Serving Others

A blog I read once in a while, Reeds in the Wind, had a very challenging and eye opening post a couple days ago.  Here’s a small section from the post:

One of the conversations in particular has stayed with me. On the way to Gbarnga, in Liberia, James Nowell asked the question, “How do we know when there has been enough intervention for poverty reduction?” This started a long conversation/debate that continued on and off for the rest of the trip. Here is an example of what James was referring to: as we drove by a village, we saw a young boy playing with two rusty cans and a piece of string. My heart immediately went out to him as I thought about all the nice Fisher-Price toys that my children played with…but then I also immediately realized that he was probably happy playing with that toy. So how do we know where to intervene and when… when is enough, enough…and when are we beginning to impose our (Fisher-Price) culture on someone else’s who may understand contentment better than us?

I encourage you to read the entire post here.

What are your thoughts?  What is poverty?