We are educated in the humanitarian sector that dependence is disempowering. So we focus on providing pathways that create independence – education, employment, health and wellbeing programs.
But how does this empowerment model impact hope? Especially when you are working with a person who is in survival mode with a sense of hopelessness.
I recently read a blog by Noemi Hedrick: “Having goals is not enough. One has to keep getting closer to those goals amidst all the inevitable twists and turns of life. Hope allows people to approach problems with a mindset and strategy – set suitable to success, thereby increasing the chances they will actually accomplish their goals.”
So who has hope? We have. We go to church every week, we sing songs, we hear messages of hope, we pray together, we share a meal together – but what are we doing with this hope?
Every week, ADRA teams are out on the city streets meeting people who are trying to survive in this broken world. If each person got to know one person, remembered their name, helped them with some of their immediate needs and future goals, then maybe that’s how we truly see Jesus? Maybe our dependence on Him to share His hope is what people who are vulnerable are really needing?
Some call the homeless outreach as a ‘band-aid/relief’ approach – if it doesn’t address the root causes of poverty. However, some could argue that conversation, prayer and relief items that meet the first level of Maslow’s hierarchy is development, not merely relief. As the Bible says, “when two or more are gathered in his name, I am there also.” So are we still delivering a band-aid model or an eternal/infinite model for development?
Noemi ends her blog with this: “If we don’t have the hope that Christ is for us, then we will be engaged in self-preservation and self-enhancement. But if we let ourselves be taken care of, by God, for the future – whether five minutes or five centuries from now – then we can be free to love others. Then God’s glory will shine more clearly, because that’s how He becomes more visible.”
Dependence is good if the focus is Jesus.
Rebecca Auriant
Director of ADRA in Victoria