The Ministry of Health and Healing

Missionary Families

Missionary families are needed to settle in the waste places. Farmers, financiers, builders, and those who are skilled in various arts and crafts should go to neglected areas to improve the land, to establish industries, to prepare humble homes for themselves, and to help their neighbors. MHH 102.7

The rough places of nature, the wild places, God has made attractive by placing beautiful things among the most unsightly. This is the work we are called to do. Even the desert places of the earth, where the outlook appears to be forbidding, may become as the garden of God. MHH 102.8

“In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book,
And the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness.
The humble also shall increase their joy in the Lord,
And the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”
Isaiah 29:18, 19. MHH 103.1

By instruction in practical matters we can often help the poor most effectively. As a rule, those who have not been trained to work do not have habits of industry, perseverance, economy, and self-denial. They do not know how to manage. Often through lack of carefulness and right judgment there is wasted that which would maintain their families in decency and comfort if it were carefully and economically used. “Much food is in the fallow ground of the poor, and for lack of justice there is waste.” Proverbs 13:23. MHH 103.2

We may give to the poor and harm them by teaching them to be dependent. Such giving encourages selfishness and helplessness. Often it leads to idleness, extravagance, and intemperance. No person who can earn his or her own livelihood has a right to depend on others. The proverb “The world owes me a living” has in it the essence of falsehood, fraud, and robbery. The world owes no one a living who is able to work. MHH 103.3

Real charity helps people to help themselves. If they come to our door and ask for food, we should not turn them away hungry; their poverty may be the result of misfortune. But true beneficence means more than mere gifts. It means a genuine interest in the welfare of others. We should try to understand the needs of the poor and distressed, and give them the help that will benefit them most. To give thought and time and personal effort costs far more than merely to give money. But it is the truest charity. MHH 103.4

Those who are taught to earn what they receive will more readily learn to make the most of it. And in learning to be self-reliant, they are acquiring that which will not only make them self-sustaining but enable them to help others. Teach the importance of life’s duties to those who are wasting their opportunities. Show them that Bible religion never makes people idlers. Christ always encouraged industry. “‘Why have you been standing here idle all day?’” He said to the indolent. “‘I must work ... while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.’” Matthew 20:6; John 9:4. MHH 103.5

It is the privilege of all to give to the world in their home life, in their customs and practices and order, an evidence of what the gospel can do for those who obey it. Christ came to our world to give us an example of what we may become. He expects His followers to be models of correctness in all the relations of life. He desires the divine touch to be seen upon outward things. MHH 103.6

Our own homes and surroundings should be object lessons, teaching ways of improvement, so that industry, cleanliness, taste, and refinement may take the place of idleness, uncleanness, coarseness, and disorder. By our lives and example we can help others to discern that which is repulsive in their character or their surroundings, and with Christian courtesy we may encourage improvement. As we manifest an interest in them, we shall find opportunity to teach them how to put their energies to the best use. MHH 104.1