Galatians 2:10

Basil the Great

2012-01-15T21:34:00.000-08:00

Today the Coptic Church celebrates Basil of Caesarea, also known as St. Basil the Great, a bishop of the fourth century. Basil holds a prominent place in Orthodox history. He was the brother of Gregory of Nyssa and close friend of Gregory the Theologian, and together the three had a profound impact on the theology and direction of the church. To the average Copt, Basil is best known as the compiler of the liturgy that is prayed every Sunday in Coptic churches. To historians, Basil is also known as one of the first founders of hospitals and centralized social services to the poor, which he began in response to famine. He was a constant advocate for the poor, and spoke out against the practices of the wealthy in a manner that few preachers are willing to do today. In honor of Basil the Great, I wanted to share one extended quote from a sermon of his that I read recently, Homily 6, entitled “I Shall Tear Down My Barns” (in reference to Luke 12). I will warn you - this sermon will sound very blunt to modern American ears, which are not used to such direct confrontation on economic issues.

“But whom do I treat unjustly,” you say, “by keeping what is my own?” Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common—this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.

Did you not come forth naked from the womb, and will you not return naked to the earth? Where then did you obtain your belongings? If you say that you acquired them by chance, then you deny God, since you neither recognize your Creator, nor are you grateful to the One who gave these things to you. But if you acknowledge that they were given to you by God, then tell me, for what purpose did you receive them? Is God unjust, when He distributes to us unequally the things that are necessary for life? Why then are you wealthy while another is poor? Why else, but so that you might receive the reward of benevolence and faithful stewardship, while the poor are honored for patient endurance in their struggles? But you, stuffing everything into the bottomless pockets for your greed, assume that you wrong no one; yet how many do you in fact dispossess?

Who are the greedy? Those who are not satisfied with what suffices for their own needs. Who are the robbers? Those who take for themselves what rightfully belongs to everyone. And you, are you not greedy? Are you not a robber? The things you received in trust as a stewardship, have you not appropriated them for yourself? Is not the person who strips another of clothing called a thief? And those who do not clothe the naked when they have the power to do so, should they not be called the same? The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not.

I read this in a collection of sermons by Basil on the topics of wealth and poverty, entitled On Social Justice. Besides two sermons generally addressed to the wealthy, the book also includes sermons on the proper response to natural disaster, advice to those who loan or wish to procure loans with interest, and the twin precepts of mercy and justice.

The dangers of inappropriate section breaks

2012-01-10T23:47:00.000-08:00

Modern Bibles often break up books in ways that were not intended by the authors. For example, here is a short story in the NIV, set off all by itself and titled "The Widow's Offering":

Luke 21

The Widow’s Offering

1 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

A simple lesson about how giving sacrificially is more meaningful than giving out of a surplus, right? Well, that's how it was taught to me every time I heard it, and that is what I had thought it was about. But let's break up those sections and put the same passage in its actual context. Here is Luke 20:45 through 21:6. I'll cheat and highlight two lines.

While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”

Do you see what I see?

That short passage is usually broken up into three separate sections. If that were correct, then the placement of the middle section between the other two makes no sense at all. But in reality, it shouldn't be broken up. The theme of judgement flows right through. The theme of the gifts of the people being used for a corrupt temple flows right through. "Beware of the teachers of the law" leads to "they devour widows' houses" leads to the example of "a poor widow" who "out of her poverty put in all she had to live on" leads to the judgement of God against the temple in direct response to remarks at how it is adorned from such gifts.

Practical Tips: Making New Friendships

2011-11-09T23:25:00.000-08:00

This is my second blog post on practical steps towards community with Jesus and the poor. While I feel like the first subject (simplicity) was a tool that helps us follow God into love for others, this subject (friendships with marginalized persons) gets to the very essence of God's heart. Once again, you don't have to follow these steps in this order.

Step zero: Inspiration - Read From Brokenness to Community by Jean Vanier. The book is only 43 pages long. You can finish it in one sitting. But take your time. If you consider his words seriously, there is a decent chance that it could change your life.

