Living with Beggars

As many of you know, we lived in Uganda for a year during 2009-2010.  That was the first time we had to struggle with how to daily live in the presence of very needy beggars.  I'm not talking about the children or adults who every day ask us to give them money, or demand that we give them our bicycles, or to give them our dog, Caleb, when they see us taking a walk with him.  I'm talking about the people truly in need, the beggars who sit around on the street or in the market.  These are people who are asking for help not only from mzungus, but also from fellow Ugandans.  Some of them are sick, or have bleeding injuries.  Some of them are missing fingers (or all of their fingers) or legs.  Likely some of these are injuries from contact with the Lord's Resistance Army in the past.  Most of them are very elderly and hobble around weakly.  Apparently (according to merchants at the market) the beggars have families they go home to at night, but they don't seem to be taken care of very well.  Here is a photo of our Soroti market where we go shopping and see beggars each week.

Back in 2009, it was easy to say "no" to the rude people who would demand we give them money even though they were not poor.  But with the beggars we were confused about what to do, especially while reading books about dependency on mzungus.  Largely, we ignored the beggars.  I'm not sure how to feel about this.  On the one hand, we couldn't give to every beggar, we didn't have time to talk to every beggar, and most of the beggars we couldn't speak to at all because we didn't know their language.  On the other hand, I have a very painful memory of eating ice cream outside of a supermarket in Mbale, while right near us was a beggar begging for food, and we did nothing but ignore him uncomfortably.  It was not the exactly the same, but it felt too much like the rich man who did not care about Lazarus (Luke 16).  I repent that we never even tried to help some of these beggars.  Thank you Lord Jesus for giving us grace and mercy!

In the past 5 years preparing to come back to Uganda, we have received advice and ideas from others and made a  commitment to ourselves to better care for beggars.  We still try to avoid giving foolishly and creating dependency, but we want to recognize the humanity of beggars and care for them in some way.

We decided to give food to beggars we see in the market each time we go shopping.  We give healthy, ready-to-eat food, direct from the market.  Honestly, it probably does not accomplish that much, but we hope that if we and other Ugandans give in this way we can at least sustain these elderly beggars to have food and drink for each day.  While giving in this way is not a long term solution, it makes me feel better than ignoring them.  And it is much better than giving money which could be spent on alcohol (Uganda is one of the leading countries in the world for alcoholism). 

I also feel that by speaking to them, it helps to restore some of their dignity.  They may struggle with shame, and feeling worthless, and there are inferiority-superiority dynamics between Ugandans and mzungus.   When we give food to the beggars we shake their hands, and speak our little bit of Ateso by going through a series of greetings, and then telling them, "God bless you."  A few Ugandans have seen us do this and thanked us for what we've done.  I had fun with one old lady beggar, who turned out to be a Pentecostal Christian and we enjoyed a whole series of "Praise God" and "Amen" just like we would do in church.

Giving food takes just a few minutes, but even this can be annoying when you just want to get your shopping done quickly and go home.  I'm just being honest about my sinful nature.  But overcoming poverty takes more than a few minutes.  I'm sorry to say I've only got over my sinful laziness one time in order to have an actual conversation with a beggar.  But that one time was fruitful.

It started by talking to a merchant selling potatoes near the beggars and I asked him what they do to help the beggars.  We had a good time discussing, and I asked him if he could give the beggar near us, an old man, a job selling potatoes with him.  The merchant could not do so.  But I said, "surely this man is able to do some kind of work.  Does he have any skills?  How can we find work for him so he doesn't have to beg?"   The merchant said actually the man knows how to make rope using old bags.  Bags like in this photo:

The merchant once in a while gives him old tattered bags that are no longer useable and he has made ropes from those.  But most people aren't jumping to give bags away.  So the merchant led Sara and me to a place selling second hand-bags and we bought a bunch for 3,000 shillings (which is about $1.20).  We were able to talk to the beggar through the translation of the merchant.  I affirmed his value as created by God, and affirmed that God had given him skills, even the amazing skill of making rope that I don't know how to do.  He agreed to use the bags to make ropes to hopefully start earning more for himself.  All of us want something meaningful to do in God's world rather than having to beg, so I hope he finds joy in his work.  My calculations are rough but I think he may have been able to make about 18,000 shillings through those bags and ropes, and hopefully he used some of the money to buy more bags to make more ropes.

We were hoping this man would not have to go back to begging again.  A week or two later, we went back to the market and I went looking for him.  He was not in his spot.  I talked to our merchant friend who said he has not been begging and instead was going around selling his ropes.  But unfortunately, weeks after that, Sara has seen him begging again.  Maybe we will have to go and talk to him and see what other solutions we can come up with.  I'm still glad we did what we did, but it seems it was still not a long-term solution.  If you have suggestions, be sure to let us know.

Life here is complicated, especially when it comes to poverty and money.  We definitely don't do everything perfectly and have ignored and shown frustration to plenty of poor people.  We need Jesus to help us be loving and patient each day.  Pray for us about this.  But we are grateful that God has been transforming our hearts and minds, giving us wisdom and desire to help more than we have done before.