Gatekeeper

Who do I help?

Everyday outside of my gate I am greeted with, I'm hungry.

Well, Good morning to you too.

Also gathered are a few different people waiting patiently for Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill is our director and MDL is known to help out the community in many different ways so therefore they wait for him to ask for different needs to be met. From time to time, Mr. Bill has to exit through the guard tower to avoid the crowd or sneak into places. There is always a line of people waiting to talk to him.

Today I tried to help. I thought if I could organize these people into needs and see if I could pinpoint specifically what they wanted it would save a lot of  hassle for Mr. Bill. I would set-up meeting times for the dire situations and  have every scenario already translated for him. Wow, I am such a problem solver. I started with a sweet old man. After finding a proper translator, I got down to business. Notepad and all.

Name: He wrote "Mama" down on the sheet. I quickly figured out he was illiterate and couldn't spell his own name.
Reason for coming: Bricks fell on his mother's legs
Need: $50 to bring her to the hospital (about $7 US)

Hmmm. Tricky one. I can't just give him the money because I would quickly go broke if I gave everyone outside our gates $7 and so would our ministry. (and not to mention a bunch of other reasons: beggars mindset, helping that hurts, safety of a white girl handing out cash, all the others that would come when they hear we give out cash).

I look around for a driver to take his mother to the hospital. No such luck.

Ah-ha! We have a doctor in the house! I go grab a doctor staying with us and introduce him to the sweet old man and the doctor agrees to go walk with him to his mothers house. Problem solved. This charity stuff is easy! All in a days work... Those MacGyver shows really paid off...!

Well then the story starts changing... he needs to bring her to a specific hospital, the bricks fell on her legs 9 months ago (earthquake), he actually needs to bring her to family to take care of her, he doesn't even need the doctor, etc....

Well now thirty minutes have gone by after all the running around, I am standing in hot sun, the  language barrier is really starting to tick me off and I am sad and frustrated at the same time. Is this man lying to me? Does he even have a mother? He just wants the money. Can you blame him?

The end of the story: I walked away.

I am not proud of walking away. But I am confused what to do? I hear stories like this EVERY day. Most of them are actually true. Do I walk around handing out $20s to everyone? I can't do that nor do I really think it is the right thing to do.

This episode sparked a long vent session with (saint) Cindy. I needed to unload my confusion, frustration and guilt. There is such great need staring me in the face yet I am overwhelmed because I can't pick which need to help.

Cindy shared a story of a boy in our feeding program who was wearing pants 3 sizes too big that kept falling down and he wasn't wearing any underwear. Cindy spent a good amount of time searching through our orphanage clothes until she found an extra pair of underwear. The next day the boy showed up not wearing underwear again. We suspected the mom sold them as soon as he brought them home. Wouldn't you if it could put rice on the table? The need never stops.

She also shared about giving a man a bottle of Nyquil because he was claiming to be sick. She quickly got scolded by the nurse because the man could turn around and sell that bottle to a mom on the street with a sick baby. The man needs to make money but babies can't have Nyquil. Neither the man nor the mom can read the bottle.

Talking it over with Cindy I came to a simple thought that cleared my head for the moment: When I get to heaven Jesus is not going to ask me how much money I gave, He is going to ask me how well I loved.

All I can do is follow the greatest commandment of love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12:31

So that is my story and I am sticking to it. Just love. (at least for today. My perspectives change daily down here)