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Chapter Eleven: We're All in This Together

Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 8:11
President Hinckley's announcement that the Church was establishing PEF and a new Church department to administer it immediately captured the hearts and minds of the Latter-day Saints. For that matter, the acceptance and applause was nearly universal in and out of the Church. The Saints appeared to be looking for a practical way to help our young people rise from poverty, and they resonated to President Hinckley's identification of education and training for young adults in their own countries. The essence of the message is that we are all in this together, and we can help each other if we have the will.

Church members resonated immediately to the concept as simple and right. We did not see it as an about-face or a revolutionary idea. Shortly after the announcement, I was at the airport in Ontario, California. Waiting shoulder to shoulder with me at the baggage claim was a young, dark-haired bishop from Salem, Utah. On meeting me, he commented: "The announcement of the PEF sent shudders through my body. And I thought, 'This is so simple, and so right.' I wondered to myself, 'Why haven't we thought about this a long time ago.' "

The issue of poverty and lack of opportunity is complex and important. But the issue, which PEF is designed to address, is what can be done to help those in circumstances of poverty? One view of what should be done is to let circumstances take their course, and eventually the natural economic forces will take care of the problem. In other words, do nothing and what will be will be. Another view, one that President Hinckley has obviously adopted, is embodied in these scriptural words: "Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward. But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned" (D&C 58:27-29).

So, under the direction of the Prophet, and exercising by delegation the keys and authority vested in him, we have launched PEF. It had the promise of helping thousands of people rise out of poverty into better conditions for family life and leadership in communities and in the Church. It is already doing that. In a great measure this program answers the question of what our responsibilities are to help those in poverty rise above their circumstances. The answer is that we are our brothers' keepers. We can develop an attitude of esteem for every man and woman we meet, and our religion requires that we do what we can to lift them. Our responsibility is to do what we can, wherever we are and in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, to bless others.