Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Hole in Our Gospel

I Complain about My Kitchen When 26,500 Kids Die Every Day

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“We have a small kitchen,” he noted, sitting on the counter, a plastic bowl of Cheez-Its in his lap.

“Actually, we don’t,” I answered. “Not really. Not compared to most people in the world.”

I chastised Noah, yet I knew he was only repeating what he’d heard from my own lips. I’d complained about a too-small kitchen, a too-small house before. More than once.

Later that night Noah stood next to me in his pajamas as I clicked through Ann Voskamp’s post about her trip with Compassion to Guatemala.I paused on an image of a kitchen.

“What do you think about that kitchen?” I asked Noah, pointing to the cinder block walls and the cement floor, the dingy sink with the tumble of plastic plates and the ramshackle cupboards with no doors.

“It doesn’t look very nice,” he admitted, his eyes glued to the computer screen.

“Why aren’t there any windows?” he wondered. “And what’s that blue stuff for?” He pointed to the plastic tarp pulled loosely over the gaps between the tin, a flimsy shield against wind and rain.

“How would you like to share a bedroom with six other people?” I asked him.

“I definitely wouldn’t want to share my room with Rowan,” he said quietly.

That night Noah and I talked for a long time about what we have. We talked about our home here in Nebraska – our newly remodeled kitchen with the six-burner gas stove and the stainless steel fridge; our two bathrooms; our goose feather pillows; our backyard patio with the striped umbrella and cozy seat cushions and fancy potted plants.


That was the night I decided to stop shopping for a year, and use the money I saved to sponsor a child through Compassion.

Twelve months later I clicked on Pedro’s picture on the Compassion site – five-year-old Pedro, who lives in Bolivia with his mother and five siblings. “How about this little guy?” I’d asked Noah and Brad, who were standing next to me.

Pedro Mae was the one.

Sponsoring Pedro has helped our family connect in a real way to people in need. It’s one thing to think vaguely about “doing something” (thinking vaguely: something I’m very good at), but it’s another thing entirely to connect a beautiful face and a very real person with a cause.
 
It’s one thing to know and be paralyzed by the fact that more than 26,500 kids die every day due to preventable causes related to poverty (statistics from The Hole in Our Gospel), but it’s another thing entirely to do something about it, even if it’s only a little something.

I know Pedro is only one boy in 26,500. And sometimes that feels insignificant. Small. Almost inconsequentially small.
 
But when we receive a letter from Pedro or his sister or his mother, we realize that to sponsor even just one child isn’t inconsequential at all. Because a child – even just one living, breathing, playing, laughing child living in desperate circumstances – is always significant.

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So here’s the real deal. September is Blog Month at Compassion, and their goal is to find sponsors for 3,081 kids around the world. You can sponsor one of these kids. For $38/month, you can decide to change a child’s life – a decision that will have beautiful, powerful, lifelong consequences.

Will you consider it? Click here for details.


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The Chair {Part Two}

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{The saga of the chair continues. If you’d like to catch up, read Part One of the The Chair here.}

Brad has a great idea, he tells me later than night after I mention the $750 upholstery price tag.
“Let’s keep the chair just the way it is,” he suggests. “Let’s not spend the money. The chair can be a concrete symbol of our decision to refrain from unnecessary spending.”
I know where this idea comes from. We’ve been reading The Hole in Our Gospel  with our small group, a book about the vast disparity between the rich and the poor.
It’s a great idea, isn’t it?
In theory.
“No way!” I blurt to Brad. “No way am I going to live with that ugly fabric for the rest of my life! It doesn’t even match our furniture. It’s not even our style. It’s a good idea, really it is, honey. But I don’t want to do it. I’m not going to do it.”
I think about having friends over for dinner. I’m afraid they’ll assume I had a lapse in decorating judgment. I know I’d feel compelled to explain the existence of the pink and green striped chair. 
I’m not sure I’m up for having that conversation for the rest of my life.
I feel a little bit mad at Brad for making the suggestion.
“What does he care?” I fume. “He doesn’t care that we have an ugly chair. He won’t even notice the chair after a week, but I’ll have to live with that stupid ugly thing every day for the rest of my life!”
Later I explain the chair conundrum to the members of our small group. They think they know the ending of this story. They nod their heads, agreeing with Brad’s suggestion, supporting our decision to keep the chair as is. But when I get to the part where I refuse to agree to Brad’s noble idea, they laugh, surprised. And I laugh, too, to hide my shame. I’m ashamed that 2.6 billion people live on less than $2 day while I balk over sacrificing my pride for a silly chair.
I refuse to live with the ugly chair because I am selfish and vain.
And because I don’t have to.
It’s been three weeks since I stripped the worn slipcover from the chair. Three weeks since I closed the door of the upholsterer’s shop. Three weeks since Brad suggested we live with the chair as it is, and three weeks since I refused. I’ve been living in limbo – not able to spend the $750, not able to not spend the $750.