Step one: Make a new friend – Most of us do not spend time in the same places that marginalized persons live. Our neighborhoods are too expensive and our jobs are too well-paying. So the first thing you have to do is find a place that is closer to the margins of society. There may be a street near your work where people beg, a neighborhood on the way home known for people living on the sidewalks, or an institution nearby for people who are elderly or who have mental disabilities. Make sure it is place you can go back to regularly, because friendship will only happen if you have a consistent presence in that place. Go there once and find someone with some free time. Start a conversation. Ask questions. Learn from them. If possible, you can find a spot to have lunch together. And make sure you come back. Get comfortable enough in the place that people feel okay initiating conversations with you.

Step two: Invite someone into your home – Open up your home for dinner to someone who wouldn't normally get the chance. This might be a single mother from church, a veteran you met at the food pantry, or the person you became friends with in Step One. The more simple you've made your life, the more comfortable you will be taking this step. Try not to make it a one-time event - invite people as often as you are able. If possible, make it a potluck so your guest can contribute some of the food too. Try to create an atmosphere where they feel safe inviting you to their home as well. As in the first step, take steps that allow the friendships you form to last.

Step three: Make use of your extra room – Many Westerners have more rooms in their home than they need. Many other Westerners don't have enough resources to independently maintain a safe home. If your family could free up a room in your home, you could make that room available to someone who needs it. That "someone" might be a foreign college student who is just starting to learn the culture. It might be a kid who needs a foster family. It might be a disabled adult who can almost provide for their own needs, but lacks a family support structure. It might be a single mother who has trouble working and taking care of her kids at the same time while living alone. It might be someone you met in steps one or two. It doesn't matter who it is, the question is - do they need a home, and can you be that home? It's okay in many cases to charge affordable rent, so that the person you're inviting into your home can make a contribution. Shared chores and other shared responsibilities are also important.

Step four: Relocate to a new community – Step one started with the assumption that most of us aren't in the same communities as the marginalized. Ideally, we should change that. Move into a place that most people who are "like you" want to move out of. That may be an inner-city neighborhood where everyone is a different ethnicity than you, or the district that all the newest immigrants move into. It might be the area that's known for heavy drug use, or prostitution, or homelessness. In some regions it might be a rural area that has been neglected so that it doesn't have the basic facilities. Whatever kind of place it is, make sure it is a place where it is easy to find people who are significantly different than you, and live with intentional love there.

Further Study - I have found Friendship at the Margins and Making Room to be fantastic books on what it really means to be community to the people around us. Both books are best suited for those people who already take service to their community and friendship with marginalized people seriously, but want to understand more about what it means theologically and practically to love the people around them better.

I didn't talk much about why community with marginalized persons is important. Hopefully, if you've been my friend for a while, you've been able to get some idea of that. But if you're not sure, I'm happy to dialogue, as well as recommend many more books on the subject.

Life in Vancouver

2011-11-06T22:30:00.000-08:00

I've loved my time in Vancouver, but I haven't shared much about our lives here. For those of you who don't know, my wife and I have been in Vancouver doing orientation, formation, and team-building work with the goal of eventually serving in a slum in Asia.

There's a lot of cool stuff to talk about, but I figured I'd just give a breakdown of our typical day:

7:00am: At least a couple times a week I join the morning drop-in at the local gospel mission. It's a chance to just get a coffee and chat with the guys, meet people, invite them to dinner at our place, etc.

9:00am: Team prayer meeting built around Scripture reading and intercessory prayer with a focus on justice.

10:00am: Language study, cultural experiences, team meeting, or anti-trafficking project, depending on day.

Noon-5pm: Depending on the day there might be scheduled meetings with staff or associated personnel, a team meeting to work through the new teams preparation manual, babysitting, or work around the house. Sometimes community members drop by the house or I'll go out hiking at one of Vancouver's parks.

5:00pm: Three times a week we have a community dinner, which we (including other from the community) take turns preparing. Anyone from the community is invited, provided they are willing to help clean up afterwards. One day a week that community dinner is followed by “Creative World Justice”, where different people from the community come together to discuss issues of Biblical justice and creative techniques for addressing justice in society, then take practical steps to fight against the human trafficking and cruise ship labor exploitation that they've seen as major issues in our local community. One day a week we have a team-only dinner followed by a formation time focused on issues related to living in the slum in Asia.

9:00pm: Evening prayer meeting, consisting of a Taize song, psalm reading, and silent reflection.

That's a pretty good look at life here. The schedule is occasionally disrupted by all-day workshops (on topics like nonviolent communication or overseas service), or when assisting in the crack cocaine detox program that our house runs for the local community.

