Out of poverty

Zion invests in lifting Kirangare Lutheran Parish people out of poverty.

Consider the projects Zion has funded over nearly 25 years of companionship. Each one gives individuals and families the opportunity to increase their income and so improve their quality of life, financial stability, and economic mobility. The whole church and village benefits.

Take the Cow Project as an example, and Simon Simon, the secretary of the Kirangare Companionship Committee and one of our homestay hosts. When he was a child, the Cow Project provided Simon Simon’s family with a calf. The money they earned selling the milk, they used to put young Simon Simon through school. Not college only, but also what we would call elementary, middle, and high school.

Now Simon Simon is what we would call a youth minister at Mpare Preaching Point. He is a teacher at the Kirangare Secondary School. He also tends his own fields and livestock. He earns an income today that allows him to support his Mpare family financially – both his parents and his younger brothers. He can share with the church and with individual Christians in need. Simon Simon will tell you – someday face to face when he visits Zion in person – that he is where he is because Zion sent Kirangare cows.
From the Cow Project to the Milk Store, from the Zion Daycare expansion to the Vocational Training Center, Zion invests in projects that change lives, families, the church, and whole communities. You know this already, of course. I just want to make sure we all see the forest for the trees. You keep investing in projects that are sometimes called “economic development” or “economic empowerment.” Truly, they are lifting people out of poverty.

What if Zion did this in Davenport?

I ask because it’s what I wonder every time I come home from Tanzania.

Zion’s food pantry is an amazing ministry. With deep love, you invest your prayers, time, money, and selves in feeding our hungry neighbors. The scale and commitment of what Zion does is truly remarkable. I and many others beyond this congregation thank you and thank God for Zion’s food pantry.

And Zion’s food pantry lifts no one out of poverty. That is by design. Its mission is to temporarily alleviate hunger by offering an emergency supply of food. The food pantry witnesses beautifully to God’s generosity and love, and it is in a different category of ministry than what Zion invests in in Tanzania.

Just days after we returned from Tanzania, when my body was still somewhere in between our time zone and Tanzania’s, I had a conversation that made me want to get these wonderings out of my own head and heart and share them with you all. The conversation was with Kris Tucker, the Zion person who with the support of a few amazing teams of other Zion people, oversees the food pantry. She came to me and said,

“Since we started the food pantry, we always hoped we were working ourselves out of a job. We’d rather not have a food pantry. We’d rather people could provide for themselves. But it’s going in the opposite direction. More and more people need our pantry, not less and less. What can we do to change that?”

I didn’t go to Kris. She, out of the blue, prompted by her own independent wonderings, came to me. With awe at the Holy Spirit, I said, “I don’t know what the answer is but I’ve been wondering the same thing!"

Isaiah 49:6 is one of my favorite bible verses. In it, God responds to an overwhelmed and despairing prophet. “I’m a failure! I accomplished nothing!” whines Isaiah, his nation in crisis all around him. And God answers, “You know, now that you mention it, the job I gave you is too small. I’ll give you a bigger job.” I paraphrase. Here’s the direct quote.

God says,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
    to raise up the tribes of Jacob
    and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
    that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Isaiah learned it wasn’t about him and how small he felt. It was about God and how mighty and loving God is. Is it too light a thing that Zion should only have a food pantry? -PC