{I blame the Ecuador Compassion bloggers in part — reading posts like this one every day last week reminded me of the fact that the $750 I might spent on a ridiculous chair could sponsor TWO needy children!}

And then we get a note from Brad’s dad in the mail.
And with the note is a $500 check.
Jon saw the worn slipcover and the hole last time he was here. He didn’t know about my epic struggle over the chair. He’d simply observed its dilapidated state, and, because it’s his favorite chair, he sent us a check to help cover the costs of reupholstery.
It seems like this check could be the solution to my quandary, doesn’t it? I might even argue that it’s God solving the problem for me.
But I don’t know. I find that I am still stalling. 
I haven’t been back to the upholsterer’s shop yet.
I feel silly even writing about such a topic, but I have to ask: what about you? Have you ever really struggled with whether or not to spend money on a frivolous item?

{An addendum since I wrote this: Curt, a friend from church, left a message on Facebook after he read Part I of the chair saga. He knows someone who makes custom-made slip-covers! This could be the perfect and much more economical solution! There very well may a Chair, Part Three post!}

The Chair {Part One}

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{You wouldn’t think a homely chair could produce enough fodder for two blog posts, but then, I am a wordy girl, you know. Today and Friday I am writing about my grandparents’ wing chair and the epic struggle that’s ensued over it.}

I wiggle my finger into the ragged hole; a hint of striped upholstery peeks from beneath the threadbare cotton. The floral slipcover on the arm is worn right through.
Dust billows, glittering in a shaft of light and then settling in a grey film on the end table as I strip the wing chair of its slip cover. When the boys come home from school they notice right away. “What happened to the chair?” Noah asks. “Why’s it striped and pink now? Where are the big red flowers?”
The chair was my grandparents’. When I tear off the worn slip cover and see the original pink and green-striped fabric, I remember sitting primly with my silky dress smoothed over knees, white socks with lace ruffles, black patent leather shoes. I smell acrid incense twirling smoke ribbons next to the bottle of pink poodle shampoo in the bathroom. I hear Papa singing Michelle My Belle as he flips pancakes on the griddle.
I see that chair, and I am a child again, tucked into the Cape Cod house on the hill for a weekend sleepover at my grandparents.
The problem, of course, is that despite the memories it provokes, the chair itself is hideous without its slipcover. The original pink and green fabric clashes with my ruby velvet couch, leopard-print chair and gold walls. It’s not quirky or eclectic or funky. It’s  just plain ugly.
Yet I want to keep it. They don’t make chairs like this anymore, sturdy and solid, with a swooping back and elegant cabriole legs. This chair is too rich with memories, too rich to donate to the Goodwill.
I stop by the upholsterer’s shop on the way to work. The man behind the counter estimates that it will be $750 for the labor and fabric to recover the chair and its matching footstool.  I page through a heavy book, chenille and cotton and tweed between my fingers. Then I slide the book back onto the shelf and close the shop door quietly behind me.
…On Friday the saga continues. To pay to have the chair reupholstered…or not?

