Some serious brain lint...

How many times did you mom tell you to “think of the starving children in Africa” in an effort to get you to eat your dinner? How many times have you said something like that to your own kids? As a kid, I remember thinking that it couldn’t possibly make any difference to a starving child if I left food on my plate or not. After all, we certainly weren’t going to ship it over to them, were we?

Now, here I am, in an extremely poor country. I believe that the average income is less than $3 a day.* (Most people I know make about $4-$10 a day, if I have my numbers straight, but may feed and clothe 3-10 more people besides themselves.) I don’t even know how much income we have per day, if we were to calculate it in that way, but the fact that I don’t know makes me feel completely luxurious. In addition to the poverty, there are things such as drought and famine in the south and cyclones and flooding in the north. There isn’t too much of the island that hasn’t been affected by adverse weather in the last 6 months.

We’ve been here for 26 months now and both of us are feeling overwhelmed by the poverty we see daily. M, especially, sees extreme need as he flies around the country and visits smaller, poorer villages.

I feel that the two cultures I interact in are polar opposites. “Back home” the popular thought is that God does want to bless His children materially. Of course there’s any amount of different opinions about what that means. Does it mean that God will provide basic shelter and clothing or that He wants only the best for His family and will provide a house with luxuries and name-brand clothing? Here, I see many people who work today to pay for dinner tonight. God hasn’t let them starve, but they may be eating only enough to live and certainly not choosing a new menu every night. There is a Malagasy pastor who, along with his family, has left jobs and family to go out into the bush. They have chosen to live in a community that has no local water source. They treat the sick in their home, exposing their family to countless illnesses. They live among people who routinely eat roots as a source of hydration.

So, back to the question at the top. Does it make a difference to anyone in the world if I have food left on my plate, or if I have leftovers rotting in my refrigerator? Why would it matter to that pastor in the bush whether I have meat to eat 3 or 7 evenings a week? What lies have I believed about what my standard of living needs to be? What money do I have to give away, and is there a way to have more to give?

I’ve been thinking these questions over. And over. And over. What does God want to change in my heart by having these questions come to my mind?

Here are some thoughts and questions I have thought of, in no particular order. Also, I’m not saying that these thoughts are my final conclusion. I expect God to refine these thoughts a lot, and I know that M and I have still more talking to do. You may challenge me, rebuke me or encourage me regarding any of them. Please do.

1. If I show a lack of conscience about what food I buy and eat, it shows a lack of sympathy towards those in the world who have less to eat than I do. True, I’m not going to ship off my leftovers to a starving child in Ethiopia, but if I make a conscious effort to eat the leftovers in my fridge (as opposed to letting them rot, and making a new meal) I have saved money which can be shared with those in need.
2. I can choose to fast occasionally in order to remind myself of what it feels like to be hungry. A large number of people in the world go to bed hungry, or at the very least, not overfed (as I am prone to do).
3. I can teach my children that using the phrase “I’m starving!” is absolutely unacceptable. I can teach them that there are people in the world that are starving, and that it means illness and death, not an uncomfortable feeling in the stomach because of not eating for 3 hours.
4. I can make a choice to give used clothing and other household goods (or the proceeds from the sale of those things) to people who truly can’t afford to buy them.
5. Our income and expenses should be reviewed on a regular basis, to make sure that we are giving the maximum amount that we can afford.
6. I can advocate for the poor and hungry by making people aware of organizations that use donated funds to feed and otherwise help hungry people in a responsible way.**
7. If I make impulsive purchases (which is a huge weakness of mine), I am living by ‘the lusts of the flesh’ and am misusing money that could otherwise be used to help those in need. I need to learn to take more time to think and pray about what I will buy.
8. Is there a bigger difference than I’ve been believing between God giving me a good gift and me giving me a good gift?
9. When I am asked for money, is it really my problem to worry about how that money will be used? How far can I carry that if I believe that it is? I can’t follow someone around till they spend the money, can I? Can I trust God to guide my heart so that I can give money freely when I feel in my heart that I ought to do so? Can I give money and truly let go of it, because after all, it was God’s money, wasn’t it? Is it callous to say that it is between God and the recipient, and my conscience is clear?
10. My praying (and the praying I teach my children to do) should include poor and hungry people. However, I think that if I pray and have no actions, my prayers will be ‘empty’. Faith without works is dead, right?
11. I can choose to eat less of whatever is the most expensive category of my grocery budget. If meat is costing me a lot, maybe I need to eat less meat. If I someday live in the Yukon (as M talks of) maybe I’ll need to eat less fresh fruit. The other day I made the comment, “I could never be a vegetarian.” Immediately, I felt that God reminded me, “If I asked you to be a vegetarian so that you have more money to give away, you could.” It’s probably something different for everyone. Coke, chips, ice-cream, chocolate and sugar probably take much more of my budget than I’d like to admit. What about those things we feel we “must” have in our fridge or pantry – sour cream, cream cheese, two or three kinds of cheese, various cake or dessert mixes, etc? Do we need to redefine ‘necessary’ as it relates to our cooking habits? (PLEASE do not confuse this with health issues. That is something for another time and another place.)
12. What about my hobbies? Let’s be honest, scrapbooking isn’t cheap. Can I find ways to cut out unnecessary expenses in that area, besides the obvious step of sticking to a pre-determined limit? I think I may need to learn to borrow more reading material as opposed to thinking that I need to own every good book in the world.

*In 2005, 85% of Malagasy people lived on less than $2 a day. (I took this information from a book produced by the Malagasy government called “Madagascar Action Plan”)

**I’m still researching this, but I hope to add some links to my sidebar in the near future.