A second way the Scriptures describe poverty is as destitution and dehumanization. Such poverty is the result of injustice, oppression or racism. When we talk about the glories of poverty, we're not talking about the oppressed human being on this earth who has never had a chance to take in cultural, social, emotional, familial values.

Oft-times work with the poor in more developed countries is very discouraging. In the United States, we have people who have been "familially" destitute, culturally destitute, spiritually destitute. Although they're physically poor, they in fact have middle and upper-class values through television and advertisements. They want the same things that you and I want. The trouble is they can't get them. That's the worst of both worlds. They are trapped inside and outside. It is a state of sin—one which we must work to change.

We really need the wisdom of God to know how to break into some of the subcultures of affluent countries. In great part, I think many of these brothers and sisters are going to have to do it themselves because that's the only way they're ever going to experience their own empowerment and God's presence and life within them. The best we can do, perhaps, is to stand there with them and not hold them down, not give them any more negative voices than they've already been given by society. Our evangelization is perhaps to believe in them, support them from the side and at least not give them bad news. That's our poverty: that we can't do more.