Category: Poverty Page 4 of 5

The power was out all day.

By the time we got home in the afternoon, our back-up battery system had been depleted. The generator was out of fuel. The air was stifling; the sweat trickled down my back even while standing still.

At bedtime, the kids started loudly complaining. It’s too hot to sleep without fans! But as I fumbled for a headlamp, I too was equally grumpy. The air was perfectly still and a sauna descended on the house. What do you want me to do about it? I hollered back. You’re just going to have to deal with it. Go stick your head in the shower and then go back to bed!

I’ve got such entitled kids, I grumbled to myself.

But then I prayed, Please make the power come back on. I don’t want to lose a night of sleep!

And I realized I have the same entitled attitude.

I thought of my friend who I had just talked to earlier that week. Her philandering husband had disappeared and stopped sending her money, leaving her alone to provide for the kids. She lives a couple miles away from me, in the same city with the same stifling March air. She has no indoor plumbing (she hauls water every day) or rarely the money for electricity. With tears in her eyes, she told me that she had no money for food. Only flour was in the house.

There’s no welfare here. Or food stamps. There’s no safety net.

I can’t imagine. The idea of going home and telling my children that I have no food to give them is utterly incomprehensible to me.

If we wanted to, Gil or I could have gone out that night in the dark and bought more fuel for the generator. If we wanted to, we could have run it all night. It’s expensive, but we could have afforded it. We just didn’t want the inconvenience.

So when I find myself praying for the power to come back on, I must question my view of God. Is he there to fulfill all my wishes? And if so, then what about my friend, with not only no generator or electricity, but also no running water and no food? She is praying to the same God as I.

I gave my friend some groceries and am helping her think of longer-term solutions. But life for her will most likely always be brutally hard, right on the edge between survival and extinction.

Up until recently, right next-door to Haven of Peace Academy was a rock quarry. All day long, trucks would bring in boulders, and dozens of people would spend all day pounding those boulders into gravel. All day, every day.

HOPAC’s soccer field is on the edge of campus, and often while watching my kids play their soccer matches–healthy, strong, well-educated and in their matching jerseys–the background noise would be the pounding of rocks.

I don’t mean to give a single-sided view of Tanzania, because as I’ve written before, not everyone is poor. And most certainly, those who do have so much less than me have a great deal to teach me. But every day, I live my comfortable, educated, charmed life right alongside those who wonder how they will feed their children.

And I wonder how then I should live. And how I should pray. And what will be revealed on that Day, when all the charm and comfort is stripped away, and when we are all shown to be who we really are.

The power came back on at 9:00 that night, and we all had a good night’s sleep. But it was the darkness which showed me my soul.

Let’s say you had a friend who always had the cutest, most stylish clothes, yet you knew was on a tight budget.  One day you asked her how she does it.

“It’s the best thing ever!” your friend gushes.  “I have my very own tailor straight from Bangladesh!  We set up his own work space in our walk-in closet, so he can make the clothes and hang them right up.  And guess what?  We only have to pay him three dollars a day!  You totally have to get your own tailor. Mine says his 14-year-old daughter is almost as good as he is….do you want me to contact her for you?”

Um.  Maybe you would need a new friend.

So the idea of having your own personal tailoring slave in your closet might not sound very appealing.  (Let’s hope not.)  So why then are we not more disturbed when we hear about the conditions under which most of our clothing is made?

Lately, I’ve been noticing clothing labels.

Almost all the labels say Bangladesh, Vietnam, China, or India.  All countries known for their cheap labor.  And I wonder what’s happening on the other side of the world to bring me my affordable clothing.

You’ve probably heard some of the stories.  About the clothing factory that collapsed in Bangladesh in 2013, killing over 1000 tailors who were making American clothes.  Or maybe you’ve heard of this new documentary about clothing workers in India who get paid three dollars a day for over 12 hours of work.  Or the Chinese tailors who get paid $100-$200 a month.

And that’s only one of the problems associated with clothing in the United States.  The other is that we Americans buy way more clothes than we ever need.  So that means that every year, thousands of tons of clothes are given to charity.  Know what happens to those clothes?

Less than 10% are actually re-sold.  Another big percentage is made into rags.  And over a quarter are stuffed into bales, shipped, and sold (at a profit) to markets in Africa.  Our family has become quite adept at shopping in these markets.  But even this is not a solution.

The massive influx of used clothing into Africa has caused the near-collapse of local fabric production. So much so that many African countries, including Tanzania, have pledged to stop these imports by 2019.  And what is the United States’ response?  That these countries are “imposing significant economic hardship on the USA’s used clothing industry” and thus may receive trade consequences.

So not only does the United States source most of their clothes on near-slave labor, we punish the countries who refuse to buy our cast-offs.  

It’s one thing to hear about poverty in the world and know that there’s nothing we can do about it.  But what if we are directly contributing to it?  What if we actually are buying clothes that are made by slaves?  What if our cast-offs are just increasing the world’s poverty?  Should we care?  Will God hold us responsible?

On one hand, there doesn’t have to be anything immoral about being wealthy.  On the other hand, what if the abundance of our possessions is directly related to the poverty of the rest of the world?  What if having our closets full means that others will have to dress their children in rags?

