This is life
Pretend you are a member of a Haitian family.
Mom, dad, grandparent or aunt or fourth cousin twice removed, and a couple children in the same home. Between 70 and 80 percent of Haiti is unemployed so one of those people is bringing home an income.
Minimum wage in Haiti is about $3 a day.
Assuming you work every single day, you bring home about $90 a month.
You are a squatter, living where you can, moving when you can’t anymore.
Because of deforestation there is little wood available to build your home.
You need to scrounge for other supplies.
You could rent an apartment, but the average price for a one bedroom apartment outside the city is $425 a month.
Assuming you spent nothing to build your house and you spend nothing to maintain it then you could choose to buy utilities.
Electricity (if it’s available in your town), running water (which you have to have a well and pump for), and garbage services (only available in big cities), is $20 a month.
You have to feed yourself, a wife, a couple kids, and some extended family. Picture a sandwich size Ziploc bag.
For $1 at the market you can fill that bag with rice and beans and you can get two tomatoes and maybe a hot pepper for flavor. To get close to feeding the six people in your home you’re going to need double that. That’s $2 a day for food (notice that contains no meat, potatoes, bread, etc), so $60 a month.
If the weather cooperates and you live on land that is at least semi-arable, you can grow a few crops to supplement that.
With $10 a month left you might be able to send one of your kids to school! It’s a little over $4 a month.
Of course, you’re going to have to pick just one child because that leaves you only $6 a month to purchase medicine, clean water, clothing, shoes…
It’s not about a lack of education, food or housing. It’s about all of those together in a vicious cycle that the impoverished rarely see hope of ending. Their parents lived in poverty, their grandparents, their great grandparents…
One of the worst things I have seen was the empty eyes of Haitian children. As early as three or four years old – the spark of life is gone.
That is devastating; that poverty could so hopelessly envelop even the tiniest of its victims.
I don’t tell you this to guilt you into selling your worn out clothes and sending the money to Haiti. I don’t want you to feel bad – I want you to do good.
God cares about all areas of life. Economics, health, education, creation…
It’s easy to tell people, “God loves us. Look at all the hope he brings.”
Everyone loves warm fuzzy messages like that. We could say, “Amen! Hallelujah! Praise God for taking care of his people.” .
God hasn’t left this world, but that does not excuse us from service.
We live in a lost, broken, corrupt, hurting, sin-sick world that some (most) are trapped in it – with no hope. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost; and he gave everything to do so. His life.
If you are not giving everything that you have and everything that you are to the salvation of God’s children; you are not giving enough.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
Don't just move on. Put yourself in the shoes of the family above. Switch the "numbers" with faces of your kids and spouse.
- Sammy Adebiyi
Mom, dad, grandparent or aunt or fourth cousin twice removed, and a couple children in the same home. Between 70 and 80 percent of Haiti is unemployed so one of those people is bringing home an income.
Minimum wage in Haiti is about $3 a day.
Assuming you work every single day, you bring home about $90 a month.
You are a squatter, living where you can, moving when you can’t anymore.
Because of deforestation there is little wood available to build your home.
You need to scrounge for other supplies.
You could rent an apartment, but the average price for a one bedroom apartment outside the city is $425 a month.
Assuming you spent nothing to build your house and you spend nothing to maintain it then you could choose to buy utilities.
Electricity (if it’s available in your town), running water (which you have to have a well and pump for), and garbage services (only available in big cities), is $20 a month.
You have to feed yourself, a wife, a couple kids, and some extended family. Picture a sandwich size Ziploc bag.
For $1 at the market you can fill that bag with rice and beans and you can get two tomatoes and maybe a hot pepper for flavor. To get close to feeding the six people in your home you’re going to need double that. That’s $2 a day for food (notice that contains no meat, potatoes, bread, etc), so $60 a month.
If the weather cooperates and you live on land that is at least semi-arable, you can grow a few crops to supplement that.
With $10 a month left you might be able to send one of your kids to school! It’s a little over $4 a month.
Of course, you’re going to have to pick just one child because that leaves you only $6 a month to purchase medicine, clean water, clothing, shoes…
It’s not about a lack of education, food or housing. It’s about all of those together in a vicious cycle that the impoverished rarely see hope of ending. Their parents lived in poverty, their grandparents, their great grandparents…
One of the worst things I have seen was the empty eyes of Haitian children. As early as three or four years old – the spark of life is gone.
That is devastating; that poverty could so hopelessly envelop even the tiniest of its victims.
I don’t tell you this to guilt you into selling your worn out clothes and sending the money to Haiti. I don’t want you to feel bad – I want you to do good.
God cares about all areas of life. Economics, health, education, creation…
It’s easy to tell people, “God loves us. Look at all the hope he brings.”
Everyone loves warm fuzzy messages like that. We could say, “Amen! Hallelujah! Praise God for taking care of his people.” .
God hasn’t left this world, but that does not excuse us from service.
We live in a lost, broken, corrupt, hurting, sin-sick world that some (most) are trapped in it – with no hope. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost; and he gave everything to do so. His life.
If you are not giving everything that you have and everything that you are to the salvation of God’s children; you are not giving enough.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
Don't just move on. Put yourself in the shoes of the family above. Switch the "numbers" with faces of your kids and spouse.
- Sammy Adebiyi
Comments
Post a Comment