Some months ago, my husband joined a men’s study group at our church, a group I refer to affectionately as the “Boys Only Book Club.” Each month the “boys” read a book on Christian living or theology and then meet to discuss it.

Their last book, The Poor Will Be Glad, by Peter Greer and Phil Smith, was about the benefits (and drawbacks) of microfinance among the world’s poor, which I decided to read before my husband did.

By the time I gave the book back, my husband needed all of his speed-reading skills to finish it before the meeting. This was not because I read slowly, but because I kept stopping to think and to reorganize my view of who the poor are and what they really need from me.

I can best explain what I mean with the following (invented) story:

One wintry day I walk into a clothing store and see a display of thick, warm jackets. I devise a generous plan to buy some and distribute them among the needy in some cold corner of the developing world.

I feel cheerful and inspired as I negotiate a bulk discount with the store manager and go about making the various arrangements for transporting 300 jackets across the world.

I find a poverty-stricken slum and fly there with my useful items. I hire a translator and set myself up in a corner of a common meeting place, handing out a completely free jacket to whoever looks cold or needy.

A poverty-stricken neighborhood in Kenya.

There is soon quite a crowd and when all my gifts are distributed, I look around at the laughing faces and get a warm, fuzzy feeling. These jackets were even better to give than to receive.

I pack up and head for home. The only people I now see are those wearing new warm jackets; I don’t notice the grim-faced woman staring at me from inside a rickety stall.

She was there with her little make-shift shop before I arrived and she is still there, but I hadn’t bothered to think about what she was doing because she already wore a warm jacket and therefore needed none of my help.

Her warm top is actually very similar to those on the table in front of her — handmade, simply designed, not as detailed and innovative as my generous gifts. Her half-dozen items of clothing hardly cover enough of her stall to make it easily identifiable as a shop.

As I pass out of sight, dancing children following in my wake, the woman, whom we will call Sue, begins to slowly pack up her wares.

It is too cold today to sit here any longer, now that the four women she knew to have been saving for a purchase from her are busy showing off their new jackets of far better quality to their friends.

Sue walks home slowly, thinking about her children and how she will afford the rent this month. There is only one real option – she must sell her warm jackets at a cheaper rate, make up the rest of the money by selling her business’ equipment as well, and find some other job.

She knows this will mean no warm jackets to sell next year, but having a business next winter is of no use if you and your family starve in the meantime.

I return home to accolades for my thoughtfulness.

• Is it likely that the existence of Sue would be imagined by anyone around me or that I would be asked to really consider my impact on the economy of those I had gone to help?
• How many of us would think about what might happen to the price of warm jackets next winter in this cold slum, since half of those engaged in the trade had closed up shop?
• How many other cold people can now no longer afford warm clothing at all?

Now let’s imagine this differently.

I walk into the clothing store one wintry day, see the warm jackets, and think about giving them to the poor. But instead of focusing so fully on what I can do for poor people, I leave the shop thinking about who poor people are.

I go home and do my research, find a frozen slum and decide to fly there.

I arrive empty-handed in the meeting place, my translator by my side. I have a completely different attitude – one of learning, asking questions.

I have no large boxes of goods to move around, which gives me time to sit down and talk to a woman with a rickety stall.

I talk to Sue about the challenges and opportunities of manufacturing warm clothing in such a place and find that her greatest limitation is the high cost of getting her fabric and threads from a supplier in a distant city.

I leave thoughtful.

A visit to a local church gives me the names of some local Christian businessmen whom I sit down to talk and pray with, forming and refining plans.

At length a plan is created, and I set about putting it in motion.

Returning to the woman in her stall, I find that Sue has sold four of her warm tops to some local women who had been saving up to purchase them. I purchase her remaining stock and give it to the local pastor for distribution among those in his community he knows to be unable to purchase such items themselves.

I then visit a number of other small garment-making businesses in the area. The common theme is one of high shipping costs for materials from their suppliers.

I return to the group of businessmen and use their local knowledge and business contacts to locate a reliable supplier of the various items needed by the clothing makers.

I negotiate a discount for bulk and ongoing orders, and arrange the most economical bulk shipping for the goods.

A local man known for his honesty, currently unemployed, is selected to be in charge of the new local depot for fabrics and haberdashery.

