Unfortunate Events

Working in a bookstore, specifically the children's section, really puts culture in perspective. Having spent a little time overseas in third world countries, I'm aware of the stark contrast of priorities, as well as passions. You'd never find an aisle of war history books for sale in Zambia. Who would want to buy them? Two aisles for self-help and relationships, two for business, one for sexuality. A whole section for westerns (whatever THAT is), and for true crime...in case you want to study up on how serial killers did it. All for sale - take it home, ponder it, shelve it and forget about it. Stuff. So much stuff.

I forget sometimes what I learned when I was abroad - the shock and embarrassment you face when you realize that you have literally paid more for a CD then your new cross-cultural friend makes in one month of hard labor. Worse, when they ask how much you paid for something...for your shoes, for your make-up, or your lotion. You quickly do the conversion before you answer, and blush when you realize what that amount means in their country - in food, in education, in medicine. We're spending someone's future in a bookstore.

And then there's the knowledge that you are where you are supposed to be right now - establishing a life where you've been called to plant and grow. Comfort, I suppose. But it has to be possible to maintain perspective - to continually realize what you only want and do not need, and that what you need is less than you have now. To live, content with what your lot in life is in this season, with wisdom and prudence. Difficult.

When I first flew back from Zambia I was angry. I spent $7.00 at a Burger King in the Houston airport, and mid-way through the first bite did the conversion (the same way I converted everything between kwocha and dollars while I was there) realizing that there are 4800 kwocha to one dollar...and it costs 2700 kwocha for a very poor child (by Zambian standards) to attend school for one semester...5400k for the year...that's just over one dollar a year. 4 years is a full education for those children, so my stupid salad would have more than paid for one child's education, or sent 7 of them to school for a full year. And, as my mind reeled, I couldn't even appease conscience with thoughts of how I couldn't really have made that difference for them, or met their needs in that way - no, I couldn't - because I was THERE. I have pictures of the 20+ kids that followed our group around the compound (a cinderblock-structured area on the very outskirts of Zambia with pit-latrines and dirt floors) all afternoon, when they should have been at school...and weren't because they couldn't afford to pay. One dollar...Instead of snapping their picture, I could have given a handful of money to the principal and said, "Here - enroll these 5 kids." I know, it wouldn't have been that simple, but I was there - and I could have done something.

I did do a lot of somethings while I was there. But my heart has been scarred for those people. That Jesus would break through the crap in the government, bring stability, bring aid and relief to the AIDS that is terrorizing the entire country. That God would empower the young Zambian believers that I met, grow them deep in the Truth, and release them to make change a reality. And that there would be a revelation of the needs there to Americans - and a desire to give, and to go.

A copy of Memoirs of a Geisha or food for a starving child's belly?

There's always a way to give. I can't pretend to be distanced from the gravity of the situation. Being numbed may be easier, but less than spiritually sound - we must continually be being awakened to the call and cry of the gospel as it plays out around us - feed the hungry, clothe and care for the needy, meet their physical needs and their spiritual needs will be exposed to be healed. We are the hands and feet, the substance of the motion of the gospel. Beautiful feet - when they are bringing something good.