Helping Others Overcome Obstacles

Recently I was challenged to read a book entitled When Helping Hurts.  It is enlightening to read about poverty from the perspective of a person who came from poverty and now helps others fight poverty.  I started with a free sample of the book and then graduated to a purchased copy.  Disclaimer...it is written from a Christian perspective and I have not completed the entire book.  I have enjoyed what I have read thus far and highly encourage others to read it as well.  I respect the opinion of the staff member who recommended it to me.

I feel like the following post on our social media account ties nicely with the book.  Sometimes our hearts get in the way and we want to fix immediate needs and hurts.  As a parent, I know that I have a hard time watching my children deal with pain and drama.  I want to cocoon them in bubble wrap and fight their battles.  Instead, I have to trust that I have done my job as a parent, to the best of my ability, and then allow them to live their lives.  I can be there for hugs and words of encouragement and I can pray. Sometimes those are the things that my adult children need the most.  Hopefully, I have trained them enough and empowered them enough  for the eighteen years that I had them under my care so that they can overcome obstacles and experience growth.  After all, raising children is a "catch and release" program!  We "catch" them for a time and then release them into the "wild".  

Ideally, helping refugees is also a "catch and release" program.  If we can train, educate, and empower them, then they can turn around and help their children, as well as other refugees in their community.  I have heard stories about some groups of refugee communities who do just that!  It warms my heart when I hear about people, like the author of the book I mentioned, that overcame the odds and then turned around to help others do so as well.

Yesterday's post on our COR Facebook page was powerful and bears repeating/sharing.  

 

Have you ever looked into the eyes of a person who has lost something significant? Maybe it was a loved one, or a job, or a house, or an identity… Have you ever looked into their eyes and seen the pain?

It’s a pain that words can’t fix.

We think about loss a lot at City of Refuge. The individuals we serve have experienced a complete uprooting of everything - and sometimes that includes a loss of loved ones that didn’t (or couldn’t) make the journey.

Our tendency is to want to fix. To meet the needs - quickly, efficiently, fully.

But sometimes we have to sit and look into the eyes of the people that have lost so much… knowing that no amount of basic needs or money really fixes everything. Sure, it makes picking up those pieces a little easier, but there’s a necessity to sitting in the pain. To making the space to be - when our hearts aren’t easily mended.

It’s the one thing we encounter over and over again at City of Refuge. The reality that people make the difference between a service simply being offered vs. knowing that you, as a human being, matter.

And usually, over time and through real friendship, hearts have the tendency to feel a little less broken.

So we build relationships. And we connect people to other people who have the capacity, the desire, and the empathy to be friends. We create communities that make the space to be. To sit in the pain. To pick up the pieces. To start over. To rebuild, recover, and reorient.

And we can't do any of that without you.

 

 

And of some have compassion, making a difference: Jude 1:22 KJV

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All opinions expressed here are solely mine and are not a reflection of the opinions of the AmeriCorps VISTA program

 or of City of Refuge in Columbia, MO.