The Colors of Poverty

There is a certain uniformity in the homes of the boys that are applying for admission to the boys' home. The identifying characteristic is poverty - a poverty that overwhelms and crushes the human spirit.

Poverty has many different colors and textures. It is one room with a rough cement floor and in which ten people live. It is walls that not only need paint, but are literally crumbling away. It is a hopelessly warped coffee table with mismatched legs. It is third-hand upholstery with huge tears, but neatly covered with a blanket.

Poverty is children running barefoot in spite of snakes and scorpions. It is dirty children with runny noses, rotted teeth, lice, ringworm, dysentery, and other repulsive diseases. It is the graves of children like the child who died of blood poisoning from a small sore on his finger, or diarrhea, or other ailments that are curable when properly treated.

Poverty is etched on the face - a grayish resignation. It is not a resignation to circumstances but a resignation from life. Continued poverty leaches out life and leaves an empty shell of despair.

In spite of this pervasive despair, there is often a spark of life in the depleted soul. It is evidenced by the one flower in a styrofoam cup on the warped coffee table, or last years calendar still hanging because it has an ethereal mountain scene. The spark that is still there is sometimes evidenced by warm hospitality and a light in the eyes that refuses to die.

Sometimes I enter a home and think, "How can people live this way?" Yet they retain that spark of life. I can only conclude that they must be made of sterner stuff than many of us.

I know that I alone can never put an end to this destructive poverty. However, I can do my part and make a ripple on the sea of humanity. Would God could that my ripple could swell with thousands of other ripples to produce a tidal wave that would wash away the scourge of poverty. Would you please join me to give hope to these helpless children of poverty?

Sharon