I put the word out among the local women, and a crowd of them soon appear to check out the goods and prices.

They find that my discount for bulk purchases and shipping has allowed me to put a reasonable mark-up on the goods and still charge a price that is significantly less than they were previously paying, when their shipping costs were added on.

Sue pulls out the money she has made from her day’s sales. All of her six warm jackets were sold at their full price, so there is quite a pile of coins in her hand.

She smiles as she counts out the money needed for this month’s rent and returns it to her pocket. There are extra coins still in her hand, which she spends on things from the new shop before her.

Sue walks home quickly. She has a lot of work to do, hand-sewing her new materials into more warm garments for sale next week. She has been able to afford more fabric than normal, so her store will be better-stocked and probably attract more attention.

The new fabric and haberdashery depot begins to make money as more and more women come to rely on it for their materials. Another salesperson is hired, and eventually the thriving business is made over to the ownership of the man who was its first manager.

The profits are used to buy a proper cutting table for measuring out the fabrics and a sewing machine for Sue, which cuts in half the time she needs to spend making each garment.

A Ghanian woman sewing in her shop.

By next winter there are new clothing businesses, which are making cheaper garments for those who cannot afford the warmer, better quality jackets sold by Sue and her competitors.

It is almost always true that a hand up is better than a hand out. I found the more I thought about it, the more my view of charity was challenged.

• Is the thing I am giving better to give than to receive?
• Is the gift you are contemplating simply something you want to give, or is it doing real and lasting good in the community you are hoping to help?

I took a closer look Compassion’s work, this time with fresher eyes, and was cheered.

• Compassion’s policy of exclusively partnering with local churches gives them vital local knowledge and keeps their work culturally appropriate.
• The one-on-one approach prevents the work from becoming too standardized to meet individual needs.
• All the locally purchased gifts help the local economies.
• And the focus on education and encouragement reduces the risk of dependence on Western support.

I do not think I will ever look at giving the same way again, and I was glad to find myself more pleased than ever with Compassion’s work.

I found that I was profoundly thankful for the rules that had prevented me from ignorantly sending well-intentioned gifts to my sponsored children through the post. Poverty is complicated enough already.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mez Lyndon has been a Compassion supporter for close to 10 years. She and her husband, Josh, live in Brisbane, Australia, with their cat Maya, and they sponsor four children.

If you’re interested in writing a guest blog post, we are happy to consider publishing it. Read our guest blog post guidelines.

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A former Compassion child’s heart broke every time he heard or saw his tribal people suffering from poverty. They had high debt from taking out loans. They worked hard but received low wages. They did not have knowledge to improve their lives.

Yamsuk could not sit still, do nothing and watch his people suffer. He had a strong desire to bring knowledge to help those poor, uneducated villagers.

Yamsuk was born into a hill tribe family on a high remote mountain in the north of Thailand. His relatives were illiterate poor farmers who did not have their own farmland. His father wanted to see his son gain an education.

Yamsuk’s father hoped that his son would one day have a stable job and receive good pay rather than work as a farmer like him, unable to make ends meet. But there was no school in Laoop village where they lived.

In 1964 Yamsuk’s father sent his son to register at Lamp Child Development Center in Mae Sa Riang town. The center opened for children who lived in rural areas where there were no local schools.

The development center allowed the children to stay in their facilities while studying at the school nearby. It provided Yamsuk with meals, spiritual activities, agricultural activities and a place to sleep.

Yamsuk’s father walked from his hometown for two days to bring 10 bags of rice, 2 kilos of chili, 5 liters of salt and 3 cents to pay for his son’s yearly school fee.

Yamsuk’s family was Christian but it was at the center where he was introduced to having a personal relationship with God and where he was baptized. The center supported him in several youth camps and helped him to walk and grow in the way of Jesus.

After Yamsuk graduated from the center and high school, he received a scholarship from the government to study agriculture and social development at the university. He had a burden to help poor villagers in remote areas.

Yamsuk decided to work with an non-governmental organization (NGO) on agriculture development. He taught the villagers to stop growing opium and provided them with knowledge on how to grow other crops. The organization gave funds to support the villagers to do agriculture.

But deep in his heart, Yamsuk knew just giving the villagers money was not a sustainable process to help them develop in the long term.