If you want to learn more about the community, here are a couple videos. Thanks for watching!

Kids on the Block from Veritas Media Productions on Vimeo.

Practical tips: Simplicity

2011-10-31T00:04:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine suggested I share practical ideas for those who want to take steps towards community with Jesus and the poor from their current position in life. I think that’s a really good idea, so I’m going to post on different topics within that sphere. I know that a lot of other people have good advice too, so please share more ideas in the comments!

My first post is on outer simplicity. The numbered “steps” correspond to how difficult it is for me to do these things, but it definitely doesn't mean you do things in that order.

Step zero: Background – Read Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster. Inner simplicity will be lost if outer simplicity is never brought in. Outer simplicity without inner simplicity will lead to legalism and burnout. This book ties together every dimension of simplicity in a practical way. Foster guides us through the joys of simple hearts and simple lives, and I recommend this book to everyone.

Step one: Get rid of clutter – Again, I want to caution first that outer simplicity without an inner grounding can end poorly. Ask yourself, "Am I doing this to prove something, or to punish myself, or to make myself feel superior? Or is this part of a larger process of simplifying my inner and outer life so that I can grow closer to other people and to God?" I do believe that simplicity is a positive goal in everyone’s life, but it needs to be pursued with the right heart.

Now, one starting step is to realize how many possessions we have accumulated that we just don't use. Do you see things sitting or stored in your home that you wouldn't miss if they were gone? Are there things that would be better off with someone else, or being sold and the money used for the poor, or even sitting in a thrift store instead of in your home? Are there things you could borrow from a friend twice a year instead? Then why have them cluttering up your life? Extra clothes, books, tools, utensils, cds, decorative items, toys, and other recreational equipment often fit into this category. In extreme cases, some of us have things that really belong in the garbage can.

Step two: Make meaningful decision about possessions – A further step regarding material possessions is learning to discern which things don’t improve your relationship with God and others. On a team in Manila I was led through a helpful exercise that I still think about today. It goes something like this:

First, make a list of everything you own that you need to sustain your life, your relationship to God, and your Godly relationships and service with others. Include things that you think you need to have to sustain your emotional well-being.

Second, make another list with everyone else you own that didn't get put on the first list.

Third, if doing this in a group, explain your justification for each item on the first list to the others in the group. When we did this in Servant Partners, we had some interesting dialogue on what sort of possessions were necessary! Of course, you're likely doing this alone, so imagine what you would say if you were justifying these things to others. Do these possessions really help you in your walk with God and your service to others?

Fourth, consider getting rid of items that remain on the second list. Would your life be better off without them? If you can part with something, that doesn’t mean you have to – but ask, is it adding more quality to your life than it takes? Is its cost (whether that be resale value, upkeep costs, or just the time and energy costs of having it around) worth it? Start with the easy stuff – there’s bound to be at least a car-load of things you can automatically bring to Goodwill, so get rid of that carload first and then work on the harder stuff as you are able. I thought I had a simple life already, but after I got back from Manila I had to make three trips to the thrift store before I was done getting rid of things on the second list!

Step three: Eliminate time sucks – Get rid of the things that waste your time. This is more difficult than freeing yourself of material possessions. I'm not saying to eliminate recreation – hobbies and entertainment can be good for the soul and relationships. But you can discern whether a hobby is beneficial to your life or is taking life away from you. For some people television, video games, internet browsing, phone and text use, or social media can be the greatest culprits. For others it may be fruitless social hangouts, following sports, or shopping. Some activities might need to be scaled back – determine an appropriate amount of time each week that the activity deserves. Others may be better to quit cold turkey (I’ve had to do this with television and sports for periods of time in the past). It’s amazing how free you can be to pursue life-giving activities when you get rid of all the waste.

Step four: Prioritize – Finally, learn to get rid of the good things that drain your time and energy away from the best things. As an American, my tendency can be to do too much and commit to too much, instead of worrying whether I’m doing the important things well. Concerns like prayer, spiritual reading, time in silence and solitude, personal worship, and quality time with family can fall too low on the list of priorities. Even spiritual or service-related commitments may need to be dropped – some people commit to too many church services or offer to do too many things far from home. Ask yourself what central things God is calling you to, then ask yourself, "Am I giving myself the space to do the things I know God is calling me to do as well as God is calling me to do them?" In 2008 I gave up my Sunday School teaching commitment upon discerning that I lived too far away and had too many other priorities to disciple the students the way they deserved. I knew that Sunday School was a good service, but God was calling me at that time to work on my new marriage and my preparations for service overseas, and I realized that if I kept trying to do everything, I would do all of it poorly. These decisions can be difficult, and should only be done after a process of prayer and discernment and wise counsel. But they can be wonderful for your life if they allow you to focus on loving God and loving others that much deeper.

