There is a profound uncomfortableness in ministering to the poor. Coming from outside to inside the slum settlements, you immediately experience shock and horror. There are no videos, no pictures, no words to adequately describe the deprivation, despair and depravity of third world urban slums. Which begs the question for anyone with the privilege to enter the slums:

“What are you showing me, Lord? What would you have me to Do?”

What makes it most difficult is the Contrast. I can leave the slums at my whim. They cannot. I will eat when I arrive home...many of them will only have a cup of tea today. I cook with gas. They cook over open flame. I drive. They will forever walk. I drink from a tap. They haul water by the bucket. I could go on and on. But you get the sense of the unrelenting Contrast and Conflict we face as “outsiders” who are called to minister “inside.” So what is the answer? How do I minister in the midst of such Chaos, Contrast and Conflict of soul? It’s quite simple:

Don’t be moved by the Contrast. Be moved by God. Only God. Every time.

We will be Accountable for how we respond to “Where” God has placed us, “What” God has shown us, and “Why” He has presented us with any particular need. This applies to everyone, not just missionaries or ministers. There is a very real Accountability for the privilege of “Giving” to meet needs. “How” and “What” & “When” we Give is of utmost concern to our Savior. Which begs the question: are we asking Him before we Give? Or just Giving based upon rational, cursory knowledge or past experience? I would suggest we need to be continually asking God about our Giving. Because the manna of yesterday’s graceful revelations might well be unfit for consumption and utility today.

On the issue of Giving, I cannot say I am ever “comfortable”. Marcia and I have ministered in the flux of overwhelming needs in the slum communities. The answers are never black and white. Typically, we feel we either over or under shot the target of what God had in mind. Perhaps we gave where we should not have given. Or didn’t give enough where God was directing us. This is not unusual. I might suggest it is exactly where we need to be. Continually seeking God’s counsel every single time...never slipping into a comfortable pattern. Open to hearing what we are NOT expecting. Always allowing God to do the unusual, the irrational, the uncomfortable, the opposite.

We need to let God be God: Sovereign over all.

Early on God showed us something that has NOT changed. Indeed, it cannot. Because He and His Word are unchanging. And He had the “Pastors of the Least” emphatically proclaim this to me on my first day in the slums in 2002...

“Don’t ever Give us money. People Giving to us has corrupted us. We need to Work for a living.”

That clear and stark statement changed my life. It set us on a course that we never envisioned. Standing in the single largest slum in Africa, in the presence of physically, financially destitute men-of-God, they spoke Truth that pierced like a sword. Just as it should...

The Word of God is very clear about Work. God has unequivocally mandated work for able- bodied, able-minded mankind. It is part and parcel of our chastising since the garden of Eden. Adam (like us) was prescribed a lifelong yoke that was, like all chastising, for his (and equally our) benefit. Take work from a man and you have done more than just emasculate him...you have removed him from the very Will of God. The Pastors of the Least know this. And they will not be swayed otherwise.

Modernism has twisted our conception of Work: we are apt to view labor as a cruel master from which we must be freed. The prophets and pundits of Secular Humanism present themselves as being more merciful than God. This is where the welfare state comes in. Dressed in garbs of “charity”, “justice” and “equity”, we have raised generations of undisciplined, untethered, dependent boys...who never grow into men. Forever consuming, endlessly discontent, drowning in unbridled lusts. Those six pastors I met in the slum knew more than all the experts in the IMF, World Bank, UN and countless “charities.” Why? Because they had seen the Fruit of Workless Dependency...and they knew the Word of God...

Which brings us to the cover photo. I was at the Bible School in the Mathare Valley slum. There at the entrance stood tangible testimony to the Sanctity of Work. The tools of a trade. It happens to be perhaps the lowliest of trades even in the slums: a trolley cart. A cart that pulls other people’s valuables for a fare. You build a cart, hire yourself out for the day, and pull the cart yourself. A human pulling what a donkey should.

This cart belonged to one of our Pastors. A man-of-God. A preacher of righteousness. A saint. And he’s not the only one. We have a number of Pastors and Ministry Leaders doing the same, or similar, intense physical brute labor. They find this work not only necessary, but also honoring God’s directive. And they have seen God bless them for their Obedience.

And here is the Key Point: it would be nothing short of sin for me to remove the burden of honest work from any able-bodied Pastor’s shoulder.

For us to carelessly and prayerlessly “Give” them monthly financial “support” would be to tempt that Pastor away from God’s prescribed mandate. It is exactly because that Pastor’s congregation cannot support him, and because he ministers to the poorest of the poor, that he must work...and lead by Example. He is leading his community by personally obeying God’s Word and Will. Watching a Pastor pull a cart is a powerful testimony. It is also utterly disturbing to watch. But for me to prayerlessly Give...I might be removing God from His throne...and putting myself in God’s place. And that man at my feet, instead of God’s

Work is not a dirty word. Work is not dehumanizing. The world’s hope of robots doing our work, so our able-bodied men can sit home collecting “support”, is nothing short of diabolical. Work is not something to be avoided, but rather embraced. And who better to carry that banner than Christ- followers. Let us remember Nehemiah the king’s cupbearer. David the shepherd. Paul the Tentmaker. Jesus the Carpenter. Their occupations were not Hindrances to their Purposes in the Kingdom of God. Indeed, they were the very potter’s wheel upon which their public ministries were formed.

Let us be sure to be working ourselves. Literally. Testifying of the sacred purposes of God-ordained work. And careful that our “Help” never Hinders God’s holy purposes... in work, in charity, in ministry. Careful never to despise what God has ordained...for our good.

And careful to check in with Him every day... for His work orders.