“I worked for many years but the money we provided for them was gone. I felt my work was worthless. The villagers spent the budget they received unprofitably because they did not have an ownership.”

Yamsuk resigned from the NGO after working for 10 years. He had a passion and dream for his hill tribe people to have something that belonged to them; something they could have ownership in, and something that could help them escape from poverty.

He also wanted to create a solution for the villagers’ high debt that was incurred when they borrowed money.

All too often, the villagers had been taken advantage of because they did not have knowledge. Some could not even take out loans from the bank since they did not have Thai citizenship.

In 1994, Yamsuk and his friends established a savings group organization called Micro Economic Development Foundation.

“I don’t have grants for the villagers but God gives me wisdom to help them. The most valuable thing for me is not money but the knowledge.”

Yamsuk traveled to the remote areas in northern Thailand to teach and encourage villagers about savings. It took him six months to establish the first members group.

The purpose of the savings group is to gather villagers who live in the same village to save money monthly. Money in the group is the villagers’ savings and they can borrow that money for paying school fees, investments in their farms, livestock, or to open a store.

The savings group interest rate is lower than the bank or other financial resources. Having the savings group, which is run by the villagers, gives them a sense of ownership and has helped improve their lives.

One savings group started with 74 members and 4,700 baht (around $155). The group grows constantly; after operating for 13 years, there are now more than 540 members with more than $180,000.

Piengput was a poor villager who, from a young age, had a dream to have her own shop. She nearly gave up pursuing her dream because she did not have a budget.

After Yamsuk came to the village to share the benefits of the savings group, Piengput did not hesitate to join.

Piengput deposited her savings each month to the savings group account and she borrowed money many times to invest in her little shop. Starting out with a small store  3-by-3 meters in size, she now owns the biggest store in the village.

Piengput has been saving her money with the group from the beginning and now she has more than $6,450 in the savings group account. She even brought more than 20 people from her family, friends and relatives to join the savings group.

The savings group helped her become free from debt and support her two children to study in schools in the city. It also helped her start her own business, which is the main source of income for the family.

The savings groups that Yamsuk has established are growing. There are 65 savings groups located in the remote areas working for the hill tribe people. Their total savings is more than $2.3 million.

“I don’t think to make anyone [the members of savings group] rich. If they are rich, they are rich of joy and happiness.

“I am very proud to work alongside the villagers. I sacrifice myself, my knowledge and my time into the savings groups. All my work wasn’t wasted. But it is growing and it can help poor villagers.

“I would like to pass my appreciation to my sponsor who gave me a chance to study. I promised myself that I would bring knowledge to help others. This is what God’s planned for me.”

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

But if your call to serve the poor extends beyond holistic child development, which it does for many people, we’d like to introduce you to our partner TEAR Fund New Zealand.

TEAR Fund stands for The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund, and its purpose is to glorify God by extending His kingdom in ministry to the poor, oppressed and disadvantaged, and to encourage God’s people to live out the values and principles of His kingdom by sharing with those in need.

TEAR Fund New Zealand represents the compassion of Jesus. This organization partners with local Christian organizations and churches in developing countries who use local staff to work directly with the poorest people, helping the poor find their own solutions, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs.

Microenterprise, community development projects and disaster relief are TEAR Fund New Zealand’s key activities, but that’s not all this ministry does. Right now, it’s working to eradicate the Guinea worm in Côte d’Ivoire, and also has programs to fight adult illiteracy and sexual slavery, among others.

TEAR Fund New Zealand offers child sponsorship too, but does that through us. Sponsoring a child with TEAR Fund New Zealand is sponsoring a child through Compassion.

Although our friend is from New Zealand, you can still partner with this Christian aid and development agency. Visit tearfund.co.nz to learn more.

We promise they don’t write with an accent…then again, maybe they do.

Oh yeah, you may like this. TEAR Fund New Zealand’s non-sponsorship programs are conducted in places of the world we don’t currently work.

• Afghanistan
• Cambodia
• China
• Malawi
• Mongolia
• Myanmar
• Nepal
• Niger
• Palestine
• Sudan

So if your heart is in those parts of the world, TEAR Fund New Zealand would be pleased to meet you.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates