Hope Realized: How the Power of Practical and Spiritual Development Can Diminish Poverty and Expose the Lie of Hopelessness

By James H. Belt, III

Poverty isn't just a lack of resources. Often, even after resources are available, poverty lingers. Why is that? And can anything be done to help?

The problem is bigger than a lack of resources, wealth, or education. A lie of hopelessness is holding people captive, preventing them from moving forward, and perpetuating global poverty.

It might feel hopeless, but it's not. You can make a meaningful difference once you understand the missing piece you can offer.

From rural Nicaraguan towns to large American cities, business and church leader James Belt is transforming impoverished communities through practical opportunities for growth and the spiritual hope found in Jesus. Full of inspiration and actionable steps for every Christian who wants their own contributions to make a significant difference, this guide will help you create "all-in" hope that can change lives and end poverty.

You'll discover:

• A new perspective on why economic inequality exists—and how to go beyond traditional missionary and volunteer work to end it.
• True stories of the hopelessness ensnaring the poor in self-perpetuating pockets of intergenerational poverty, homelessness, and underprivilege.
• The incredible power of practical and spiritual hope to overcome poverty, whether in your city or across the world.
• Inspiring Bible passages to help you transform your own faith and privilege into hope and identity for others.
• Practical outreach and community project ideas that will empower people to fulfill their God-given potential.

We need more than surface-level hope to create impactful change. Get Hope Realized and start fighting the lie of hopelessness and poverty with all-in hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zebra Truck Publishing
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985734515

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Where Are You Going?

I vividly remember the day I felt called to move to Nicaragua. It was more than a little frightening.

In January of 2011 I traveled to Nicaragua on a mission trip with Cross-roads Church. Wanting to spend additional time in Nicaragua, and specifically at the Puente de Amistad orphanage, I decided to extend my trip by a few days.

I was out for a hike in El Cañon, a small impoverished community on the southern outskirts of the capital city of Managua, with a group of boys from the Puente de Amistad orphanage. This was a common activity for me when I was in Nicaragua, a trip I made few times a year. It was a beautiful January day—not too hot and not too humid, at least by Central American standards. El Cañon is at the bottom of a canyon, more or less invisible to the rest of the world. As you drive down the steep hill entering El Cañon, you feel a little like you are headed on a jungle safari. Palm trees and other thick vegetation line the side of the hills, with a canopy of large trees sprawling above.

As you move farther from the road, beyond the mix of modest concrete homes and makeshift shacks, El Cañon is lined with a mix of forest-covered hills referred to as mountains by the locals. The community of El Cañon is on top of the remnants of a coffee farm, which remains evident in some areas if you pay close attention. Agriculture was and continues to be a staple of this community, although it is significantly depressed in comparison to its heyday.

That day we decided to hike up one of the steep hills that has been cleared for cattle grazing. This hill is covered in long grass and the occasional tree or bush. From the top of the hill, you can see most of the lower half of El Cañon as well as the main road, which sits a few hundred feet above the community. The view is inspiring. January in Nicaragua is windy, as the seasons transition from rainy to dry. This day was no exception. I stood on top of the hill catching my breath as I stared at palm trees swaying in the breeze on a distant slope.

With the boys from the orphanage, ages ranging from six to 15, running all around me, I remember a thought popping into my head. It was almost as if someone was talking to me through my subconscious. Where are you going? were the words I heard ringing in my mind as I stood on the picturesque hill in Nicaragua that day. Believing that I was not losing my mind, I decided that the thought must have come from God, which scared and exhilarated me all at the same time.

This journey had started four years prior, in 2007, when I agreed to join my family on a mission trip to Nicaragua. They had been a part of Crossroads Church’s inaugural mission trip to Nicaragua and the Puente de Amistad Orphanage the year before and had been coaxing me to join them on an upcoming trip. Between their encouragement and my own convictions as a Christian, I decided I should follow their lead. What started as checking a box had turned into a deeply held passion and love for Nicaragua, its people, and the possibility of change.

The question Where are you going? meant asking myself if I was supposed to return to the United States to live my relatively easy and comfortable life, or if I should walk away from it to move to Nicaragua. Gulp.

