Aug 9, 2010
Trash or Treasure? Lessons From The Third World
"I tell you the truth", [Jesus] said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others." (Luke 21:3)
We used to call it trash. We used to throw it away. It was just stale butter, a broken shoe, an empty box. These things have little value, or at least we used to think so. My family has been given the privilege to see the world through a lens tinted with poverty. By God's grace, my family has never missed a meal because we couldn't afford food, and we have never had to wear torn clothing or sleep on a dirt floor. We don't know what poverty is really like through our experience, but we are beginning to see more clearly, ask better questions, and grow in our understanding.
Some days, we are changed by little things that carry big lessons. One day I opened a plastic bowl to the smell of stale butter, "Yuck, I guess I'll throw that out." Tamara's grimace suggested some discomfort with my intention, "Todd, our house helper spend over an hour stirring the cream from our milk to make that butter, and her own family hasn't been able to afford any milk for a long time now."
I looked down at the butter again. It was the same butter I had seen a few seconds earlier, but now I look at it differently.
Later than night after our house helper had walked the 45 minutes back to her home, I scraped the stale butter into our shimo (garbage hole) and buried it where our house helper would not see it. However, the feelings of guilt and shame were harder to bury. Would these feelings cause me to change my mind in the future? If so, how would I alter the way I eat or buy food? Some of our fundamental, daily behaviors are being shaken right down to their American foundation.
Our children are learning with us. Jacob wears some Tanzanian, plastic sandals that cost about a dollar. Due to the stress and strain of active play, a plastic strap broke on one of the sandals. We planned to throw them away and buy a new pair. However a Tanzanian friend told us she could take the sandal into the market where it could be repaired.
After a cost of four cents, Jacob was wearing his sandal again. Tamara and I took another look at our attitude the sandals. They only cost a buck. However, when an average daily salary for some of our neighbors is about a dollar, our tendency to throw away things deserves re-examination. The newly repaired sandals looked about the same, but now we looked at them differently.
Our next lesson came in a box. Fewer things are packaged professionally here, so we don't use as much paper as we used to. Still, about every week or so, I walk to the shimo (garbage hole) with some paper to burn. The paper had just started to burn when I noticed two little eyes gazing down at a small box that once was part of a cereal, snack pack. I saw the Tanzanian boy looking at the bright, blue box and the picture of Tony the Tiger. The box looked the same it had a moment ago, but now I looked at it through the eyes of the little boy next to me. To him, the box was a potential toy - part of a car he could make and race with his friends. Could I continue to burn little boxes after seeing his face?
Butter, shoes, and boxes: simple things that brought out complex issues and feelings. In my town of in Tanzania, I have seen children walking with their arms around each other's shoulders, laughing and bouncing along. At another home, a smiling father held an infant while his two other children happily played nearby in the dirt. The children wore no shoes, there were no toys made from colorful boxes, and most likely there was no butter on their table, yet the home was filled with happy sounds. Was this poverty?
It is not a simple process to know what poverty means here, and we need to continue to listen, look, and pray to understand. We know that poverty contributes to sickness, hunger and hopelessness; BUT GOD (one of my favorite phrases in the Bible) is able to do great things, even move a mountain like poverty, and even through imperfect people like you and me.
From: Todd Rasmuson's "Eating Goat Parts for the Glory of God"
Used by permission.
Comments
PK on Aug 11, 2010 5:20pm
Great article expressing a perspective which needs to be more keenly felt in the Disney Land U.S.A.and in my own heart It could be pushed a little bit further beyond the benefit of his own family...Take the $.96 he saved and bless a poor man with it. Buy a couple of boxes of the Tony the Tiger cereal and gift them to young boys in the name of Jesus and share the the good news of the cross with them. :-)