Here’s a story about how not to do things right way, and how God’s OK with that.

Like many westerners, when I was first exposed to the immense need of the developing world, and the vision of the local leaders to change things, I was overcome with passion to join in and support them however I could.

We were in India, working with the leaders of about 500 churches, running medical clinics in poor villages. So many people were sick, crippled or blind. As I got to know their stories, it broke my heart.

Among the worst off were the widows, who were culturally rejected. Many of them were pouring gasoline on themselves and… well, without getting too graphic, they didn’t want to live. So we joined the local leaders vision and starting buying sewing machines. Some of them were so illiterate that they had to start by explaining what numbers were.

As more and more were trained, we eventually had a sewing school with a 6 month program that was graduating 300 women at a time. Both the government and the catholic church had tried this before and failed. But this program included starting every day with two hours of prayer. This was making the difference.

The next vision was to purchase land and buy a building that could multiply this program out to the thousands of widows and abused women who were waiting to get into our program. The volume they could produce would allow us to export saris outside of their villages, for significantly more profit.

An opportunity came up to buy land just before it the area was rezoned. We could purchase a big area, then subdivide and sell most of it off to recoup the investment, keeping part of it for the sari business. The only problem was they needed $125,000 right away.

OK if you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking: I was believing you at first, but your story is getting more and more fanciful as it goes. I was vaguely aware of this at the time, partly because all my friends were telling me not to do it. Even the bank teller was pleading with me not to send that much money to India… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

God had given me a heart for the poor, and I was committed to serving them. So I told him, “I’m all in on helping the poor, so if you don’t show me how to do this properly, it’s going to get very expensive.” We had a line of credit on our house, so I borrowed the whole amount and wired it to them.

You also probably know how that went. Poof! Delays, excuses, follow up trips to finally find out we weren’t getting the straight story. Cultural differences, moral differences, however you want to explain it, my money was gone. A little bit of “I told you so” from my friends.

I was pretty sure that God was going to be OK with me doing something stupid because he’d told me to love the poor. It may have looked like a bad investment in the natural, but it seemed to me like a good investment in wisdom.

It paid off. I learned so much from that experience. Partly divine revelation by the grace of God and partly just the PAIN of losing that much money. Anyway, I suddenly felt like I knew everything I needed to. Like a download on the Matrix, “I know community development”. It’s helped me immensely for over 15 years working in lots of countries. Wisdom from on high. Definitely worth it.

And I (eventually) got all the money back! Some from our dear friends in India who misplaced it originally, and some from a generous donor bailing out the project. Or, you could say, all of it from our loving God, who works with our mistakes for his purposes.

Would I recommend this approach? No.

Am I convinced that God is gracious? Yes.