Blog Action Day – Poverty 2008

(Sorry to be early, I’m thoroughly shattered and may not be near the laptop tomorrow. Cheers!)

With all eyes on the tenuous economic situation around the world, this is an important topic for today. The greatest effect will be on those who aren’t even aware of crashing markets – those who live in poverty with no access to world news. Some of today’s most pressing international poverty problems are being dealt with on a governmental level and it looks like national investment in poverty stricken areas could be a dry well soon. Bailing out foolish lenders and borrowers could result in the world’s poorest paying as well.

I’m not at all an economist, but I know the ‘spread the wealth around’ idealism of the US’s  potential new government isn’t going to cut it with real poverty in the US or elsewhere. Spreading the wealth around has to come from the heart to be effective, it has to be born out of personal responsibility to help the poor and is best done in relationship. Jesus Christ said “The poor you will always have with you”, which means those blessed with plenty will always have the responsibility to help those without. Those in hardship in my circle of influence are my responsibility.

On a more micro level, I was talking to a friend on the phone about how the economic crises will affect smaller scale relief work and economic development at a community level. My friend wisely said: “I am endeavoring to make sure this crisis does not affect our giving. It may change the way we give, but we will need to practice extra generosity in a way that will be more sacrificial than before”.

I think of how Umm Farouq’s husband over heard a woman whose son had cancer. He immediately expanded his sphere of influence to include a stranger‘s predicament, and stepped in to help someone in dire need. The Action Committee and the Ummz both conducted grass-root initiatives during Ramadan to alleviate the suffering of many families on an immediate level. Short-term and long-term initiatives are necessary in our circle of influence.

Yes indeed, we can never sit back and say “we did good”. We need to keep vigilant for the next opportunity knocking, for the poor we will always have with us.

Our family generally gives a minimum of 15% or more of our income to charities in Jordan, Iraq and Sudan, to works that we know, can trust leadership and can see results. That amount is really no big deal, I know many people who give half their income or more; giving generously is a lifestyle choice. One of the ways we can do this is that we pay no US income tax due to the foreign earned income exclusion. if that changes, we will have to be more creative.

But that will be a new challenge, as we have never given until it hurt. Have never given away our last dinar or last bag of beans, we have always given after our family needs were met. This is living on faith, giving as the widow did. Friends in Sudan DO give this way. I will never forget what an Iraqi refugee (who returned to Iraq four years ago) told me “In Baghdad, we routinely threw out whatever we didn’t finish. Now, we are thankful for every grain of rice on our plates. Living in poverty was the best thing that happened to me, as my eyes were opened to the needs of those around me. I will never be the same, and I am on the lookout for those in need”.

I did have a time of poverty. When I lived in California, when dealing with debts my ex left me with and my take-home pay equaling house & car payments and church-giving, I gave ten per cent even though I had no food in the frig and no gas in the car. I may have lost weight, but I never starved. No one knew I lived on rice, cabbage and cooked green wheat. It was also a time of learning to be generous with what I had, and that I was a shopping addict hooked on accumulating expensive stuff.

Having no cash made me realize that I had too much stuff, and I looked for people who could benefit from mine. Their joy in receiving equalled mine in giving. Simplicity became a lifestyle when I was surrounded by extravagently opulent living, and it was freeing. I worked three extra jobs to survive: baby and dog-sitting, and cleaning houses. Eventually I pulled out debt-free, with my honor intact, much wiser and with proof that God would supply all my needs.

I started volunteering in a home for pregnant unwed mothers. Their reality was a bleak, and nothing that giving away a few baubles and clothes would overcome. But I found my example and enthusiasm was contagious, and to these girls my faith was substance and hope did not disappointment. I had pulled out, so could they. I may not have solved all their financial problems, but I showed them ways of living with financial integrity. None of them ended up on welfare.

In Jordan, poverty was a constant theme in the lives of those I met. Since my days in need, I have been intentional about building relationships with those outside my economic status, so I never forget the lessons I learned. One woman’s husband had dumped her and their kids family in Sweden for a woman who could give him citizenship…then turned her and the kids in to be deported. They lived in Mahatta in a tin-roofed, one room shack. Due to her status as an unattached woman and her oldest son’s mental delays she and the kids were pelted with tomatoes, feces and mud regularly. We met through a friend, and I connected her with a cross-stitch jama3eea that provided enough income for her to move up to Hashmi to a one bedroom place where no one bothered her. She had job satisfaction and enough money for food on the table. She was content.

Through the Sudanese church in Amman my husband met an amazing Sudanese pastor from the Darfur region who knows the ropes of getting in aid without losing supplies to corrupt officials. They became, and remain very close. Through him, he met another Sudanese pastor who is a gifted businessman. The two of them connected on creative ways of funding Darfurian aid without binding the Sudanese to Western rules (and having their photos show up on ministry letters appealing for funds to ‘help Darfur’, keeping 15% along the way for admin fees). The church in Khartoum, poorer than any I know of, has set up indigenous businesses that allow them to funnel food to Darfur in a regionally correct way.

In my other home, I was visited weekly by at least eight women who begged for a living. I didn’t give them money, just clothes and toys and household stuff. Other ex-pats heard, and when families moved away, they would send boxes of ‘stuff’ to give away to the ladies. It was a sweet time of being able to funnel one woman’s junk for another woman’s treasure. If they had medical needs, I sent them to a free clinic. I learned, if they didn’t show for clinic, they weren’t really in need. Every time, I prayed over them that others would provide the money they needed for food and heating bills.

Only one woman still comes. We are friends now to the degree that can truly be, for eight years, since she was a pregnant 16 year old. One day she begged me for money for, ironically, her husband’s thyroid cancer surgery. We didn’t have it, and it was outside our giving paradigm. I prayed that one of my neighbors would meet her need, and to my utter shock, a sweet old lady up the hill told my friend she would accompany them to the hospital and pay his bills for the surgery. The lady said that if I trusted my friend to give her things and food, she could trust the need was real. That honor blew me away. It blew her away she had provided the answer to a specific prayer.

I would like to see more of this kind of giving in Jordan. Abdoun and Dabooq going downtown.

Some say: “There is a huge unemployment problem in Jordan”. As long as we are employing half of Egypt building houses, guarding houses and cleaning streets, I say there is no unemployment problem. It is a pride problem.

Some say: “There is too much corruption in relief work to make a true difference”. Bull. Start by fixing the corruption within and take small steps from there. Corruption, like ignorance and stupidity, is part of the human condition. The corrupt, ignorant and stupid we will also always have with us, and sometimes in us.

Some say: “Life in Amman is boring”. I say find out where you can volunteer and teach underprivileged kids some basic computer skills. Get a life – from helping others.

Some women say: “I am too busy to help”. I say cancel your salon appointments for a month and spend your month’s wardrobe masruuf helping a neighbor-down-the-hill by connecting her through your known channels to find work or get job training.

Some say: “children are malnourished”. I say too much money is given for chips and Pepsi and too many daddies are smoking away their kid’s nutrition. Time to pile on the 3yb.

There is way too much blame-shifting going on in this region for regional problems at micro and macro levels. Everyone looks to those they blame to solve it for them. In this current crisis, it ain’t gonna happen. Time for every individual to make poverty their personal problem, and when it happens, the results will amaze us all.

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