I found this old photo of me from 2004, holding plans for a small house we were about to build for a family somewhere in the developing world.
I led the team. We worked hard. We meant every bit of it.
The family watched us build their house. Capable people, with skills and ideas of their own, standing to the side while we hammered away and felt good about ourselves.
A Bag of Almonds
That wasn’t my only lesson. A year or so later, after hosting a medical clinic in Honduras, I handed a bag of almonds to two children through the window of a van, just trying to be kind. Within seconds there were twenty-five kids on the ground, pummeling each other over this misguided gesture.
What I Got Wrong
I’ve thought about both of those moments a lot over the years. The problem was never the heart behind what we were doing. The problem was the assumption that the answer was somewhere outside the community… that we were the ones who needed to show up with it.
The most transformational work I’ve ever seen didn’t come from outsiders with resources and good intentions. It came from communities who were given the encouragement and training to act on their own ideas and potential.
Those experiences have reshaped everything I think about compassion and poverty today.
Still learning. Still humbled by how much I don’t know.