I never had a desire to live in another country, much less Nicaragua. I enjoyed my week-or-so-long trips to Nicaragua to participate in mission trips and visit friends, but that was in part because I was able to jump on a plane at the end of them to return to my comfortable life. Sure, I cared about the plight of the poor, but I always imagined myself as the guy who made money to give to missionaries who had dedicated their lives to helping them. I was a businessperson. The idea of becoming a missionary, for lack of a better term, was so far from my radar that I never saw this moment coming in my wildest dreams.

As a leader at Crossroads Church, I had been telling others that real life is found in following God’s desire for your life, wherever that may lead. That you have to take a step into the river without knowing the outcome to truly experience life as it is meant to be lived. I was now facing a put your money where your mouth is kind of moment. Did I really believe the words I had so easily proclaimed to other people?

It would have been easy to rationalize away what God was putting into my head. I had bought a house a few years earlier. For the previous nine years, I focused on building a client base in my financial advising practice. I was well established and respected in my social circles and church. Leaving would mean going to a place in which I was relatively unknown.

I could barely speak Spanish. Sure, I took Spanish classes in high school and college, but I had barely ever used it, sticking to the basics such as How are you? Hello, and of course Where is the bathroom?

What about starting a family? Sure, I had been dating, but what would someone think when I told them I was moving to Central America? The idea of living in a foreign country and the reality of it are two very different things. Moving would certainly limit my options.

Having grown up in Maryland, I have always been a fan of seasons. The transitions from the cold of winter to the blooming flowers of spring to the heat of the summer and then the crisp days of fall always seemed to come at the right time. Nicaragua has two seasons: a hot, dry season and a hot, rainy season. As someone who sweats a lot, this was not ideal. Even worse, in Nicaragua I would generally have to live without air conditioning.

As someone who lived in the same general area their entire life, I knew how to get around and knew where to find whatever I might need at any given moment. Moving to another state would have been bad enough, but moving to another country would basically mean living as a lost tourist. I could picture myself driving around Managua like Chevy Chase stuck in a roundabout in European Vacation, never quite sure where to turn.

I had worked hard to build my little life, and saying no to going to Nicaragua made complete, logical sense to me. As that moment passed on top of that hill in the middle of a forgotten corner of Nicaragua, I honestly was not sure what I would do. I am not much of a spur of the moment decision kind of guy when it comes to life-altering choices. However, over the coming days, I began to realize that this might be an incredible opportunity to be a part of something that would really matter.

I didn’t know for sure how I would make a difference, or even if I could. However, I believed God was calling me to follow his lead, much like he had with my family years earlier. As many reasons as I had to say no, I could also see how God had been preparing me for this moment. Through the opportunities I had been given to lead at church and my experience working in my family business and financial advising, I had a unique perspective and set of gifts that could play a role in creating change in impoverished communities. Now with an adopted sister, Emelyng, from the very orphanage that had been my introduction to Nicaragua, a land that had once been strange to me had become more like family. The path forward was not completely clear, but I knew taking the step and trusting God would lead to something that mattered for more than just me.

In many ways it was the chance to put into action the epiphany I had while running on a treadmill a couple of years earlier: that hope was the key to changing hopeless situations. In the end, it was my belief in the power of spiritual hope that answered the question for me. Where was I going? I was going to live in Nicaragua.

CHAPTER 2

The Coffee Farm Wake-Up Call

This is the part of the story in which I am supposed to tell you I moved to Managua, Nicaragua and changed the world. Isn’t that the way the movie goes? The problem is this does not match real life. I had already learned that change is hard and messy and, worst of all, not guaranteed. I imagine you can relate.

Early in my travels to Nicaragua, long before the fateful day I felt the call to move there, I started to become more curious about the poverty I had seen in my travels. I had the opportunity to travel to the region of Boaco. Positioned on the front edge of the mountainous interior of Nicaragua, the town of Boaco reminds me of the topography of San Francisco. However, this would not be my final destination. Driving farther into the interior of the country, we arrived in a town appropriately named Pueblo de Las Montañas, or Town of the Mountains. Welcomed warmly by our host, a middle-aged Nicaragua woman, we entered the single room, adobe-style home that would serve as our hotel for the evening.

