Helping Others

Hello, my name is Gary Shotton and I hope to be of help to you in these videos. I’m enjoying myself here in the country of Uganda. My motive and my plan in being here are a part of these videos, I’m gonna change the camera just a little bit, is to help developing nations stand on their own feet financially. And this is several teachings on this subject, when helping hurts. I’m here hoping to help people and also guide us as outsiders, that we’re careful that we don’t do things that, in our intention, becomes actually a hindrance to the people we’re trying to help. This can happen in all levels. It can happen in our own families when a parent’s so over protective and so supportive that we don’t let our children grown up at a steady pace. It can happen as a nation when we, as a developed nation, just send tons of money and more money and more money and for 15 years we’ve been sending money as aid to a nation and they never ever really step up to the plate and become self sufficient because they become reliant upon the money, we, as a nation, send them. It’d be like a mama cow that never causes their baby calf to be weened and I’ve seen it happen. We’ve got a mama cow that’s like 1,200 pounds and we got a calf that’s now 800 pounds and still coming up to mom and asking for some milk, you know. That’s not healthy. So we’ve got to be careful that we are not doing things as from a developed stand point. That we’re really helping people in these countries that we’re helping. And we’re talking to the people in this country on this trip. Working with some friends of mine and they’ve already got about a dozen businesses that have started. I think there’s about nine that remain in business. I don’t know all the details, but I personally visited a number of these businesses. They’re doing a wonderful job. They’ve helped start up money for these business and not too much and there’s an intent for them to pay back these businesses to pay back and I’m all for that. I think that’s perfect, but there has to be wisdom. Because what has happened, and I’m gonna tell a couple stories, if we’re not careful, we continue to supply funds beyond the point that the business should’ve made some tough decision and have succeeded to the point that it’s actually making its own way. One of my friends calls it the squeeze. And I’ll just tell that story. My friend, David, here lives in Uganda and he tells how someone helped him and he primarily had the bulk of the money to buy a car for the people transportation business. Call it a taxi if you want, but it’s not just stopping in town like you would think a taxi, but where you’re going a longer distance, maybe an hour or two in his car and he’s a driver, he has a driver and he’s working towards that. And so it was a minor bit of help. It was perfect that he had the help to help this get started, but he had an opportunity with the United Nations to get a nice contract, a good pay. He was excited about that. But being good leaders in this organization, they wanted him to come and they wanted to see the car. They wanted to look at the tires. They needed to see the service records for the car and oh, he was so disappointed because they said, we really want to help you. We know your history. We know your heart, but I cannot use your vehicles ’cause they’re not up to high enough standard. The tires are bad. You haven’t serviced it. I can’t trust my foreign friends to be riding in your car. Makes sense. So my friend, David, says, oh, I have the answer. I’ll just call America, to my other friend who helped me before, and he will send me some money. I maybe even get it done fast enough to get this job. And you know what? My friend in America, he’s a really smart guy, he’s really a blessing, he told me later he almost cried, he did cry because on the phone he said, no. This is the American talking to the Ugandian, he says no, you’re gonna have to figure it out yourself. I’m basically cutting off the funds because you’ve been up and running. You should have been saving some money. I’ve told you about saving the money. I’ve told you about maintenance and repair and you haven’t done it. I’m sorry, the answer is no. Oh, my Ugandian friend, David, oh he was heartbroke. He was disappointed. Here’s a classic example. If my American friend had sent more money, what are we training? I don’t need to do the maintenance. I don’t need to save money. I’ll just need to go back like the mama cow babying a baby calf that now has grown to be 800 pounds. I’ll just go back to mama and I’ll have them send me some more money. Oh, my friend here in Uganda, he is a champion. He said that was the best thing that happened to him. He didn’t like it. He called it the squeeze. The squeeze made him to figure out some other way to get the tires. Yeah, he lost that job, but from that point forward, I know that on his own efforts, from his own money, he built and paid for a bumper on front. See here you can get bumped so easy with boda bodas running around and bumping into you. If you want a good car, you’re gonna put a bumper, a big bumper, a mean bumper on the front of everything else you’ve got. Cost him $175. He created the money for that. He has his own maintenance. He has his own revenue. He put his own tires on. He know is gone, I can’t remember total name of it, I think Go Afar Transportation, something like that. He has visions of having another vehicle and another vehicle and doing major transportation company. That’s not gonna happen unless he learns to deal and take care of his one car that he has his one transportation and, you know, he’s big enough to do it on his own and he learned that. What a lesson. Now, if we on the outside, continue to siphon more money and we siphon more money every time that they’re needing just another dollar here or some currencies in their currency, it is not really helping the person, in my opinion. You do what you want, but I know there’s trails. There’s a rabbit trail of things that says this is not really helping. We’ve got to come and be more mature on the developing side, the people that are trying to help. We’ve got to come to conclusion that this is what we can do when it comes for finances. Yes, we can help start up something. I have no problem with that. Now I think I need to make it crystal clear at that point. Is this a loan or is this a gift? If it’s a gift, how much do I have control on it? If it’s a loan, I think I have some little more control on it. If it’s a loan, I expect, and use the word demand, I have a payback program. I can be no payback. I can be for a year or six months. There’s a start up period. I can say no interest, but I think we’re doing our people a huge disservice if we call it a loan and we don’t have a payback schedule. My goodness, I had bank loans, especially in my first business, the trucking business, myself. I had bank loans. They were horrible. Horrible to come up with the money to pay back the loan. I had a reasonable loan, I thought. Sometimes I took too much money in my loan and now I have to pay it back. And you know what? My banker’s a good banker. This is in the United States. When I was a day or two late, beyond that grace period, he called me. He wanted to know when am I gonna pay my loan. I need a loan that’s current. He was polite, but business. That’s what we have to be. Well, I hope these videos are of help. This is part of some teachings on the care we need to be on the American side or the Australia or UK. I mean, whatever side we’re on, who might be watching this. I don’t just name those as a few that are helping. I know the Netherlands helps. I know Finland helps. I know a lot of countries help. So please understand these are generalizations and it’s to help countries like Uganda. In Uganda, there’s people that are high level bankers, high level investors. I’ve met them. So we’re not talking about those people. We’re talking about helping people from a Christ-like manner to come to reality that they can serve God through the marketplace. I hope this helps.