Naw Karee

 “My name is Naw Karee. My father is a night watchman at a medical clinic. My mother takes care of the house. We are poor...”

She introduced herself to me in a letter. As a seminary student, I had written to Compassion International because I wanted to do something about poverty. I inquired about becoming a sponsor. Her letter followed.

“My dear loving Uncle,

God has provided me with a kind sponsor from a faraway place and I feel so happy. I am the eldest child and a 6^th grader. Schools have not yet reopened. I have to look after my grandma who is paralyzed after a stroke. I enjoy singing at church every Sunday. I have decided to serve God when I grow older. I pray that you and your family will receive much blessings from God.

With love, Naw Karee”

I learned that Naw Karee lived in a country where there had been political unrest since before she was born. She lived with uncertainty every day, like whether or not school would reopen in the fall, yet her letters always brimmed with hope.

“Thank you so much for your letter and photograph. I am glad to hear that you are a student hoping to teach the Bible to others and that you are fond of reading and writing and doing the garden work. I tell my friends about you and they are very happy and interested. They also scramble to take a look at your photograph.”

It had been a while since anyone reacted like that to my picture! For me, poverty was no longer a nameless, faceless social problem. I couldn't see the world as divided between the powerful and the powerless. In our rush to the top of the economic ladder, we often seek out the man of influence and court the woman of status. We show them partiality in hopes that we will be rewarded. The poor live continuously beneath our gaze because they cannot improve our bottom line.

Yet the wisdom found in ancient Israel had a very different emphasis. The writer of

Proverbs affirmed the essential dignity of the poor: "Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the maker of them all"(22:2). There is no essential difference between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots. A woman who loses a child to malnutrition in a third-world country feels the same pain and loss as an American mother who loses a child to cancer. The pain, sufferings, and joys of the poor are the same. For Naw Karee, poverty was concrete: regular nutrition, school supplies, choices, and opportunity.

“I received your letter on the day I started taking the English exam. One of the questions in the English paper is essay writing about my best friend I had no problem in writing the essay because I wrote about you.”

Wisdom does more than make all men equal. It goes on to teach that the Lord has a

special concern for the poor, that he quickly comes to defend them. The poor are often put to scorn, but those who mock them show contempt for their maker (17:5).

One way to take advantage of another's powerlessness was to chip away at their land by moving the boundary stones (22:22-23; 23:10-1 1). Widows and orphans were particularly vulnerable. They had no family representative to take up their cause. In Proverbs, God steps in as their powerful kinsman who will take up the case and keep the boundary stones intact (15:25). To champion the poor is part of the nature of God, and the wise man will align himself with the poor and their powerful Defender.

Naw Karee and I had become close friends in spite of distance, training, and culture. When I made the decision to serve the Lord in Korea, my first question was, "Will I make enough money to continue to support Naw Karee?

“We are happy to learn that you have gone to Korea. I am thankful to uncle for sending me the postcards. I am really amazed how big and busy Seoul is. I have come to know more about Korea now. It is like you teaching me World Geography. I am thankful to Uncle for patiently explaining things to me. There is one thing I want to know. How are we to prepare ourselves to welcome the Second Coming of Christ? Please explain to me. Christmas is drawing near. Is it winter in South Korea?”

What does poverty look like? For me, it was having one car instead of two. For Naw Karee, it was much different. Worldwide, more than a quarter million children die every week from long-term deprivation. Children go blind from a lack of vitamin A. They die from vaccine-preventable diseases, lack of good drinking water. Simple health education and monitoring could save millions of lives.

But poverty is more than just physical. Educational opportunities are absent, leaving no hope for any real change. It takes its toll on emotions and hope as well. Poverty steals dreams, and a loss of any self-worth or value. An eleven-year-old girl walked into a Christian shelter for street kids in Brazil. She slept on the streets- alone, abandoned, and vulnerable. In the safe house, she was offered a meal and a clean place to spend the night. She wanted to accept the offer, but sadly asked, "So which of these men do I have to sleep with?"

The best description of poverty is the lack of choices. The poor feel as if they have no options, no possibility of change. The story is told of a farmer who owned several mango trees. He could cut down the trees to make charcoal and earn $75 or he could wait to harvest the mangoes and make $100. His decision? Since he wasn't sure he'd be alive to pick the next crop of mangoes, he decided to make charcoal and get his money out now.

