The Road To Hell is Paved With Good Intentions

"The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions"

I have been thinking of this quote (which can be attributed to Samuel Johnson in Boswell's biography without "the road to" preface) often recently. George Bernard Shaw added to the quote saying "all men mean well." As Christians we know that is an utter lie, but we also see many examples of good intentions and hellish results. Sincerity and zeal to help those who are hurting makes the fact that many people hurt those they are trying to help all the more tragic. As I see the hellish images from Haiti I think not only of the disaster, but also of the disastrous 30 years that preceded the earthquake and the good intentions of many who sought to be involved in helping the people there during that time.

The World Trade Center was doing quite well structurally on September 10, 2001. Haiti was not doing well at all the day before the earthquake struck. Do you ever think people with good intentions had something to do with that?

The purpose of this post is not to analyze the reasons that the U.N. has struggled to create a working government. For this discussion, eliminate from your mind the swindlers and the thieves. This is not the place to address the officials who rob their country. Nor is it time to give more thought to the child traffickers who seek to destroy the lives of precious ones who God loves. We can take some comfort in the final judgment and their fate which God promises is worse than if they had mill stones hung around their necks and were cast into the sea. We can also support those seeking to bring about justice on this earth, but I want to speak now about those whose intentions are good.

I am uncertain whether the whole missionary group from Idaho that was arrested and charged with child trafficking had good intentions. I am sure many of them did. I am also certain that in moments of self reflection, many of us would see too much of ourselves in the way we have rushed in without the right plan, without the proper execution and we have brought even further destruction to a place that is hurting.

I am concerned that Haiti relief will be similar to the outpouring of interest in cancer screening, prevention and research Lance Armstrong caused. I think Tim Tebow may have a Live Strong bracelet amongst the many bracelets he wears, but most of the wearers lasted in their support about as long as the Beanie Baby craze. I am hoping that for many in the church, the profile of Haiti serves to wake them up to the Biblical mandates regarding care for orphans and widows (James 1:27). You will also see in the Word the story of the Good Samaritan and great precedent for healing and helping and pointing to the Great Physician. This is not a call for a season of helping, but rather for a life in which we seek to obey God’s command to care for widows and orphans in their distress.

How many of you who are not doctors would sign up for a medical trip and just go down and wing it? You have good intentions, right? You want to help! You did not get all of the "training" but you do watch plenty of Scrubs and you used to like E.R. I do not know anyone who would do that. We understand the danger inherent in seeking to help someone medically without the proper plan and the proper implementation. I think that far too often we do not realize that we do something similar when it comes to "helping" in lots of ways around the world.

How can I make a claim that some people who have been trying to help Haiti have actually been causing harm prior to the earthquake? Ask yourself hard questions. Why, on the island of Hispaniola, is the Dominican Republic doing so much better than Haiti? Part of the reason is spiritual poverty.

Pat Robertson has done more to help the poor in terms of relief efforts than many of the critics I read attacking him, and I think very few took the time to listen to what he said in context. I wish he had phrased what he said differently, but I think everyone who knows Christ and of the problems in Haiti should be praying desperately for spiritual revival in a time of tremendous pain. I know that I desire that God will set free those who practice voodoo and that there will be repentance and people will be drawn to Him. I am in no way suggesting that the widespread practice of voodoo caused the earthquake, but I am saying that it creates a spiritual poverty that leaves people in need of a God who loves them and who hates witchcraft. What is the solution? Should I run down there and preach "Jonathan Edwards-style" to repent? God may use this tragedy to call individuals to evangelism as Americans in Haiti and I would encourage us all to listen to God's voice. Yet, just as in the American experience where God used some foreign evangelists, the bulk of the work that needs to happen is revival and conversion through the indigenous church. How can we build up the church? In part by helping them reach a point where they are providing for the needs of their flock without our largesse.

A pastor from Africa who took some time to meet with me and answer questions I had as I started my new job with World Orphans said, "Never make the mistake of assuming that money is neutral. It has great power to do good, and great power to do evil." He said, "Often people send money overseas and then think that at worst it was just wasted if the project did not go as planned. What they do not realize is that it may have done great harm, depending on how it was wasted." It was a statement that convicted me. How often in the past with my conscience pricked would I just give some money to whatever group had the image of the hurting person that stirred my emotion. Care enough to learn how people are helping and what they are called to do.

Given that an earthquake occurred, it is entirely appropriate that we should send food and blankets and relief type aid to the people of Haiti. The problem I want us to look at carefully, is why there were large shipping containers of relief aid in Haiti prior to the earthquake. Why have billions of dollars been sent in aid to a relatively small country that has gotten poorer as aid has increased?

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" is a short hand about development that I like. The tragedy in Haiti is more like "Give people fish for 30 years and then bemoan the lack of fishermen in the community." Even more tragic than the powerful disincentive of ongoing aid that is given without requirements of rehabilitation and development is the fact that many parents are now abandoning their children because they believe that the children will be better served through the help of a "rich person's" orphanage.

What a depressing blog post! Friends, we need to show wisdom and be good stewards to truly help those we are seeking to help. There are tremendous people working in Haiti in an ongoing way who know a great deal more than I do about the culture, the needs and the people. That said, I am certain that long term, the best way we can help the people of Haiti is by equipping and supporting the indigenous church and by providing strong accountability for funds dispersed. How do you avoid parents sending their kids to orphanages? Work with the local pastor who can provide food and medicine to the children while providing the father with job training. What if the father refuses to work? The New Testament has plenty of verses about that, and the person who I pray is seeking to lead that father to Christ and who can explain those verses to him is the local pastor.

How do you care for those who are orphans? Well I hope that it is something I will be able to share with you as I continue to write this blog. There are tremendous opportunities that exist now in Haiti to provide for orphans through the indigenous church in a way that gives the former a home and gives the latter the benefits that God designed for the church as we obey His command to care for orphans.

World Orphans has formed a Haiti Orphans Response Team that is working with excellent organizations like Focus on the Family's Orphan Care Ministry, Together for Adoption, Christian Alliance for Orphans etc. to equip indigenous churches to care for orphans in their community. You can read more about HORT by going to http://www.haitiorphanrelief.org

The best resources I have read that are very instructive into the heart of why we often fail to do what we set out to do despite our best intentions are the following two books.

"Dead Aid" by Dambisa Moyo, was written by an economist from Africa. While it is somewhat academic in tone and is speaking about aid in Africa specifically, it holds excellent lessons for worldwide relief.

"When Helping Hurts" by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert is an excellent book that describes the need for development and many of the pitfalls we encounter as Western church members who are trying to help our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. They have a free webinar available that I became aware of after I wrote this blog initially. The webinar focuses on Haiti.

http://chalmers.org/when-helping-hurts/webinar/haiti-02-2010.php.

The appropriate response to the earthquake in Haiti is relief. There are near term needs that have to be met. Yet if we are to ever see Haiti as a place that moves beyond being a desperate and impoverished portion of an island that is doing incredibly better on the other side, we must eventually move from relief to development. Our brothers and sisters in Haiti will be delighted when they can support themselves without our financial assistance and we will be able to focus on helping the next victims of a natural disaster. Development is difficult and time consuming but incredibly satisfying, and I am so blessed to be a part of an organization that is called to serve in that way.