making a difference

I live in the suburbs.

I love my neighborhood and the court I live on, where my boys can ride their bikes around and around while I sit on a bench sipping iced tea. We live close enough to walk to school, and in the summer, we splash in our neighborhood pool. Sometimes we ride our bikes to get ice cream cones at the end of the day.

It’s comfortable here.

When I read about the work other people are doing for Christ, sometimes I feel uncomfortable. Inadequate. I wonder if what I do is enough. Am I really called to the suburbs? I wonder. At times I think I’d rather go to Africa or Asia, anywhere but here, sharing Christ with my neighbors in this comfortable place.

I read about the work Erika Haub is doing in South Central L.A., and weep sometimes at the beauty of her calling. (And I’m not even a crier!)

My long-time friend LeeAnn, a.k.a. FrazzMom, lives in the Bay Area of California, but manages to take her children on missions trips across the globe almost every year.

These people are making a difference in this world.

Am I?

I’ve mentioned before my husband’s call to missions, as a sender. We got a letter yesterday from a family we’ve partnered with for over a decade, and I read with joy that their daughter just graduated from college, and their son is on his way. I can’t tell you how encouraged I am to witness God’s faithfulness to their family.

We’ve supported the work of Compassion International long enough that several kids have grown up sending us letters, and we need to choose a new child to sponsor. When I read about global poverty, I think of the work Compassion is doing around the world to change things, one child at a time. It’s a small thing, only $32 a month, and yet a child’s life is different because of it.

I take care of my boys, loving them and teaching them and feeding them. (And feeding, and feeding, and feeding.) I clean the kitchen floor. I vacuum.

Is it enough? Am I making enough of a difference in this world? Am I being faithful to God’s calling on my life?

Honestly? I don’t know. I hope so.

let's not forget

I was at the grocery store recently, with my cart piled high with food for Christmas, and the woman behind me couldn’t stop complaining. “Is this line ever going to move?” she grumbled, ignoring the toothy grin of baby b. in the cart ahead of her. “Any day now!” she called out, loud enough for all around to hear.

I wanted to say something.

The World Health Organization estimates that one in twelve people in the world are malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of five.

I don’t bring this up to be a downer or put a guilt trip on the well-fed of the world. I bring it up because many of us need to be reminded that waiting in line to buy groceries is a blessing. I don’t like shopping either, and I don’t know anyone who likes to wait, but seriously, folks––in a world where 160 million little kids are hungry, what does God think of our grocery store line complaints?

We were at Old Navy a few months ago, buying new winter gear for our three boys. Nothing fancy, just warm coats and hats and gloves, a few pairs of blue jeans, a couple of sweatshirts. I don’t mind buying these things; on the contrary, I enjoy buying my children the things they need.

On the way out, the noisy boys asked for a new ball. “No, guys, not today,” I told them, “we have plenty of balls.”
“You never buy us anything!” Twin B. stomped.
“Yeah,” Twin A. joined in. “You never buy us anything!”

Um. Excuse me? I just spent some $287 on little boy coats and gloves and jeans. And I was happy to do it. But the ungratefulness in the hearts of my boys disturbed me.

“Be grateful,” I told them, “that we can walk into a store and buy the things we need.”

I imagine that God is happy to give us the things we need.

In this season of abundance, let’s not forget to say thank you. Even if we have to wait in a long line.

white privilege

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of hearing my friend, Ed Gilbreath, speak on the subject of his latest book, Reconciliation Blues. If you ever have an opportunity to hear Ed speak, go. You won’t be disappointed.

One of the things that struck me were Ed’s remarks about “representing” black people. If he’s the only minority person in the room and a racial issue comes up that nobody else notices, he feels a burden of responsibility to speak up. I can only imagine how exhausting this role must feel at times. A part of me wants to tell my friend, “Just be you and don’t carry around this burden to be Everybody; to always represent the minority point of view is just too hard—just be Ed.”

I cannot relate to this burden because I’m not required to carry it. I’m white. If I’m at the park and my kids misbehave, nobody looks at me and says, “Look at that white woman who can’t control her kids,” and walks away thinking, “those white people. Can’t they get it together?”

White privilege, —the ability to go about the day, the week, even the year without once considering matters of race—is something many of us white folks remain blissfully unaware of. That’s part of the problem. We don't even realize that some of the privileges we enjoy are related to the fact that we're white. We judge and criticize without ever once stopping to consider that maybe our opportunities in life were different from the start. And when we stay blissfully unaware of racial issues, things just slip by. Like the dreadful VBS curriculum, Rickshaw Rally, and this skit, by Youth Specialties (who issued a public apology for the material and immediately pulled it).

We don’t think we’re racist. Really, we’re not. And yet this stuff keeps happening. (And when I say, “we,” I’m speaking collectively for all white people. It’s time we started taking responsibility for OUR own.)

So what’s the solution? In the church, what is the antidote to white privilege? I realize this is a big topic, and I fear I've grossly oversimplified the issue, but I'm interested in what others think on this topic.

is it possible?

Over the weekend we attended a fundraiser for the Bolingbrook Christian Health Center. The center provides medical care for people without insurance, and God is doing amazing things there. My friend, Sue, is the director of the clinic; she’s just an ordinary Mom, really, with this amazing passion for the underserved in our community.

Anyway, if you know me at all, you know that I love to cook. Big crowds, little crowds, even preschoolers—I enjoy feeding people. So I’m in the planning stages of designing a cooking class for the clinic. One of the things Sue sees over and over are busy families existing on non-nutritious food because they don’t know any alternative. They shop at Aldi, which is jam-packed full of inexpensive junk food, and fill their carts with chips and crackers and fruit punch.

I went to Aldi on Saturday, and as I shopped, I found myself pitying people who have to shop there all of the time. I missed my well-lit, clean, upscale grocery store. While I scoured the perimeter of the store for nutritious food choices, I wanted to shout, “Hey! Frozen vegetables are over here for only 69 cents!” And I realized how deep-down critical I am of people who feed their kids a steady diet of junk and fill their bottles with Hi-C.

I pray that my pity will be replaced by genuine compassion. And as I prepare these low-cost meals for my own family this week, I pray for empathy and understanding to replace my critical attitude. It’s easy for me to put on my helping-the-poor hat and feel really good about myself for getting involved; it’s much harder for me to identify with the poor and live among them. My challenge as I plan these meals? To feed my own family the same stuff. To lower our food budget and, for a time, live within difficult perimeters. It’s not the same, but I pray God would use this season to enable me to connect with people I don’t normally connect with.