Extra Credit: Downsize - Sometimes the big things are harder to notice than the small things. Does your family have two cars? Could it survive on just one? If you only have one car, could you make due with public transportation and a bike? Could you live in a smaller, cheaper apartment, and if you live in a house could you move into a cheaper one with fewer rooms and lower energy costs? How many hours a week do you work at your job, and could you still support yourself just fine if you worked less? Some people have found that they can maintain a joyful lifestyle with a 25 hour/week job, and they use the rest of their new-found time for volunteer ministry. Some of these tips work together - if you move into a smaller home close to your work, then you might save money on your house and car, then you could work fewer hours and use the extra time from less work and less commute to serve God in other ways!

That’s a good start. If you have more advice, share it. And don’t forget – outer simplicity can be dangerous without the appropriate inner heart condition.

Who are we occupying?

2011-10-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

A week ago I visited the "Occupy Vancouver" protests, our local offshoot of "Occupy Wall Street". There was a mishmash of every cause you can imagine, which is typical of Vancouver protests. But despite the signs calling for 9/11 truth, a ban on psychoactive drugs for children, and the legalization of raw milk, there was a strong trend of dissatisfaction with the financial system, especially the "1%" at the top who are benefiting most. Though I stayed for some time, I didn't participate with the protests, mostly because I didn't see a coherent enough message to affirm that I agreed. But much of what they say is valid. Here are my main thoughts:

That "1%" that everyone talks about do live in different reality. For example, most of us are still experiencing the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. However, the number of millionaires increased to 10.9 million last year, the greatest number in history and almost 10% more than the 10.1 million millionaires we had before the recession hit. A third of those millionaires are in North America. The sales of luxury goods are projected to increase 13% this year, to their highest levels in history, with the USA the leading consumer. Meanwhile, unemployment is still over 8%, the number of uninsured Americans is at 50 million, and the average wage in America is the same as it was back in 1997.
This situation is not sustainable. In fact, it is going to blow up in our faces if something significant doesn't change. There's a lot more I could say about that.
Unfortunately, many of the protesters haven't realized that they are a part of the problem. How many of the 99% wanted to be as rich as the 1%? How many are greedy for more? How many seek after material possessions? How many want to climb the corporate ladder? How many have used their credit cards for non-essentials they couldn't afford, bought homes with payments they couldn't make, or spent money on cars, accessories, entertainment, and other status symbols that they didn't need? As this Christianity Today article states, much of the blame lies in our own hearts and in our own decisions, and until those things change, it won't really matter what happens to the people at the top.
Finally, who are the 1% anyway? American protesters have focused on the top "1%", which in America basically means the millionaires. But do those same protesters realize that globally, most of them are much closer to the top 1% than they are to most of the other 99%? The very rough figures on the Global Rich List show anyone earning over $48,000/year in the top 1% of income earners. Are you protesting as part of the masses, when you are really the top 1% or 5% or 10% that the rest of the world is looking at and judging? Americans use over 30% of the world's energy and mineral resources, despite being only 5% of the world's population. What do you think the rest of the world thinks about you?

I think the protesters have an important point about the disparity of wealth and lack of justice in our society. I also think all of us, including myself and everyone reading this blog, have to realize how much we contribute to it. A couple months ago one of my best friends commented that she wanted to see more practical advice from me on what kinds of steps all of us can take towards more justice and Christ-like equality in society. I think I'm going to start doing that this week, because I think there's a lot that all of us could be doing, and I'd like to be doing it more intentionally. The world knows there's a problem with how things are going, and I want them to be able to look at Christians and see that there is a different way.

About the “let him die?” video

2011-10-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

Questioning at a recent Republican debate in Texas:

Under current health care law (instituted under Reagan), emergency rooms have to treat anyone who comes through their doors, regardless of whether they have insurance or not. If they don’t pay, the cost is passed on to those who do pay. Under the new health care law passed in 2010, everyone has to buy insurance (subsidized for those who can’t afford it) or pay a fine, thereby ensuring that everyone is fiscally responsible for their own medical care to the degree they are able, while still making sure that everyone can be treated.

