This afternoon I spent an hour in a cornfield a couple of miles east of Columbus.
“Visit a farm” was not even on my To Do List. Maybe it was a God thing. Time will tell.
This morning I had started reading When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor … and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.
The premise of the book is that simply handing money to the poor is not actually helping them … and may even cause more harm than good. “Simply having sufficient material things is not the same as ‘poverty alleviation’ … We want people to fulfill their calling ‘to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever’ in their work and in all that they do.” Getting it right involves wisdom, patience and a truly biblical worldview.
I am not doing the book’s message justice. I haven’t finished it yet, but it strikes me as a thorough and Scriptural look at how Christians are called to love the poor of this world.
So is it a coincidence when later in the day I am standing in a cornfield with Dave Ketchum, whose life and ministry illustrate well the very approach the book advocates?
Tomorrow I will tell you: 1) what Dave was doing in the cornfield and 2) how I happened to join him there.
[Hint: 1) it’s about improving the lives and spirits of people in Ghana and Haiti and elsewhere and 2)seems like a God thing.]
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