“I was very happy to receive a letter from you. I think you have now become accustomed to living in Seoul. Your letters have encouraged me very much. I also pray to God to be a good girl. After I finish my schooling, I intend to join the Nursing College so that I can tell my patients about God's love. My grandma, who has slept in Jesus, wanted me to become a good nurse.”

Poverty is a vicious cycle and it is hard to know where to intervene. Wisdom recognizes that there is no simple solution. Some offer hard work and personal responsibility as the answer. Others see the answer in governmental change, in political revolution. Who is right?

Proverbs lists several causes of poverty that are within the ability of the poor to change. Loving pleasure leads to poverty (21:17). So does laziness (20:13). The man who ignores discipline, who rebels against any form of authority, will come to poverty (13:18). Those who are trapped in poverty because of the consequences of their own actions still need someone to intervene. But, it is a task of teaching responsibility as well as providing help.

Proverbs doesn't end there, however. It also recognizes that the decisions of a government can have devastating effects. "A poor man's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away" (13:23). The ruler may oppress the poor to increase his own wealth (22:16). It is the work of the ruler to see that the rights of the poor are defended (31:8-9): "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute..." I wondered who would answer for the poverty that had introduced Naw Karee to me.

“I have decided to serve God when I grow older. I am thankful to God for giving me the chance to write to you, I like the verse from I Cor. 13:1-13 very much and gist of it is love which is the greater thing on earth. I pray for you every night before I go to bed.”

In my relationship with Naw Karee, I began to sense that I was not the only one doing the giving. Somehow my giving had become reciprocal. It was just the tool God used to allow us to have fellowship with each other. Naw Karee was giving back to me far more than she knew. She was sharing her love with someone in the western world* a world characterized by a different kind of poverty. And I was the debtor.

According to Proverbs, there are several benefits that come to the one who will help to provide for the needs of the poor. For those who shut their eyes and ears to the needs of the poor, they will receive many curses (28:17) and in their own time of need they will cry out and not be answered (21:13). In the Old Testament, the normal relationship between God and man is described as one in which man calls out to God and God answers. When the fellowship with God is broken because of sin, then man calls out in vain. Is it possible that our voice is not heard in prayer because we do not hear the voice of the poor?

Because wisdom is a reflection of God's own character, the concerns of wisdom are God's own concerns. So, in a real sense, to care about the things God cares about is to care about him. This is made plain when God records that to be kind to the poor is to lend to God himself. God takes upon himself the responsibility of repaying the debt (19:7). A generous man is himself refreshed (22:9) and wisdom predicts that he will lack nothing (28:27).

Jesus underscored the same message in his parable of the sheep and the goats. He predicted that on the final day there would be many people who would be surprised to find that their works, however small, on behalf of the poor were remembered in heaven. And that works done for the poor were actually done for Christ himself. Even the giving of a cup of cold water would not lose its reward.

 

“Dear Mr. Utz,

Naw Karee has been receiving your support through a Compassion-assisted project in her country. As we wrote to you recently, because of the political situation, numerous restrictions have been placed upon our work. We have been unable to travel... We cannot get to the projects, inspect records, meet with children or replace our country director, who is retiring this year. Because we cannot carry out work that enables us to be good stewards of your support, we reluctantly made the difficult decision to end our work by the end of June.”

I remember the day I got the letter. I understood the decision that Compassion was forced to make. You have to be careful and accountable to the gifts of sponsors. Someone in a faraway government had shut down a friendship. By the time I got the letter in Korea, the time had passed for an opportunity to say goodbye. Sometime later, I got the rest of the letters Naw Karee had written.

“My Dear Loving Uncle,

Thank you so much for the gift money. With it I have bought for myself a school bag.

The color of it is white and blue. I like the bag very much. The cold season will arrive soon. Everything that God created is beautiful. My friends and I study our lessons together every week and I hope to be able to speak to you in English when I meet you someday. I hope to attend the English-speaking class during the coming summer vacation. I pray that you will always be blessed with good health and happiness.

With Love,

Naw Karee”