Wealth & Poverty

This is an excerpt from a letter written by Thomas Belden to his prayer team after the FH Burundi journey to Africa with the coffee and education team early this summer. We have his permission to share this with you...

"The front line FH Burundi staff are amazing people. They get up every day and face a seemingly hopeless and complicated situation. It is only by Faith in God that they do it. They live their Faith fearlessly and with determination every day. I don't know how to fully express it in words but the situation that the people of Mufumya are in can only be solved by God. Mortal solutions would fall short. And we were blessed and humbled to see God's plan unfolding. Although I would be the first to admit that whatever God's plan for Burundi is, I don't know. It's like I was one grain of sand and I saw lots of other grains of sand there, but what the sand is for... building a beach, making a sand castle, or making windows I don't know. God's plan, God's time, and surrendering to God just resonated throughout the trip. It also applies here.

I understand poverty better. We all have our wealth and we all have our poverty. The key is to listen to your heart. Share your wealth where you feel it is needed most, recognize your poverty and work on it. In Mufumya, materially it is one of the poorest places on earth. But there is also an incredible amount of wealth there. I understand FH's Mission statement and I can say they live it: "To walk with churches, leaders and families in overcoming all forms of human poverty by living in healthy relationships with God and his creation." Relating it back to our culture we have a lot of material wealth. But one area, in general, that we are incredibly poor is 'living purpose.' Creating a story or 'mythology' that gives meaning to what we do. As an example, we celebrate Easter. Why? Yes Christ died for us and was resurrected from the dead. And then there is the whole Easter bunny thing. Again, I ask why? It's not that the historical event or the bunny don't have significance. It is a matter of how do we incorporate that significance into our life and live it. Poverty is not always about money. The trip really opened my eyes to my wealth and my poverty. The parable of the talents also resonated with me. What do we do with what was given us?

You may have heard the term 'walking with' bandied about. It is a big part of FH: 'At the core of all our activities is the philosophy of "walking with" rather than "doing for." The people of Burundi are a proud beautiful people. They don't need a hand out. They are in a tough situation in a lot of ways but most of the people I met are very strong and capable. SPAC partnering with FH and sending teams to Burundi is a wonderful thing. Sometimes when you are down just knowing someone else cares is a big help. There is also a practical component. Sometimes you just need someone to offer different tools to help tackle a problem. Standing with the people of Burundi was positive experience and we all learned and grew from it."