice for these precious people. My husband and I were missionaries for five years working with the families that work in the Guatemala City garbage dump. Poverty is not only lack of money. It is a lack of health, stability, community, education, will and so much more. We left Guatemala in 2007 after our family had been held at gunpoint 3 different times. Now, though the violence has not decreased, God is nudging us to return. We just cannot live the American dream while our friends are succumbing to the “slow violence.”
Keturah says:
Thank you
Kelly says:
Shaun – thanks for sharing. As part of the IT industry I’m always thinking about what technology can do to help. For starters, these blogging trips are fantastic. I’d love to see you do a live skype session too – really SHOW ME, in the moment, what you are seeing and feeling.
Here’s a good example: significantly more people in SubSaharan Africa have cell phones than do in the US. We’re learning how to delivery technology that allows them to run small business and find the best price for their fish, identify diseases in their crops and monitor medical supplies in remote “clinics” through SMS technology.
How can we do more?
Jill Foley says:
I just got back from Peru less than two weeks ago and these images you posted are still fresh in my mind from my trip.
My anger comes from people’s unwillingness to respond and sponsor children. I feel like I can (and do) talk all day about it and people just walk away, doing nothing. Some of them are already sponsoring children, but it wouldn’t hurt them to sponsor another one (or five).
I brought home 5 child packets for kids who need sponsors and have had no response from my family and friends. It amazes me that we can look at photos of people living in such dire circumstances and then turn around and spend more money on ourselves. It makes me angry.
If we took “Love your neighbor as yourself” seriously, wouldn’t we spend just as much money on others as we do ourselves?
Jody says:
that slow anger is sort of always there for me-to the point where when I talk about these issues, people roll their eyes at me 🙂 much like I guess many did to Jesus when He talked His “crazy talk” too, right?? Ah, the slow violence concept, so frustrating, and so accurate. What a great, although uncomfortably true, description. Thousands live all over the world in conditions we cannot imagine unless we actually touch it, yet too many of us are unwilling to touch, fearing it for some reason, forgetting that those on the other side are JUST LIKE US, only with no food, no clothes, no water, no shelter-and b/c of our irrational fear, no love. Disgusting. I am praying for all of you on this trip-that your voices may be heard LOUD and CLEAR for the sake of Jesus in the lives of “the least of these”!!!!!!
We are THAT family says:
It makes me sick and angry. The angrier I get the more isolated it seems our lives become. Friends distance themselves. Family feels guilty.
But it’s true “distance pacifies disgust.” I want to be disgusted. I don’t want to forget.
Michelle says:
Kristin, I can relate to the feeling of isolation. I know that my passion for helping the homeless rubs many people the wrong way, even close family and friends. Friends who reply to fluff postings on Facebook say ::nothing:: at all when I post about Compassion.
I won’t give up and I won’t forget. I love your heart for this organization.
Amy says:
I have found this to be true. Once a week, I scan through pictures of children waiting for a sponsor and post it on my FB. I get no response. But if I post about how I accidentally gave my son a dirty fork to eat his breakfast, I overflow with comments. The sad thing is, that my life changed when I went to Nicaragua and my heart truly broke for what I saw. No one else was as blessed as me to see it, because it changed me.
amy in peru says:
Shaun,
those pictures… we see the living versions every day here. it IS shocking. and 1,000x more so for you who have just come from wealth to poverty and can see the stark contrast. sometimes we get overwhelmed because the need is SO great and we are SO small…
But God is GREAT.
what you’re doing is good… raising awareness. I pray that the Lord would work mightily to rescue using more people who’ve seen reality even if it IS far away and subsequently give.
thank you.
amy in peru
Erin says:
Guatemala is an amazing country. Capable of ripping the scales off the eyes, breaking the heart into shards, and forgiving every sin we’ve committed against her.
Thank you for showing the faces of Guatemala to the world. Thank you for bringing to light the tragedy that is their economic situation. Thank you for hugging the children I haven’t seen in a year. Thank you for speaking the truth in bold words to an America that cares more about their pets than their sisters and brothers in Guatemala.
From the deepest places of my heart, thank you.
And please give each little Guatemalan child a hug from Erin!
Erin says:
P.S. If something happens and you have free time/change of plans, get yourselves over to Hermano Pedro in Antigua. It’s not Compassion International, but I promise it’ll change your lives.
Princess Leia says:
Just told my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group this morning about that figure – 24,000 EVERY DAY under 5 die! From PREVENTABLE things! Those ladies are now sponsoring Beraca CSP in Haiti. We passed around our “service jar” (to collect loose change for the sponsorship) for the first time after explaining a little about Compassion and specifically CSP and even though no one knew we were going to do that, we ended up with $28 – more than enough to cover the sponsorship for the month, and hopefully enough that when the year is over, we’ll have a large “one-time gift” to be able to share with our CSP as well!
Praise the Lord for the pictures and words He’s sending back to us through you and your team. May they ignite in us (or re-ignite in us, as the case may be) a righteous anger against such poverty. May those who have never seen with their own eyes get a glimpse that leads them to start their own journeys. May those of us who HAVE seen always remember. And may these visions spur us on to action in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Tater Mama says:
Beautifully written. Really, this post is stunning. Thank you so much for, for lack of a better way of saying it, making me feel disgusted.
Beth Werner Lee says:
What’s wrong with me? I am not angry.
I’m sad…for the situation the pictures show (thanks for not showing the BMW dealer!)
I’m regretting my easily spent money…going so selfishly on my desires…okay my untaught desires.
I’m hoping that I can have a lasting change…I’ve signed on for one Guatemalan girl, Heydi. I want to work with my daughter who’s Heydi’s age to earn the money for her each month so my daughter knows love in action.
Anger is too close to hate for me. I can’t do anger because the blade takes me out (I have really bad aim!)…but I want to do compassion. I want to have correction: my life better aligned to Christ’s.
Today before we started school we read Ann’s blog and lit our third candle within a wreath we received only Saturday before you left and prayed. With you in spirit…
[email protected] says:
God bless you, brother.
You move us to action, in His name.
Diane Loewen says:
Love you shaun and your heart! Thanks for being our voice for the kids! Praying for you everyday!!
Karen Barnes says:
Thank you Shaun for what you all are doing to spread the word and educate others about the issues and about the real faces affected. We continuously need a shot in the arm to be reminded of what heart-breaking issues people have to live with daily, and how spoiled we are in America. My husband & I sponsor a child in Guatemala, so I am watching these posts this week with a very personal interest. I spent 8 weeks in that beautiful country 6 years ago and it truly stole my heart. Anyway, thank you for sharing!
Amy says:
THIS: The distance between the haves and have-nots could be measured in yards. is exactly how I felt when I went on a mission trip to Nicaragua. There were times that there wasn’t even yards between, just a few steps. Neighbors living next to each other. Heartbreaking .
Robin Piddock says:
Even from my own poor preposition in the UK.
I am still so able to freely access certain living resources. But in these neglected countries: numerous & untold crimes against humanity & the emptiness that must fall upon the young.
Well, at times it brings me to tears.
For sure I am no great or special person in the eyes of this world…
But what i wouldn’t do given the chance to help these poor, innocent & suffering souls out!