Wednesday, September 30, 2009

How much?

**Here is an entry I wrote back in December 2008 but never posted. I decided to edit and post it now. **

The other night, we were discussing with my in-laws Rob Bell's newest book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians. The book points out the tendency of God's people to forget that He is a rescuer of the oppressed when they themselves are no longer members of the oppressed. Bell reminds his readers that God always hears the cry of the oppressed and the needy, and that we are to represent His merciful, rescuing nature to the world.

As we reflected on this truth, we realized the difficulty in agreeing about precisely how this translates into real-life action. Bell is calling us to a higher level of giving than currently exists, and many of us would agree that the poverty that exists worldwide is sickening, especially in light of American affluence.* So we agree that we need to give more as a group, but how does that translate into our individual lives? Is there a point at which Christians should draw the line in their lifestyle and say "This is enough; I will give the rest away"? Or is there a point when we can agree that the poor among us are provided for, so it is okay to have whatever lifestyle one wishes, within one's means?

I do not think that God wishes all of his people to be at exactly the same level of wealth or poverty; I don't believe making a lot of money or having a lot of wealth is inherently displeasing to God. Rather, I see how God works through His people who do make a lot of money or have a lot of wealth to bless others who are in need. It is only when God's people hoard their wealth at the expense of helping the poor that the wealth becomes an obstacle to a relationship with God. In that situation, the poor suffer, but the wealthy also suffer as they cling to their wealth and forget their God.

Even when Christians who are high earners or born wealthy are willing to give, there is still the decision of how much. How much to keep and how much to give? Furthermore, in giving, should one concern oneself first with our fellow Americans, or primarily with the desperately poor in other countries?

We do have some government programs to help Americans in need, but do these programs meet the needs that exist? Here are some interesting numbers I compiled about the qualifying income for a family of four for various government programs:

$42,850 - maximum amount a family of four can earn without paying taxes
$42,400 - to qualify for State-sponsored health insurance for children (for a fee)
$39,783 - to receive Earned Income Credit
$39,220 - to receive WIC vouchers
$31,806 - for pregnant woman or child under age 1 to be on Medicaid
$28,194 - for children 1-5 to be on Medicaid (higher limits in some states)
$27,564 - to receive food stamps
$21,200 - for children 6-19 to be on Medicaid (higher limits in some states)

These amounts may conjure a wide range of reactions in those who see them. Some may think, "How does anyone live on that amount!" Others may think, "That's not so little! I can't believe the threshold is so high for certain programs." This reflects the difficulty in deciding what it means to care for the poor. Consider this: According to the Census Bureau, among poor families (earning less than $21,027 for a family of 4):

66% have living space of more than 2 rooms per person (on average a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom house), 75% own a car and 31% own two cars, 97% have a color television, 55% have two or more TVs, 25% have a large screen TV, 78% have a VCR or DVD player, 62% have cable or satellite tv, 89% have a microwave oven, 64% have a clothes washer, 58% have a clothes dryer, 50% have a stereo, 33% have a dishwasher, 91% have phone service, 33% have both landline and cell phones.

I am not listing these statistics in order to downplay the difficulties faced by families in poverty. I am simply illustrating that the standard of living that we perceive as "minimal" for Americans is changing. When my mother was growing up, her family had almost none of the conveniences listed above, nor did most middle class families (of course, many were not invented yet). Even in my childhood, a family considered poor would usually not have phone service or a television, and certainly not a washer and dryer, dishwasher, microwave, VCR or cable service. We have gotten used to our conveniences and can't imagine what it would be like to live without them, so we have come to think that everyone must have them. So often when a family is having trouble making ends meet, it is in light of this lifestyle which we have made the norm in our society. This illustrates that food or shelter insecurity is not often an ongoing condition for families in the United States. Even among the poor in America, food and shelter needs are generally met, allowing other amenities to be acquired. So, the needs of America's poor are more likely to be help in a temporary housing or food crisis and help with other less critical but still important needs, like health care and education.

Turning our attention to the poor outside our country, we are faced with a much different picture. People in other countries are truly starving, lacking shelter and clothing, lacking clean water and basic protection from disease. God's heart and the heart of His people cry out to meet these critical needs. It often seems beyond our grasp to truly make a difference for the huge number of desperately poor, but we can at least contribute to change.

So, what do you think? Do you have a lifestyle limit in mind for yourself (or others), beyond which any income would be given to the poor? How do you think we should balance our giving between home and foreign countries? How do we define need, and is it possible to agree that needs are being met, short of coming to a point of everyone having essentially the same standard of living?

*Heath pointed out the need to reword this sentence, when I at first wrote that American affluence is sickening in light of worldwide poverty. Actually, the poverty is what is sickening and wrong.

Friday, September 11, 2009

plans

I have made some changes to my plans for day care for the upcoming year. My original plan was to go at it full-force - to take the maximum number of children I was allowed to take, to put all my energy toward it. Now, I've decided that I am going to limit myself to 4 children instead of 6 during the day - that is 3 plus Samuel. I think this will be more manageable and keep me from getting too overwhelmed or stretched thin, insuring that I have the energy I need for my own family, too. However, if at some point all the children I'm caring for are potty-trained 3 and 4 year olds, then maybe I could consider caring for more than 4 during the day. It's been harder than we expected to do housework in the evenings - after feeding the kids and putting them to bed, we are both more than ready to quit working for the day. So, maybe taking four instead of six children will allow me to keep up on some of the cleaning necessary for day care during day care hours.

Right now I only have one extra child I am caring for. I purposefully didn't advertise my openings until just a couple of days ago, because I wanted to have a light load during the last couple of weeks before school started. Part of me thinks I should have waited to start day care until my big boys started school. This summer, having them home and doing day care, was harder than I thought. Yet, I don't know if I could have done anything more for/with them had I not had day care children here. I still couldn't have taken them to the pool for long periods of time every day, unless they wanted to stay in the baby pool with Samuel and I the entire time, since I can't keep all three of them safe by myself in the deeper water. And I don't think I could have done any more to manage their fighting without day care kids here. At least caring for day care kids reassured me that I was still doing something well, despite being unable to prevent or control my big boys' fighting at times. How can they love and rely on each other so much and still torture each other the way they do? Having breaks from each other now that school has started certainly helps their relationship and my tension level.

Work and money are funny things sometimes. I read an Amish fictional book recently, as I do from time to time, and I was reminded of how much our work can make us feel important or unimportant, powerful or powerless. The Amish purposefully chose jobs that keep them humble. They don't educate their children beyond 8th grade because there is no job in the Amish life that requires higher education, and they believe that higher education would only serve to make members of their community proud and elitist. It is an interesting thing to ponder, I think - how much we choose our jobs because of the importance and power they confer, or how much we choose them simply to provide for ourselves and our families. I don't want to be poor -- I don't think any of us does, really, just for the sake of being poor, although some choose it to draw closer to God. I think providing for our family is the main reason Heath and I work, and in the fields that we do. But the element of gaining prestige or significance from one's work does creep in at times. However, even if we wanted to choose a very simple, humble life now, scaling down our housing, rarely eating out, getting rid of our tv service, high-speed internet (gasp!) and our iphones (gasp!), we would still have the little matter of our debts, mostly education debts. So we work to pay them off, and in the process we become accustomed to a lot of other perks. But I also get mad at the money and the work it requires, sometimes. Why do we need so much of it? Why does it seem we can't live on less? No matter how much we make, why is the debt still so hard to pay off? It shouldn't be so mysterious or difficult, but sometimes it seems like it is.