Tag: wealth

I Want More

My mom tells the story of taking my brother and me to a Christmas event at the American Embassy in Liberia. I had just turned seven and had lived in Liberia for a year. There was a Santa at that party, and he asked Paul and me what we wanted for Christmas. We sat perched on his knee, completely stumped, unable to think of a single thing. There was no question in our young minds that we wanted Christmas presents. But since a year had separated us from television, Toys R Us, and the Sears catalog, we couldn’t possibly imagine what we wanted those gifts to be. 

My kids used to be the same way. But after four years in America? They can fill up an Amazon wishlist like nobody’s business.

When we moved into our new house a year after we arrived in California, I fretted over the laminate flooring, which is light brown on the bottom floor and dark brown from the stairs up, and gazed disapprovingly at the bedroom doors which look like they’ve been patched over several times by miscreant children. That is, until Gil gazed disbelievingly at me and reminded me that this house is way nicer than anything we’ve ever lived in, and what on earth had happened to me?

America happened to me, that’s what. 

Swimming in the Stuff of America

I spent my first years of life in suburban California, and I assumed every person on earth had a TV and a bike and a refrigerator that magically produced food. As a fish doesn’t know anything besides water, I couldn’t conceive of anything besides middle-class.

I moved to Liberia when I was six years old, and the boy on the other side of our fence ate frogs out of the swamp when his family ran out of food. I met girls who walked miles to haul water while I walked to my privileged international school. I later lived 16 of my adult years in Tanzania, where my rickety van and millepede-infested house felt like luxury. I didn’t have a dishwasher, a dryer or central air conditioning, but I had electricity and plumbing, and that lifted me above most Tanzanians.

I was a fish out of water, gasping for breath at the dichotomy between my life and theirs.

Now I’ve been back in America for two years, and I find myself slowly captivated by the middle-class ocean. The voices calling me from billboards and magazines and screens are persistent: You need more. You deserve more. It’s your right. I don’t want to listen, but I do.

Americans make up only 4 percent of the world’s population yet hold 31 percent of the world’s wealth. As a little girl, I dreamed of being a princess, and then living in Africa revealed to me that I already had royal status. How Rich Am I? tells me that even on my ministry income, I am richer than 94% of the world’s population. That can only be defined as aristocracy. 

Americans spent over 10 billion dollars on Halloween this year, which is more than the entire GDP of 60 countries. Americans will spend around 900 billion dollars for Christmas, which is more than the GDP of 173 countries – all but 17. Just Christmas. Scientists estimate that if everyone on earth lived the lifestyle of Americans, it would take five planet Earths to support them all. Guess that means I should be “glad” most people are poorer than Americans.

Yet when I drive through neighborhoods of houses that look just like mine with a Starbucks and a Panera on every corner, when everyone around me goes to Disneyland and Outback Steakhouse, I struggle to put my head above the water and remember how most of the world lives. It’s easy to fool myself into believing that just about everyone has what I have, that I am in the majority. Or perhaps I’m poorer than the majority since I can’t afford pedicures, cruises and designer purses.

A friend in Tanzania wrote to tell us that he hasn’t had a job for a year, so could we front him the money to start a new business? And my immediate thought was no, because I just found out this morning that my child needs braces.

And my next thought was that I just chose braces over my friend’s desperation to put food on the table and pay school fees for his kids. 

I like to pretend I’m not wealthy. Jesus said that to whom much has been given, much will be required, so if I’m not rich, He can’t require much of me. I can hunker down and pay for braces and not worry about people who need the money more than I do.

Read the rest at the EFCA blog.

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