We have a single mom friend we have tried to help. She is not interested in getting off welfare or helping herself. She is somewhat manipulative. In her case it’s hard to blame her, exactly, for a number of reasons that I won’t go into. I do not think she means to be a user.

She used to call us for rides. She lives forty minutes from our house, and she wanted us to come get her, then drive back past our house and into town another 20 minutes north of us. Or we’d have her over for the weekend and she would ask us to take her by the store on the way home- only the store wasn’t on the way home, it was thirty minutes round trip OUT of the way.
and then she would call us from town saying she’d had a doctor appointment, but now did not have a way home, could we come get her. We did this at first. Supposedly, she doesn’t really know anybody in town but us.

She began calling for these urgent needs for rides at all kinds of inconvenient times. Once she wanted a ride during our children’s piano recital. We said no, and she rescheduled her need for a ride to a different time- then we realized she had more control over these ‘emergencies’ than we’d realized. So we have stopped. We are not available when she calls for a ride because of some emergency. And she has, suprisingly, found other arrangements.
I would not have done this at first, and I will feel kind of bad if we ever refuse to help and it is a genuine emergency. But two or three emergencies every month is a bit much.

This experience and others like it make me confidant that Caroline’s friends can find other transportation. But they haven’t soured us on helping at all. I am okay with the fact that we’
ve been used sometimes. In this case, I think it may even be helpful- because we still have a relationship. We still call her sometimes and have her out occasionally to spend the weekends- and she must know that we know we’ve been used, since we’ve quite being available for spur of the moment taxi service. I am hoping it occurs to her to consider that we still are still are here for her for serious needs and possibly wonder why. Even if it doesn’t, I know that my children have learned something, and that others watching have learned something, and so have I.

At some point in some cases we do have to say no. That’s one reason the Bible says that if a man will not work, neither will he eat. I think it’s reasonable (but not easy) to say, “WE’ve done a lot for you, even though we can’t afford some of the luxuries you have. YOu buy cigarettes and cable, we use the money we might have spent on similar luxuries helping you, but you don’t want to learn to do better and live within your means because you won’t let us help you learn to budget, which is something we do to make it possible to help people like you. We feel we need to direct our own limited resources to helping those who really need it and are trying to do better.” Then cut them loose- or make help dependent on them demonstrating good faith efforts to improve. Tell them no when they call for rides. Tell them you’ve tried to help them work out a budget, and since they are not interested, you can’t help anymore.

Maybe that’s what God wanted you to do- build a relationship and then point out that it can’t continue on the same footing. Maybe he has something for you to learn here, rather than them. Maybe He wanted to show you how to spot manipulation and recognize true needs for a later situation. Maybe He has something for somebody looking on to learn. Maybe, if there are children involved, this experience has been to teach the children something. Maybe you will never know what fruit this past three years has shown.

Jesus said that we would always have the poor with us. I think it’s wrong to use that as excuse not to try to help the poor, but I think it’s also useful in keeping in mind that your help will not always be appreciated and it won’t necessarily change things.

They won’t thank you. I can tell you now that my guess is they will not be interested in changing the status quo, and they may even hate you and will defame you to others.
If you don’t give them rides anymore, they will find other transportation. I promise they will. It’s your comment about them being slightly manipulative that makes me sure of this. But maybe I am wrong, and if you refuse to give help without evidence of good faith efforts on their part it will be a tiny wake up call and something will change.

We have helped people like this, and we would still do it again. We took in a family that we had seen others help and then be thanked by being reviled. We knew that when we could no longer help them they would hate us and revile us. We did it anyway, because we hoped to have an influence for good on their children. We may never know if it worked or not, but they do hate us and they have reviled us.

That won’t always happen, of course, because the poor are no more all alike than anybody else. People are different. But sometimes there does come a time when help has to be conditional- whether that condition is something has important as letting outsiders help them budget or simply showing some consideration for other people and not taking them for granted, not being manipulative (in the case of the single mom, making appointments and getting rides into town,a nd then calling us to say she had no ride home- which she knew days in advance, but putting it that way made us feel like we had no choice. Until we stopped buying that. And then she made other arrangements).

What do you do when you give and give and give to a needy family who refuses to learn, whose home is in spiritual darkness, whose hearts are sealed shut and they refuse to hear the gospel. What do you do besides pray? I buy prescription medicine for them because I want them to see this is how Christians act and I tell them I do it because Jesus loves me and He loves them, too. They’ve called me for toilet paper, roach traps, groceries, medicine, transportation, etc. Meanwhile, they have deluxe cable TV (I do not have cable TV) and smoke like chimneys.

People at church have told me to stop helping them b/c they think I’m being taken advantage of. I cannot really afford to help them and have recently “passed them along” to my mother and her church. My mother’s church is very small but very wealthy and so they can give people a lot of stuff yet never share the gospel with them. My mother says that it’s not right to expect desperately poor people to give up their few luxuries like cable tv and cigarettes, because those are the only enjoyments they have.

I’m in a quandry. God has kept bringing these folks to me for over 3 years now and I know He wants me to do something with them! I feel ill-equipped. The parents in the family are much older than my husband and me, are slightly manipulitive and are not willing to let us sit down and work out a food budget with them.

Sorry this is so long. If anyone has anything to share, please do.

Natalie