Rich man vs the poor man

“A poor man can see forward. A rich man becomes blind until he cannot see good and wrong.”

A group of Compassion bloggers are wrapping up their travels through Kenya right now, journaling the great work Compassion International does with each sponsorship they receive for a child.

Just $38 a month sponsors a child.

What could you forgo each month to sponsor a child?

Shaun Groves shares some insight he’s learned from Eluid, an 18 year-old Kenyan man.

An orphan for ten years, he lives alone in a home made of cardboard, wood and corrugated metal. It’s eight feet long, five and a half feet high and five feet deep.

Because of a sponsor named Nick in Northern California, Eliud has enough – but you and I would call him poor.

Eliud prefers it that way.

After an intensely intimate conversation in Eliud’s home…

We walked together through the second largest slum in Kenya. Past the homes of it’s 800,000 residents.

We sloshed through a mixture of mud and garbage. Two new friends talking in the rain about wealth and poverty.

“I’d like to ask you a difficult question,” I warned. “I’ve been waiting a long time to ask someone this and I’ve finally found someone wise enough to answer it. Are you ready?”

He smiled slightly back at me.

“What does it mean to be ‘rich’ or ‘poor’? How much must a man have to be called rich?”

“Well,” he said, “I think it is true that a rich man has great wealth and a poor man does not have his basic needs. A rich man has new cars and a big house. The poor do not have basic needs.”

We passed a small opening in the sea of rusted metal. Inside, pornography played on a television for men with a few shillings. “Cinema” the sign read.

“In my country,” Eliud said, “to be rich requires corruption. I would rather be poor with God than rich with a corrupted life.”

We turned a corner and walked down a driveway onto church property where lunch was being prepared. Brad and I stopped under an awning and drank in Eliud’s last words of wisdom.

“A poor man can see forward. A rich man becomes blind until he cannot see good and wrong.”

There was a long pause.

“You’re right,” I finally confessed. “I am rich. And it makes me blind sometimes. I once thought I was too poor to share more but then I met my first sponsored child. She showed me how much good $38 can do. You are an amazing young man. Nick is helping you by being your sponsor but you are helping him by being his sponsored child. You are helping him see the good God can do when we share.”

His eyes watered just a little. Payback for all the tears these kids in Kenya have wrung out of me this week.