For a couple months now I've been planning to write a blog post about "triage" in our service in the slum.
There are so many needs here, and so few people trying to help address these needs. There's only so much two of us can do. So we have to make hard choices, right?
For example, in the reading program that I run, who should I teach? Some people already have decent resources at home, so I'm not going to spend my time teaching them, when I could be teaching poorer kids. Some people are simply too far behind or too mentally slow or have too many other issues, so I'm not going to spend all my energy working with just one of them, when I could teach five other kids in the same amount of time. And some people are just beyond the kind of help that we're able to give...and we just have to let that go.
Or, at least, that's how the post was supposed to write itself.
But as I continued to immerse myself in life here, my heart refused to move in that direction.
"Triage" might sound like a good idea. Cutting off the best and the worst to focus on a few in the middle who can be the "most effective" recipients of service sounds like a good intellectual strategy.
But it doesn't feel at all like love. It doesn't feel like Jesus. It doesn't feel conducive to the deeper messages we want to embody about why we're here and what we're doing with our lives and what we think about our community and who we believe really matters.
So yeah, three of the girls I teach are mentally disabled, and yeah, they all are making progress very slowly, and yeah, I could get multiple other kids through the program in the same amount of time I'm spending on one of them. One of the three will probably never really learn to read on her own. But they love the time they spend with me, and I'll keep spending time with them, and I don't need to predict what will come out of that.
And yeah, half-a-dozen kids who come to me have already had better schooling and already know how to read. But they really want to sit down and read with me. And I'll keep welcoming them in as long as they keep being excited to come.
And yeah, "those families" sure do look like they're beyond any help. The collective of issues they face are nothing that little neighborly interactions are likely to have any impact on. But Rose will still keep going and reading with their kids, and I'll keep getting involved in the family conflicts, and we'll keep doing what seems right to do when it seems right to do it, and if everyone else in the slum is surprised that we spend any time with them at all...well, isn't that part of the point?
And yeah, that baby I saw is probably going to die anyway, and I don't even live in that slum. But once I saw it, I can't really pretend that I don't feel responsible for it. So I'm going to keep trying to do all that feels appropriate and helpful to do, and even if the baby does die, then God knows it died despite the fact that I tried, and not because I didn't.
I don't have a good answer to our time constraints or the problem of massive needs to fill with so few human resources to meet them. But I don't have a good alternative to continuing to offer love to every one of the people in front of me, to whatever degree I'm able. Jesus wasn't able to heal every person in Israel. But whatever his pre-determined decisions were about how he planned to spend his time, he rarely seemed to turn anyone away either.
There are so many needs here, and so few people trying to help address these needs. There's only so much two of us can do. So we have to make hard choices, right?
For example, in the reading program that I run, who should I teach? Some people already have decent resources at home, so I'm not going to spend my time teaching them, when I could be teaching poorer kids. Some people are simply too far behind or too mentally slow or have too many other issues, so I'm not going to spend all my energy working with just one of them, when I could teach five other kids in the same amount of time. And some people are just beyond the kind of help that we're able to give...and we just have to let that go.
Or, at least, that's how the post was supposed to write itself.
But as I continued to immerse myself in life here, my heart refused to move in that direction.
"Triage" might sound like a good idea. Cutting off the best and the worst to focus on a few in the middle who can be the "most effective" recipients of service sounds like a good intellectual strategy.
But it doesn't feel at all like love. It doesn't feel like Jesus. It doesn't feel conducive to the deeper messages we want to embody about why we're here and what we're doing with our lives and what we think about our community and who we believe really matters.
So yeah, three of the girls I teach are mentally disabled, and yeah, they all are making progress very slowly, and yeah, I could get multiple other kids through the program in the same amount of time I'm spending on one of them. One of the three will probably never really learn to read on her own. But they love the time they spend with me, and I'll keep spending time with them, and I don't need to predict what will come out of that.
And yeah, half-a-dozen kids who come to me have already had better schooling and already know how to read. But they really want to sit down and read with me. And I'll keep welcoming them in as long as they keep being excited to come.
And yeah, "those families" sure do look like they're beyond any help. The collective of issues they face are nothing that little neighborly interactions are likely to have any impact on. But Rose will still keep going and reading with their kids, and I'll keep getting involved in the family conflicts, and we'll keep doing what seems right to do when it seems right to do it, and if everyone else in the slum is surprised that we spend any time with them at all...well, isn't that part of the point?
And yeah, that baby I saw is probably going to die anyway, and I don't even live in that slum. But once I saw it, I can't really pretend that I don't feel responsible for it. So I'm going to keep trying to do all that feels appropriate and helpful to do, and even if the baby does die, then God knows it died despite the fact that I tried, and not because I didn't.
I don't have a good answer to our time constraints or the problem of massive needs to fill with so few human resources to meet them. But I don't have a good alternative to continuing to offer love to every one of the people in front of me, to whatever degree I'm able. Jesus wasn't able to heal every person in Israel. But whatever his pre-determined decisions were about how he planned to spend his time, he rarely seemed to turn anyone away either.
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