Brazil's Poor
by Geoffrey Biddulph

How do you know if you’ve done enough, when there are so many who are desperately poor?

They surround my car at most traffic lights in Brazil, an army of barely dressed, shoeless indigent, many of them with stumps for arms and legs. They shuffle or walk on crutches or roll in crude wheel chairs from car to car asking for money. If you give them the equivalent of a dime, they will smile and say, “God Bless you.” If you give them the equivalent of a quarter, their faces become radiant.

They are some of Brazil’s most desperate poor. Barefoot, shirtless five-year-olds juggle faded tennis balls. Rail-thin mothers slink from window to window with their newborn babies. Men with barely functioning limbs collect money with skeletal hands. Other men without legs or a means of getting a wheelchair travel dangerously below the traffic on dirty skateboards, stretching filthy arms up to window level in search of a handout.

Brazil offers nearly hourly challenges for those of us who are trying to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Our savior spent his time mostly among the poor and humble. Almost all of the people who read this article are rich by the standards of Brazil’s poor. How do we justify our relative riches given the stirring poverty in places like Brazil? I consider it one of life’s most difficult tests.

For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land. – Deut. 15:11

The poor certainly never cease in Brazil. By U.S. standards, more than 90 percent of the population of 180 million is poor. Most of them live in small shacks spread throughout the country. In Rio de Janeiro, where I live, the truly indigent, people without regular jobs or a decent place to sleep, make up more than 10 percent of the population of 8 million people. Every day I see more of them, living in tents on the beach in front of million-dollar mansions and sleeping on cardboard boxes on the sidewalks.

Many wealthy communities in the United States spend a significant amount of time worrying about keeping the poor away. In Rio, it would be like trying to stop an ocean wave with a baseball bat.

There are many different strategies for dealing with the constant beggars. Most of the foreigners I know simply do their best to ignore them. Most wealthy Brazilians I know don’t want to risk rolling down their windows to give them money (many a beggar has been known to snatch an earring or watch from a driver through an open window). But I know plenty of people who give all the time. They place spare change in a handy pocket and give it out like candy as they walk the streets.

I have developed my own policy: if I have spare change handy, I give to anybody who asks, except for children. My feeling is that most of the children are being deliberately exploited by their parents or other adults, and I don’t want to encourage them to continue begging in traffic where they might get run over. Every kid I see reminds me, strangely, of my own relatively well-fed and comfortable children.

Still, it becomes a constant test of righteousness to deal with being relatively well-off in a poor society like Brazil.

But wo unto the rich, who are rich as to the things of the world. For because they are rich they despise the poor, and they persecute the meek, and their hearts are upon their treasures; wherefore, their treasure is their god. And behold, their treasure shall perish with them also. -- 2 Nephi 9:30

There is a woman who “works” the street three blocks from my apartment in one of the nicest neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro. My evening commute takes me right by her corner. She is the mother of eight children, the youngest of which is about five. Her clothes are rags. Her children are spread along the street to beg and whine for money. The woman carries the five-year-old as if he were a newborn, hitched on her hip.

One day, I gave her the equivalent of $2 and asked her how she was doing. “I’ve got the flu, I’ve got eight kids, and I have no money,” she said, laughing ironically. She gave a huge toothless grin when she saw the large bill I was giving her.

A few days later, I saw her and she asked for some clothes. I went home and gathered together a plastic bag full of clothes I was no longer wearing and brought them to her. She was ecstatic.

But I had set myself up for a problem. As soon as her kids saw me from then on, they surrounded my car pleading for money. I felt responsible for her.

So, the next day I took a different route home so I wouldn’t pass by the woman’s corner. And of course I felt horribly guilty: why was it so hard for me to give a little money and attention to this poor woman and her abandoned family, especially when I was the highlight of her evening?

When I went by her street corner a few days later, she had moved on to another area a few blocks away that was not on the usual route of my commute. When she saw me drive by one day she greeted me like a long-lost friend. “Things are rough,” she said. “I’ve been sick.” I gave her the equivalent of $2. She said it would buy dinner for the entire family.

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and he hath set the world upon them. – 1 Sam. 2:8

One day a cold front came through Rio de Janeiro, and it got down into the 50s at night. It was very pleasant for me, jogging at about 6 a.m. As I was returning home, I passed a man huddled and shivering next to a building, his arms folded against the cold. His legs were useless sticks the size of a child’s arms. Next to his body sat the filthy skateboard that he uses to get around.

A great and strange sadness gripped me. Unexpected words came into my mind: “this man, too, is a child of God.” I had to hold back sobs.

I ran back to my house and brought the man a blanket. By then he had awakened and joined a group of homeless people in a park. All of them thanked me for the blanket.

A few weeks later at 6 a.m., I went jogging again and passed an open-air bar on a warmer morning. The man with the useless legs was there on his skateboard. He carried a big block that he used to maneuver his skateboard in one hand and a beer can in the other. He was obviously drunk and was screaming ugly imprecations at passers-by. It was difficult to feel any sympathy for him then.

I could not help but wonder how God would judge this man and how the man will judge himself when he is in the spirit world. How had he used his time on Earth? Would he feel regrets? It is of course impossible for me to know, which is exactly why Jesus told us not to judge others. This man, with all of his mistakes, could be much more righteous than I. There are many beams I need to take out of my own eyes before I can concentrate on the motes in the eyes of others.

When I consider this man, born with useless legs and spending his days dragging himself around on a skateboard, I inevitably think about Jesus’ parable in Luke 16: 19-25:

There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

Who of us who has lived comfortable lives in houses with roofs and Internet access cannot wonder whether we will suffer the fate of the rich man while the man with useless legs on the skateboard will be like Lazarus the beggar, happy for eternity? The scripture demands that we take stock of our lives and see where we stand.

And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants – Mosiah 4:26

How do we know if we have done enough? This is my constant question. I pay my tithing and am generous in my fast offerings. In my own imperfect way, I do the best I can in my church callings. I try to visit the sick and help the poor with whom I come into contact. I go to the temple when I can.

Is it enough? When I consider the row upon row of poor shacks in Rio – and compare it to my relatively comfortable circumstances – I am weighed down by the thought that I am not doing enough. I imagine the happiness of missionaries like Paul or Alma who traveled without purse or scrip doing the will of the Lord. They had no major possessions and no money, but at least they were unencumbered by guilt about whether they were doing enough in service of the Lord.

Of course, I have a family to maintain. The Lord has confirmed to me numerous times in various ways that I am on the right course. I know that our Savior’s atonement includes even my many sins, and I know His shoulders are wide and strong enough to carry me.

But often I am gripped by doubts. How can you not be when the Master told his disciples that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God?” (Matthew 19:24).

This morning as I was driving to work I passed a small child, no more than six, lying face-down on the ground shirtless and shoeless at a bus stop as people walked by him on a busy street. His thin shoulders looked as vulnerable as my own daughters’. Is there any hope for this boy who sleeps in the streets rather than going to elementary school?

Jesus was, of course, prescient when he said, “for ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.” (Matthew 26:11). This also means we won’t have an end to shirtless children sleeping at bus stops until Jesus comes back. Until then, we must do what we can to help those in need. There is a lot of work to be done.

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