In recent debates, it has become apparent that many Republicans and Libertarians, especially some of those failing under the “Tea Party” umbrella, would prefer a third option: that no one has to get any insurance ahead of time, and that anyone who doesn’t have insurance or cash when they need medical care is out of luck. In the moderator’s example from the debate, if such a person faces unpayable costs, some such participants think we should just “let him die”.

The way I understood this issue developed dramatically for me when I realized that the man in the moderator’s example isn’t the person we would “let die”. This man in the example has a high-paying job, which makes it likely that he has wealthy coworkers and wealthy friends. He likely has a network of family support and the same access to resources that the majority of privileged Americans have. If a life-or-death situation occurs, no one is going to “let him die” – someone is going to step up to help him get the care that he needs. Chances are that a change in the law will not drastically affect him.

So who will it affect?

The alien, the orphan, and the widow. The immigrant, the foster child, the single mother, and all others like them. The ones who are not only most likely to be poor, but least likely to have the social network to support them when unpayable expenses rear their head. When we say that we want everyone to pull their own weight, when we say that the government system for health care costs should be eliminated in favor of social and church networks, it is the widow, the orphan, and the alien who are going to be the hardest hit.

We need to think really, really seriously about what God has to say to us about that.

Who are the aliens, orphans, and widows in our midst?

2011-10-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

When I hear “aliens, orphans, and widows”, my mind goes back to the Biblical era, or to non-Western nations in which orphanages are still prevalent or widows still can’t get their own source of income. But in the past two weeks I’ve realized that that historical displacement is unjustified.

In the United States, where are the orphans today? They are foster kids, those who grow up outside of the care of legally committed parents. Many of them spend their time in group homes or with unsympathetic families and are cast off at the age of 18 without any support network or stability. Some of them have moved from home to home and community to community so often that they don’t have any long-term relationships at all. What would it be like to be a young adult without a mother and father, aunts and uncles, or any long-term friends in your life? And that doesn’t even address the emotional, psychological, and educational problems that may have built up during their childhood and adolescence.

Who are the widows? They are single mothers who find all available energy taken up in playing both parental roles and having to be the family’s breadwinner besides. They lack the positive relational role a spouse could provide, the social connections the husband’s family could provide, and the social connections they could have developed in the free time they don’t have. Because of their family commitments they often lack college or high school education and can’t afford the time to get the additional work training they would need to advance at their jobs. And in the worst case scenarios, they are ostracized by churches, community organizations, or neighbors due to their marginalized status, or they self-ostracize because of the status they perceive themselves to have.

Who are the aliens? They are…the aliens, the immigrants, the refugees. They are the families who come alone to a new place because of war, persecution, or economic distress. They are the men who come alone, needing to find a job to support their families back home or fleeing situations back in their home countries that make a new land more appealing. Some of them are able to maintain long-distance relationships with friends and families in their home country; many others are in situations where such relationships are impossible. And so they have to make due in a new place, potentially with a new language, trying to navigate all the life obstacles that many of the rest of us have difficulty navigating, only they don’t have the entire framework of social support and cultural understandings that we build our lives upon.

God desires for us to direct our hearts to all those who are relationally vulnerable. A single mother doesn’t have to be an actual widow to warrent special concern in God’s eyes. Besides the foster kids, single mothers, and immigrants, there are millions of veterans, homeless persons, disabled persons, mentally ill persons, aboriginal peoples, and ethnically marginalized peoples that fit this description. Jesus is an advocate for all of us. But, as I tried to show in the last post, He is especially an advocate for those on the margins of society. We need to take this seriously, because God is calling us to advocate for the ones that the rest of society is ignoring, and if we fail to show mercy on them than God may pull back his mercy from us (Matthew 18:23-35).

