Lessons about Poverty: An Introduction

There have been times in our living here that there is a break in the activities and projects that I (Chris) can get involved with. I tried to visit the school more and help Lesley a bit extra during those periods, but I have also taken pleasure in my rediscovered enjoyment of reading. It is like this year has alternated between contributing to projects – not only mentally, but also very physically (making up for never working a manual labor job growing up) – and on the other end of the spectrum, it is sometimes like a sabbatical.

This month has definitely not had the quiet, sabbatical time periods. At the end of January, I began to take on a bit larger role in the completion of the new building at the Ribe Primary School. At first it was just acting as liaison between Ribe and America to enhance the information flow. Then, I was taking and sending measurements and specific information for the group coming in a few weeks.

Last week, I managed (and helped with) completing the cement floors in the classrooms, including making a quick run for more cement sooner than expected on Wednesday. Over the weekend, we had Mophat (the in-country Project Kenya representative) and an electrician in town. They are both from Western Kenya, and came to confirm some arrangements for the group coming and do a lot of the electrical work, which continued to keep us pretty busy. I am now managing a little remaining plastering and hoping to get the floors in the corridors done before the group arrives as well.


Thus, I have been quite busy even through the weekends, but today we had an unexpected day to relax because a cement delivery was delayed. As a result, I finally got a chance to put some thoughts down to share. Managing the progress at the school and discussing the labor wages between the donors in America and the laborers here in Ribe has been a lesson about the poverty level in this area, but most of these thoughts are from other sources. In fact, I have had some blog material bouncing around my head since mid-January when we were experiencing the power outages.

I have been reading To Give or Not to Give? Rethinking Dependency, Restoring Generosity, & Redefining Sustainability by John Rowell. Now I’m sure you could’ve guessed which way his argument was to the question “To give or not to give?” even without the subtitle of the book, but I am really enjoying the book and learning some interesting things.

A few things really struck me, and then shortly after that, Lesley and I listened to a sermon we downloaded from Elmbrook Church in Wisconsin that complemented the material very well. Additionally, I then came to a section of Proverbs that had verses that spoke about the same topics.

Combined together, this material added up more than I realized, so I will share it in a few installments. I hope you enjoy, but don’t get your hopes up too much; I am, after all, an engineer, and it has little personal commentary but rather the juxtaposition of the material after milling around in my head.