Maybe I’m being over-dramatic. This is deeply disturbing to me, but I don’t know what to do about it.  Buying only name-brand, expensive clothes is not a solution, since even those manufacturers make their clothes overseas.  Boycotting clothes made in developing countries is not a solution, since much of their economy depends on the clothing industry.  The truth is those tailors need jobs–but they need to be paid far wages and have good working conditions.  How can we, the consumers, make that happen?

In Tanzania, one of my favorite clothing options is buying local fabric and taking it to one of the many tailors I know.  But that’s not usually an option in industrialized countries, and I buy many other clothes in the traditional way as well.

Grace trying on a dress in our tailor’s shop.

And really, clothing is just the tip of the iceberg.  Shoes, handbags, toys, electronics–all of these things are produced overseas, sold in America, and then shipped back overseas when Americans don’t want them anymore.  We see these things in Tanzanian markets all the time.  

The question that most haunts me is this: If there was a way to make the world’s economy more fair, am I ready to make the sacrifices that would require?   Have I come to grips with the fact that I can’t have my cake and eat it too?   If there was a way to pressure the clothing industry to become fair-trade, are I ready to pay significantly higher prices for my clothing?  Am I ready to live with less so that I don’t produce as much waste?   

It’s easy to put my head in the sand so that I don’t have to feel the weight of the world’s poverty.  But to whom much has been given, much will be required.  What does God require of me?

Are there solutions?  Do you have ideas?  Can we have a discussion about this?  I would love to hear your thoughts.

Also, if you want to recommend a great fair-trade clothing company, leave their website in the comments either here or on Facebook.

Here’s two from Tanzania to get you started:

Sifa Threads

Karama Collection

Let’s see a show of hands:  How many of you bought gifts for the less fortunate this year?  A Christmas shoebox?  Or for your church’s Christmas outreach?  Or rescue mission or homeless shelter?  Or Angel Tree?

I’m guessing there’s a lot of hands up out there.  Americans are generous at Christmas.  It’s wonderful.  Good for you, America.  I’m guessing there’s not a lot of other countries that meet your level of generosity this time of year.

There’s just one thing that concerns me:  All these gifts were purchased for invisible people.  People without faces, without names.  Sometimes, charity gift programs do include actual names.  You know, like when you get a little gift tag:  Buy a gift for Tom, age 12.  He would like a football.  That’s a little more personal, but Tom is still invisible.  The gift buyer will never meet Tom.

These programs can be great, and they have their place.  But it does cause a huge disconnect between the giver and the recipient, or to be more blunt, the “rich” and the “poor.”  The thing is, I think we “givers” kind of like it that way.  It makes “helping the poor” as neat and easy as swiping a credit card.  Present bought.  Present wrapped.  Poor person happy.  Rich person happy.  Duty done.

We want to help the poor, but we also want it to be easy.  Doing more, like say, building relationships and getting involved in the messy complications of other people’s lives–well, that’s a whole lot harder.  But we must force ourselves to answer the question:  What really is going to make a difference?  Giving a gift to a faceless person we will never meet, or getting down and dirty with the problems in another person’s life?

What we might not realize is that the invisible recipients of our generous Christmas gifts are actually not quite as invisible as we might think.  They might be cleaning our houses or our workplaces, or mowing our lawns.  They might be doing our nails or delivering our newspapers.  Maybe they are serving us weekly at our local diner.  Maybe we’re paying for them to care for our ailing grandmother.  Of course, not everyone who works these jobs is in the “poor” category.  But I would guess that if we look hard enough, all of us, every day, have contact with people who are.

Often, they might look different from us or speak a different language, which makes the barrier between us and them greater than just economics. Often, we content ourselves with knowing that we are paying them, so that should be enough.  

But is it really?

Some people think that the way to eradicate poverty is for the government to do more.  Some people think that the solution is found in generosity to charitable organizations.  I think the solution is a whole lot more complicated than that, but we are heading in the right direction if we prioritize relationships as the key.

Building a relationship goes far beyond a paycheck.  It means talking.  Spending time together.  Being a part of each other’s lives.  Learning from each other.  And then, once that relationship is built, looking for ways to help raise that person’s standard of living.  Not just by generosity.  But by mentoring.  Helping.  Tutoring.  Investing.

If it sounds hard, let me assure you that in reality it’s even harder.  The more I’ve tried to help people in poverty, the more complicated my life becomes.  Many, many times, I just get a pit in my stomach and want it all to go away.  Often, I don’t know what to do.  Often, I wonder if I am making things worse.  But then a friend tells me that her 9-year-old daughter ranked 6 in her class of 200 students, and it’s all worth it.  I get a glimpse of their better life coming.  We rejoice together.  And in the end, the miracle of real relationships is that my life becomes so much richer.  Often, it is I who have something to learn.

The righteous care about justice for the poor.  (Prov. 29:7)

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. (Matt. 25)

If every established American family chose to invest deeply in the life of one immigrant, refugee, or financially struggling family, then we wouldn’t need more government programs, or even more private charities. Think of the very real difference we could make in America. 

And then, come Christmas time, instead of buying presents for nameless, faceless strangers, we could have the joy of spoiling a family who we know and love and has enriched our lives.

Now that would be a great resolution for 2017.

Every year, as a Christmas present for my house cleaner, we take her family to the local water park.  It’s a highlight of the year for her kids, and an incredible joy to us.