Just to Be

February 25, 2011

Matagalpa, Nicaragua

God of compassion,

 When I hesitate to be with another, strengthen me.

When I question the quality of my presence, assure me.

When I want to show my worth through actions, humble me.

When I forget the beauty of a loving presence, remind me.

When I run away from the call to be there, bring me back.

Just to be a blessing.

Joyce Rupp, The Cup of Our Life: A Guide for Spiritual Growth

 (Ave Marie Press, 1997, p. 128)

For the compassionate when confronted with the reality of poverty and the challenges of development in a nation such as Nicaragua a sense of overwhelm comes quickly.  North Americans want to fix things.  We are an energetic and resourceful people who want to do something when we find a problem.

One aspect of that sense of compassion overwhelm is that Nicaragua, and many nations like it, have no shortage of energetic and resourceful people of their own who are also eager to address their problems.  What stands in the way from achieving their aspirations for the future isn’t lack of faith or commitment.  It may be hard for us to hear but we North Americans may have little to contribute that Central Americans don’t already have.

They don’t want our charity.  But they might welcome our solidarity.

There is a significant difference between the two.  

Certainly there might be appropriate technological inputs that we could share.  Certainly there could be the appropriate investment of capital; North American and European wealth was established on the transfer of capital….labor and natural resources….during the colonial period from the central Americas and southern hemisphere in general.  These economic structures are maintained in a variety of forms today so that appropriate capital investment would not only be strategic but fair.

But the essentials for national or community development aren’t based on either technology or capital, as important as either can be.  Rather as has been the experience in the development of any successful community….by which we mean that its people have a sufficient and self-sustaining economy that provides sustenance to promote health and the opportunity for its individuals to freely thrive as human beings….leadership, social cooperation and the empowerment of local populations for self-development by education and free participation make all the difference.  For example, the gross failure of the Soviet Union proves that merely the presence of technology and capital does not a nation or community make!

Since the overthrow of the USA backed Somoza dictatorship in 1979, Nicaragua has endured a revolution, a counter-insurgency war (financed and equipped by the USA), significant natural disasters, political corruption and decreasing international aid.   Thirty-one years later Nicaragua’s GNP is growing, its infant mortality and maternal death rates are falling yet it remains an impoverished nation where one-third of its population lives on less than 1 US$ per day.

For visitors such this writer, on a team of medical personnel assessing the possibilities of future collaboration between Nicaraguan NGOs and our regional churches, a subtle and profound truth has been shared in the form of a development slogan:

If you want to help us, stay home.  If you see your liberation bound up in ours, then come and stand with us.

North Americans may have technologies and capital to share but they don’t have all the answers for a developing country such as Nicaragua.  The only answers to be found that are relevant and lasting will be those found by the Nicaraguan people themselves.    Thus leadership development, social cooperation and the empowerment of local populations for self-development by education and free participation have got to be the priority to address structural issues that result in poverty and these can’t be supplied by well meaning North Americans.

In general, North American NGOs may be all set to come into local communities to do a variety of projects, but unless and until local leadership has prepared for them, asked for them and planned for the consequences of their implementation such well meaning projects can at best be irrelevant and at worst harmful.

For example, a well intentioned NGO may be all ready to come into a village and donate a tractor.  But unless the local community has agreed that such a technological input is actually appropriate for their agricultural and environmental conditions, that there is a plan to fuel and repair it, train its users, store it when not in use the tractor may just as quickly end up rusting in a field.  Substitute “water well”, “new contraceptive device”, or “solar panel” to the scenario.  

Volunteer project teams from the USA have become a multi-million dollar tourist industry often directed by well meaning North American NGOs.   Teams that don’t speak the language, don’t take the time to consider the history and context of the reality they visit and leave without establishing any on-going relationship with those they seek to serve may enjoy a week’s hardship and a sense of accomplishment in the completion of a project for their own personal and/or community affirmation but do little to contribute to community development.

Solidarity, on the other hand, is based on listening, openness and dialogue between equal partners.  It takes time and investment in relationship building.   For the North American it is based on the hopes and decision making of the local communities rather than on North American agendas.  In the end it will be solidarity that will contribute to the end of hunger and poverty in the developing world, not charity.

Rupp’s prayer reminds us that all too often, at home, at work, at school and in what we often call “missions” we seek to prove our worth through our actions rather than the time-consuming process of  “presence with another”  in their context, with them as equals.  

A director of a comprehensive development NGO here in Nicaragua told us the story of a Christian organization that organizes teams from the USA to come in a rural village to paint a school. The goal of their week was the photograph of the team at the end when they could show their churches back home the newly painted buildings.  The goal wasn’t to learn why Nicaraguans are so poor or what they aspire to with formal education.  In fact the team stayed with each other most of the time as if on an exotic camping trip.  Last summer this Christian organization had five different teams spend a week each painting the same school buildings again and again. 

There may be appropriate times for charity; natural disasters come to mind.  But if we North Americans want to contribute to the future promise of a world where all of God’s children have enough, it is solidarity that our brothers and sisters are seeking in the tropical world….at least that is what we heard again and again from our partners in Nicaragua.

If you want to help us, stay home.  If you see your liberation bound up in ours, then come and stand with us.

Maybe the first step is to realize that we North American are in as much need of liberation as our development counterparts.   If that be the case that they have as much to teach us and we have to share with them.   Rupp’s prayer can be a beginning.