Helping Without Hurting

Recently our small church has begun a grocery ministry to the needy among us. Our focus is on the working poor who are living check to check. If they have an illness or break a leg then they have few resources to handle the temporary crisis. We are inspired by our hope of showing the community that our church cares for our neighbors. We pray that people who are helped will feel that the love of God is reaching out to their need. Isaiah 58:6-9 both inspires and challenges us, "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall spring up quickly.. then you shall call and the Lord will answer." Lofty ideals are difficult to translate into practical actions. The book, "When Helping Hurts", by Steve Corbett is giving me ideas how to share our bread with wisdom. The giving of emergency relief is just a beginning. It is not helpful to give food and then disappear. The challenge is to build caring and responsible relationships. This calls for dealing with the dimensions of process and relationships instead of programs and products. It calls for helping people develop their God given abilities and new confidence to work and feed their own family. We hope to give out more than groceries. We pray to help our new friends to be encouraged to seek the Lord's Will for their life and family. We will refer them to agencies where they can develop their God given strengths to succeed for their family. We hope to listen to our new friends and learn from their insights into life. Often it is the poor among us who are rich in faith and know real security is found in God, not in property and money. They can teach us also that real wealth is in family closeness and loving relationships. We are on a journey to reach out with caring actions. This past week the grocery ministry helped 5 households. We have a larger church which is supplementing our efforts in our rural town with frozen foods. We are blessed also to have canned goods donated to us. Pray with us to be fruitful and faithful and be joyful. We are so blessed to have two young ladies step up to lead us in this outreach.