The alien, the orphan, and the widow

2011-10-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

In the Bible, God shows a particular concern for those that society is less concerned about. While there are many individual examples of such concern, the marginalized are often represented by three terms, “the alien, the orphan, and the widow”. For example:

When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not go over it again; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow. - Deuteronomy 24:19-21

When you have finished paying all the tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and to the widow, that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. - Deuteronomy 26:12

The LORD protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, but He thwarts the way of the wicked. – Psalm 146:9

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me," says the LORD of hosts. – Malachi 3:5

The special attention that must be paid to this trifecta is also mentioned in Exodus 22, Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 10, 14, 16, 24 (again), and 27; Psalm 94, Jeremiah 7 and 22, Ezekiel 22, and Zechariah 7; and at least one member of the group is also highlighted sympathetically in Leviticus 19, Isaiah 1 and 10, Job 22 and 24; Psalm 68, Matthew 23, Luke 12, Mark 20, Acts 6, 1 Timothy 5, and James 1. Of course, there are hundreds of other passages that would also apply to these persons in the context of the poor, the needy, the marginalized, or our neighbors, but do not mention them explicitly.

The explicit mentions of these three groups is interesting to me because of the nature of their need. It’s not like “the hungry”, or “the naked”, or “the homeless”, or “the imprisoned”, who are defined by what they lack physically (food, clothing, shelter, or freedom). Instead, these groups are named because of a relational vulnerability, which increases their likelihood to lack in other things as well. Because of this vulnerability, God is especially concerned with these groups, and He judges his people when they fail to show such concern as well.

Does this mean that God likes orphans, aliens, and widows more than the rest of us? I don’t believe so – I don’t think God is biased in that way, and I think He loves all of us intensely. But I heard a good analogy last week that put things into perspective for me.

Imagine that you have three children – ages 7, 8, and 9. One day, the 7-year-old comes home with a broken nose, and you find out that she was beaten up by bullies at school. What would you do if you found out that such bullying had been happening every week, and that no one at the school had been doing anything about it? Would you then go to the school to advocate on that child’s behalf? Would you go to much greater lengths than normal to make sure that child was safe? Would you tell your other two children that they needed to be on the lookout to stand up for their little sister and protect her from those who were hurting her?

All that extra effort and attention doesn’t mean that you love your 7-year-old more. You just recognize that she is getting hurt more than the others, and that she needs special concern due to her situation. Because the rest of the world has treated your 7-year-old with less concern, you treat her more concern, and you call on your other children to give her special concern as well. If they refuse to make the extra effort for her, you will have very choice words for them.

God is the same way.

Learning to suffer just a little bit

2011-08-08T00:18:00.000-07:00

We had been in our home stay for a week before Rose let me know that most of the family members were only eating two small meals a day. It was hard to keep track of such things in a two-story home with 17 extended family members from three different nuclear families. They were giving us three good meals every day, and at least some family members were always eating with us. But Rose started talking to one of the daughters about her daily eating habits, and came to realize that part of the reason they always shuffled us between the two different eating areas and had us eating each meal with different people was because there wasn’t enough food for many of the family members to eat three meals. This thought affected me a lot, and I started eating less every meal so there would be more left over (though making sure to compliment the food a ton still so they wouldn’t think I didn’t like it!). A few times this left me quite hungry long before the next meal came around, but it honestly wasn’t much of a burden at all.

I have rarely suffered for others. It was only in Lent of this year that I began experimenting with going hungry occasionally for the sake of other people. I have fasted regularly in the past, but for my own spiritual growth or as a corporate Church discipline. What would it mean to go hungry sometimes not because I lacked the money, but because I desired to give it to someone who goes hungry far more often than myself? What would it mean to stop buying all the extra food I don’t need – desserts, bottled drinks, soft drinks, coffees, fast food, restaurant food, anything else expensive – and use the savings to help those who don’t get their basic nutrition? I think that giving up most of these things is not really suffering, since I’ll probably feel better without them, but might it be worth testing whether I can do it even to the point of just a tiny bit of suffering?

What does it feel like to not eat every time I am hungry? Like I said, I’ve only started doing this a few months ago, and only in little bits and pieces. But I think it’s really important, and my experience in the slums here makes me want to stretch it further. When families who only eat two small meals a day take you into their homes and keep generously feeding you three, it makes you think twice about all the stuff you eat that you don’t need.

p.s. – The communities I’ve been living in for the past several weeks are current celebrating Ramadan (“Ramzan” here). Their fasting this month inspired one of my friends here in the slum to fast for 24 hours each week himself – not in religious solidarity with his Muslim friends, but in practical solidarity with those he knows who do not have enough to eat. He is 14 years old. He also has been a vegetarian for several years now in part due to concerns over world poverty and the amount of land use/grain feed it takes to support animal consumption, and he once inspired his family to live an entire month on the same $110 budget as their poor neighbors. This is the different perspective on life that growing up among the half of the world in poverty gives you. How many kids his age could grow up among the constant American messages of “eat eat eat! drink drink drink! Consume consume consume!” and hold onto enough perspective to make the same sacrifices?