Waking up on my makeshift cot as sunlight creeped into the home, I was greeted by the sight of a small chicken head, bopping by my cot on the dirt floor. I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Growing up in middle-class America, keeping farm animals in the home to protect them from thieves or predators was a completely foreign concept to me. However, when resources are extremely limited, a person will go to great lengths to care for what they have.

After eating breakfast, we left for our primary destination—a cooperative of coffee farms. As we arrived at the first coffee farm, I took in the beauty of the green-leafed coffee trees sprawling across the mountains. Walking around the expansive coffee farm with the farmer as our guide, he explained that while they were able to grow more than enough coffee to support the families connected to their cooperative, they were only able to sell about 50% of the harvest. As a lover of Nicaraguan coffee, this took me by surprise. As I probed further, the farmer explained that the gap between production and sales was driven by the inability to secure a large buyer. While they had many small local buyers, they needed a wholesale buyer to reach capacity. I saw my opportunity to save the day.

Well, I can find one for you, I heard myself say. As a naïve twentysomething with just enough business experience to be dangerous, I assumed I could quickly secure them a contract with Starbucks or another large coffee company. It would be no time before my new friends and their families would be selling enough coffee to lift themselves out of poverty, I thought. After exchanging contact information and agreeing to work together, we headed back to Managua.

After returning to the United States, I quickly found out how little I knew about coffee manufacturing and working with farmers in remote, impoverished parts of the world. Over the course of the following months, I tried to make connections between the coffee cooperative and coffee buyers. It turns out the process of evaluating the quality of the coffee was significantly more complicated than I assumed and included sending a sample to Switzerland for evaluation. Who knew Switzerland was the coffee evaluation capital of the world? I certainly didn’t. This was a very specialized procedure of collecting, preparing, and sending the coffee, and required far more than an envelope and a few coffee beans. This would just be one step in the long process of negotiating a deal for the coffee farmers. Sadly, I was not prepared to navigate the world of international coffee trading.

What I thought would be a quick solution turned into an accidental empty promise. Solving poverty would require a long-term investment and a willingness to get messy, I realized, with no easy answers. It would require what Eugene Peterson calls, a long obedience in the same direction.¹

This truth became incredibly clear to me as I moved to Nicaragua. Learning from my experience with the coffee farmers, instead of bringing my preconceived ideas and prepackaged solutions, I needed to be willing to listen, build relationships, and, most of all, have patience and humility to truly gain an understanding of why poverty seemed to hold so many people captive in Nicaragua.

Through this process, I came to understand the role the lie of hopelessness plays in the perpetuation of poverty. Could it be that what we often believe to be the causes of poverty are actually a byproduct of something deeper? Hopelessness has incredible power as I have learned over my time living and working in Nicaragua, but my experiences have also convinced me that it is a lie.

I also began to grasp the power of practical and spiritual hope in the battle to expose the lie and eradicate poverty. This period of waiting was not easy for me. As a driven, type-A male from the East Coast of the United States, I want to solve problems quickly. The truth is the process drove me to tears and forced me to question my purpose for being in Nicaragua more than once over my first few months of being there.

Over the time I lived in Nicaragua, and in the years since, the battle to help people overcome the lie of hopelessness and escape poverty has been filled with ups and downs, joy and sadness. It has meant accepting that failure is a part of the journey but does not have to be the end of the story.

While there are some exceptions to the rule, breaking free from poverty and hopelessness when you believe you were created and destined for it is nearly impossible. In many cases it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of despair. However, change that paradigm and anything is possible. A new story can be written, with self-fulfilling prophecies of hope and change.

The problem is nothing ever seems to change.

This can be disheartening in my experience. It leaves us asking if real, sustainable change is really possible. It can make us wonder if Jesus’ words, The poor will always be with you,² meant the fight against poverty is an uphill, hopeless battle. If we are all created equal, why does our opportunity at realizing our full potential seem different?

If you are asking these questions, I am glad you are reading this. I have struggled with the same questions, which has led me on a journey full of twists and turns. I hope you will join me on this journey and I challenge you to open your eyes to both the reality of poverty today and the real opportunity for change. Despite how it appears, this is not the end of the story. In fact, I believe God is in the business of writing new stories and has invited us to play a role.

However, a question still remains, why does it seem like poverty is here to stay.

CHAPTER 3

Seeing Through a Different Lens

From a very early age, I can remember sitting