 

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Privilege of Giving

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We still have a lot of Halloween candy around here, despite my single-handed attempts to obliterate the stash. I noticed the other day, though, that Rowan’s bucket is significantly fuller than Noah’s. And I know why.
You see, Noah freely distributes his candy to whoever expresses a hankering for it. Not only does he share his candy, he offers up the best pieces: the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Butterfingers and Milky Ways. It’s not that Noah doesn’t like candy as much as Rowan – he does – it’s that he delights in sharing it with others as much as he enjoys eating it himself.
I was reminded of Noah’s generosity this morning when we read these verses from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, about the Macedonians’ joyful generosity:
“They are filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity. For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do.” (2 Corinthians 8:2-5).
Here are the points I noticed about this passage:
1.       The Macedonians’ abundant joy resulted in rich generosity.
2.       They gave even more than they could afford.
3.       They gave of their own free will.
4.       They viewed their giving as a privilege.
5.       And they gave themselves first to God.
Compare that with what is often my approach to giving:
1.       I give out of habit.
2.       I give less than I can afford.
3.       I give because I feel obligated.
4.       I view my giving as a burden.
5.       I forget who I am honoring in the act of giving.
Quite a disparity, isn’t it?
I’m not saying this is always my approach to giving. Sometimes, like when I read a story like this, or see pictures like this, I am moved by love and a true desire to give, rather than by obligation or habit. Sometimes I do view giving as a privilege, an honor, rather than burden. But I admit, more often than not I mindlessly write the check, seal the envelope and drop it into the mailbox or the offertory basket.
It’s easy for me to get complacent in my giving because I’m not often faced with the real recipients of my gifts. I haven’t met the children we sponsor in Tanzania and Bolivia. I’ve never visited the People’s City Mission or Friendship Home in downtown Lincoln. I don’t see the need with my own eyes, so it’s easy for me to distance myself from it.
That’s why it’s critical that I get out of the comfort and security of my own house and into the neighborhoods and communities that are suffering and face-to-face with the people who have so much less than I do.  
I’ll be brutally honest: I don’t love to hand out loaves of bread and plastic containers of day-old muffins at the Center for People in Need here in Lincoln. I don’t look forward to serving plates of mashed potatoes and chicken at the local soup kitchen.  It’s awkward. I have trouble making eye-contact. I don’t always don’t know what to say. I act overly cheerful because I am nervous.
But it’s important and necessary that I serve in this way because it shifts my skewed perspective. I am accustomed to looking with envy at the people who have more than I do.  Serving reminds me that the majority of people here in Lincoln and around the world have a great deal less. And that helps to remind me that giving is a privilege, not simply an obligation.
What about you? What helps you get perspective? How do you give from the heart, with joy?
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The Hole In Our Gospel: What Will They Think?

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I admit, I considered trying today’s Hole in our Gospel Action Item – to wear the same clothes two days in a row – but I chickened out. I thought about how that might feel: to wear the exact same shirt, skirt, shoes and jewelry two consecutive days to work. And I knew I couldn’t do it. Not because I’d feel unclean or rumpled, but simply because I’d be embarrassed.

If I’d been able to explain exactly why I was wearing the same outfit two days in a row to my female coworkers (I suspect many of the men wouldn’t have noticed the wardrobe repetition), I might have forged ahead. “It’s a poverty experiment for my church group,” I imagined myself saying. “I’m experiencing what it might be like to own only one set of clothes.”

But I knew that would have defeated the point. After all, people living in dire poverty don’t have the option to explain why they wear the same clothes day after day. Nor do they have to…because it’s a given for them and most of the people they know.

For people living in dire poverty, owning a single set of clothes isn’t an experiment – it’s a reality.

The reason I chose not to wear the same outfit two days in a row is because I was concerned about my coworkers’ judgment. Would they think I was slovenly? Forgetful? Lazy? Would they suspect I’d had a wild night? Would they talk behind my back?

“…Let not the rich boast of his riches…” (Jeremiah 9: 23).

I’ve never considered that my clothes and accessories might be a badge of pride or a form of boasting. After all, I’m not particularly label or brand-conscious. But the fact that I was unwilling to wear the same outfit two days in a row tells me I am prideful indeed.

Lord, thank you for helping me recognize my prideful and boastful ways. Please help me better align my priorities with you, rather than with societal norms and expectations. Help me value kindness, justice and righteous over material possessions, and desire only your delight rather than the shallow praise of my friends.

What about you? Do you think you could wear the exact same outfit two days in a row to work? Or might you chicken out like me?

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This post is the last one in the series on The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns. Six other writers and I wrote a post a day for six weeks as part of my church’s small group study. Want to read other reflections? Click here. And thanks for coming along on the study!

Image: Pedro Mae, the Bolivian boy we sponsor through Compassion. I suspect he doesn’t have multiple outfits to choose from every day.