Prophet of Doom

2011-08-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

We can’t keep going on with business as usual like everything will be okay.

I watched television Friday morning, getting a rare glimpse of the news. The news programs were awash in stories of stock market collapse – starting in the United States and spreading across Asia. The causes of the market worries were employment and recession concerns exacerbated by the American political fight over debt. And the talk was about how and when it was going to be fixed - when the economy was going to start booming again and how the stock markets were going to start trending up again.

What if those aren't the solutions we need?

Consider the following:

1) Our economic health is dependent on constant growth. When the economy fails to grow, we declare a “recession” and worry abounds. Even low-level growth is considered insufficient – one major Republican presidential candidate recently proclaimed that his goal was 5% annual economic growth – a rate that would lead to the economy doubling in size every 14 years.

2) As the economy grows, the rich capture an ever-larger slice of the total. In America, the take-home income of the richest 0.1-0.01% of the population has increased 3-5 times over what it was in 1980, while the take-home income of the poorest 60% of the population hasn’t grown at all. Worldwide, the wealthiest 1% now control over 40% of the world’s wealth, and their portion is increasing every year.

3) We are getting fewer jobs out of our economic growth. Corporations are increasing efficiency and reducing labor costs, thereby allowing more things to be provided with fewer employees, ensuring the greatest profits for upper-level management and shareholders. As a result, economic growth no longer results in a comparable increase in jobs, though economic recession is still used as a reason to significantly reduce jobs.

4) Per American, our country is consuming about six times as many resources as we did in the 1950s and 50-200 times the resources that the residents of our own era's poorest nations consume. Despite the greatly increased consumption, Americans aren’t any happier than they were in the ‘50s. Yet the vast majority of Americans continue to make it their goal to consume more. For every family willing to move into a smaller house, get rid of their cars, and eat simpler food, there are ten families at every economic level who are trying to climb the economic ladder and consume more and more.

5) The world does not have enough space or resources to support this. If the whole world were to reach American standards in the next few decades, we would be using forty times as many resources as we are today. And we’re going to run out of resources (many mined metals, fossil fuels, sustainable fisheries, forested land, clean water, agricultural space, etc.) at the current pace, let alone a pace 40 times greater! It would take the land space of three Earths to sustain an all-American world even if we didn’t leave anything for the natural world, and the nonrenewable resources would still run out. The issues of land, water, energy, pollution, fossil fuel availability, mining, fisheries, deforestation, global warming, etc. are coming from so many different directions that no number of technological breakthroughs will solve all of them without a significant change in lifestyle.

6) The mechanisms of capitalism ensure that without significant outside interference, every one of these trends will continue. Capitalist economies will demand more growth, the rich will be better positioned to gain from that growth than the poor, and economic efficiency will trend towards fewer and fewer jobs for the same amount of growth. These economies will keep consuming more and more resources with fewer and fewer people benefitting from the gains until the whole thing collapses.

Where are we going with this? As individuals, are we going to keep consuming more and more at the expense of others, not to mention future generations? As voters and opinion-makes, will we let every American election hinge on whether or not the economy continues to grow fast enough to satisfy the rich and middle-class? As Americans, will we keep consuming far more than everyone else and keep promoting our consumption model across the world as the goal for all others to follow? Are we ready for where this is all going to lead, and do we understand who is going to suffer the most when it all comes apart?

This is only a small summary of one aspect of the rationales that are coalescing for me right now. There is much more from the Bible, historical and modern Christian teachings, political concerns, economic concerns, environmental concerns, and what I’ve seen over the last few years in America’s media, Bangkok’s commercialism, and India’s slums that convince me that we are seriously on the wrong track. It would take many hours to summarize all the things that are bothering me about this, but a great number of the issues involved could be covered with a careful reading of Collapse by Jared Diamond, Mustard Seed vs. McWorld by Tom Sine, and Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald Sider. I don’t agree with everything in all three of those books, but together they cover the practical message of the unsustainability of the path we are on and the Godly directive of the path we should be on instead. Some of the numbers I mention here came from those books, as well as Unequal Democracy by Larry M. Bartels. The first three books also begin to deal with some of the things we could start doing to get on the right path, and I would strongly recommend Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster, Making Room by Christine Sine, and The New Monasticism by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove to keep developing more ideas.

