Three Reasons People Experiencing Poverty May Be Reluctant to Seek and Accept Help
No doubt working with individuals in life restoration requires deep heart work, but it also requires compassionate intellectual understanding that may not be apparent to us if we have not personally experienced those circumstances that can lead to extreme material and relational poverty. For those living in poverty, seeking and accepting help has barriers. I want to talk about three of the most common reasons individuals either decline assistance or leave a restoration program prematurely.
1. Lack of trust
As you might imagine, the circumstances that can lead to extreme relational and material poverty oftentimes arise from a lack of trust, whether from caregivers or friends or figures of authority.
We do not try to convince the men and women entering the Restoration Program that they can 100% trust us as leaders, or even trust every rule, requirement and restriction that is in place for them to follow. I will often say that I sleep well at night knowing that enough resources are being poured into each participant that if they will trust our process, they will walk away in 12-18 months equipped to live a restored life.
I have no hesitation in saying that if those you serve can truly trust your process, it will dramatically transform the way they pursue a restored life, and it will especially impact their ability to persevere when things get hard.
2. Persistent belief that nothing will change/things will always be hard
I believe that in many environments where those in extreme poverty are being served, this mindset is present and likely even encouraged—a mindset that is always striving, always unsettled, at least to a degree. When thoughts of striving continually run in the background of a person’s mind, it produces discontent and uncertainty that can quickly derail the restorative process. Producing or perpetuating a mindset with that kind of instability in a life that is already chaotic and stressful is in no way beneficial and can lead to increased hopelessness, even in the midst of what looks like a very healthy environment for them. What people believe about themselves and their future greatly influences how they face requirements they’re asked to complete, rules they’re asked to follow, and restrictions they’re asked to submit to.
Most people coming out of extreme poverty will find the idea of burdenless effort a completely new concept, so be prepared for it to hopefully draw them in but potentially push them away. A very real and all too common outcome is the sabotaging of their own restoration process out of fear of the unknown.
3. They just aren’t ready/able to commit to the time and process
Sometimes a person just isn’t ready to commit to a program, especially one as wholistic as our restorative process. It’s a daunting commitment and not one to be taken lightly.
Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
—Proverbs 6:6–11
Like many, I love the practical wisdom in the Old Testament book of Proverbs. One of the many things you can take away from the above passage is that Solomon gives the ants high praise for their efficient use of time, for being diligent in their efforts. A clear implication in the seasonal aspect of the metaphor is the fact that God gave the ants the time necessary to store up the provisions they would need later. It is especially true that time is of the essence in terms of how we work to restore the lives of those in extreme poverty. God has given us all an ample supply of the resource of time. And a very common learned behavior and roadblock for those in extreme poverty is the misuse of time and a lack of understanding of its importance as a resource in their lives.
In the Restoration Program, we ask for a twelve- to eighteen-month commitment, and we structure the program requirements carefully to follow that timeline. Consider the investment of time it will take to restore the life of someone who has experienced chaos, trauma, abuse, neglect, violence, addiction, and/or crime for years, perhaps their entire life. For them to show up at the doorstep of your life, church, or organization, there is no doubt significant relational brokenness and material destitution accompanying them.
To share just how short the time is that our men and women will invest in the Restoration Program, we roll out some percentages for them. Taking the minimum amount of time required for completion, one year, I calculated how much one year was in comparison to the rest of their lives. Here is what I came up with. It shocked me to see how low these numbers actually were:
· If they live 60 more years, 1 year is only 1.7% of the rest of their life.
· If they live 50 more years, 1 year is only 2.0% of the rest of their life.
· If they live 40 more years, 1 year is only 2.5% of the rest of their life.
· And if they only live 30 more years, 1 year is still just 3.3% of the rest of their life.
The prospective benefit for us as caregivers is to drive home just how short a period of time we have to facilitate life-long change for those we serve. The prospective benefit for those entering a restorative process is to emphasize for them just how short an amount of time they are investing to experience wholistic restoration for the rest of their lives on earth.
About Mark McKnelly
Mark McKnelly is an author, motivational speaker and wholistic life restoration minister and coach. McKnelly develops and helps other organizations develop programs for men and women reentering society from incarceration or recovering from addiction. He shares his practical process in his book Change for the Poor to teach others how to help individuals in extreme material and relational poverty restore their own spiritual, relational, personal, vocational and financial lives. His personal journey through addiction and recovery led him to his ministry.