Stories from the Field

April 2005

Beggars and Bread

By a Worker on the Field

Beggars abound in the Pacific Rim. After eating at a restaurant, they greet you at the car. While shopping, they follow you from shop to shop pleading for money. While downtown, children tag along with their palms open and their lips pouting. Take a trip, stop for gasoline; someone will knock on the side of the van, asking for money. Everywhere, they beg.

Pregnant women hold filthy toddlers with out-stretched hands. A teenager lugs a lame foot through the dusty streets asking for help. Practiced five-year olds beg and become the chief breadwinners in their family. Sometimes the beggars are blind, or handicapped, or wearing blood stained bandages on a leg stump, or ravaged by a grotesque skin disease. But always, they beg.

One government of a Pacific Rim country has decided that beggars are bad publicity during tourist season. As a result, many of the beggars are rounded up annually and reassigned to other places: Out of sight, out of mind. But, the truth is out of sight, dead. The government probably reasons “everyone knows that there is something wrong with these people so we shouldn't help them anyway.”

Jesus had a radical approach to beggars. He loved them. Jesus knew that in reality all of us are beggars. Without Jesus’ help, none of us can receive the mercy and forgiveness we need. Without Jesus’ love, none of us can be healed from our many “diseases.” In fact, Jesus promises his followers a blessing when they embrace how poor in spirit they really are. So, today we are beggars and tomorrow, too.

This month, we beg you by the mercies of God to remember the Pacific Rim people in your prayers every day. World-wide, over one hundred thousand people will be praying for the Pacific Rim. Join our family as we read through the prayer booklet at breakfast time and pray together. How I wish you could hear the children pray for the lost!

We have united with many who are pleading for the Pacific Rim and God is answering. Come join this joyous band of beggars!