Questions near the end

2011-07-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

I saw him as I reached the top of the overpass. My mind registered “kid” and I knew I wasn’t going to give him anything. As I walked by I noticed he was older, old enough maybe to be on his own, and looked like he needed real help. I said “sawadee khrap” and he wai’d me, bending over at the waist. As I walked by I thought, “Okay, so I don’t give to kids because they’re part of rackets, or being taken advantage of by adults…but I can’t let that kid just sit there.” I was going to 7-11, so I got him a juice. I have a little rule of always getting something that costs more than what I’m getting myself, but it’s really meaningless and self-deceiving when you realize that 49 times out of 50 I buy myself food without getting anyone else anything at all. On my way back over I asked him if he wanted it and he nodded. As I reached the end of the overpass I peeked back and he was sucking away at the straw already. I turned down the stairs and broke to pieces inside. Why does he have to be there? Why can I do so little? And why do I fall apart now when this is happening all over the city every day?

At first glance I wondered why he was begging. He looked to be in his 30s, seemed to be eating plenty, why doesn’t he have a job? Then I noticed the deep indentation in his head, as big as a fist. Where did that come from? How does that happen to someone? Why are there so many people with such severe disabilities here? How will he have any other option than begging? The Catholic Church is doing impressive work with a couple quality education/work skills centers, but it’s like a drop in the bucket among the millions in Southeast Asia with serious disabilities. I gave him 40 baht, little more than a dollar, yet something I rarely do. As I dropped it in I saw only a few coins in the cup.

I always thought of him as the out-of-place looking guy in the church. Everyone else was so young, hip, westernized, while he was older, dressed different, walked stiffly. I thought he came from a different culture than many of the other members and from a lower social class. Only once did I ever talk to him, and very briefly at that. Then last week he walked over to us and gave us an umbrella. Why did he gift us like that? How are we of all people the ones who deserve a new umbrella? And how could he have possibly have known that my umbrella had just fallen apart the Tuesday before?

We went up and down the streets for the second time in three weeks. We walked by the park, checked the overpasses, combed the aisles of the 7-11’s. We talked to the kids who washed windows and even went down the red-light district that he eventually showed up in the last time this happened. After a couple hours we gave up. He’s only 11, but this isn’t close to being the first night he’s spent alone on the streets. We prayed against the predators, for food, shelter, and safety, and just asked that he’d make it through another night. I don’t know when this will end. Sometimes when you ask the same thing too many times the questions start to dry up.

It will not be so among you

2011-07-10T05:51:00.000-07:00

One day back when I taught in jail, I mentioned that I was under 6’1”. The men in the class interrupted the story with disbelief. “Six foot one? No way. You’re way taller than that!” I asked them how tall they thought I was, and they thought it was around 6’4”. One student, a young man of about my age, said, “I’m six foot three, and you’re definitely taller than me.”

I figured that could settle it, so I had the student come up and stand next to me. Even though I had the advantage of shoes (inmates in jail are effectively shoeless), he clearly stretched out a couple inches above me. Everyone was surprised, and I took it as a teachable moment about power dynamics and how they change perception.

My position in the classroom gave me an outsized appearance of power, an effect so strong that it altered the physical impression of how big I was. Part of this effect has a physical source – the fact that I can wear shoes and have “outside” clothing makes me stand out over the slipper-wearing, uniformly-dressed inmates. (Read about the famous Stanford Prison Experiment for more insights on the effect of this power dynamic.) But a lot of it is just psychological. I had the power. I was the authority. They were the inmates. They couldn’t even go to the restroom without asking, and at any moment I could kick them out of school permanently or even get them sent to solitary confinement with just one word. My position of power was so great in their eyes that it manifested itself in an exaggeration of my physical stature.

I need to remember this story because the same dynamic occurs in less obvious ways in many other relationships. When we go out to do service, how often do we end up in a position of power over the ones we are there to serve? Are we always in a position to give materially, making others feel ashamed to always be the ones to receive? Are we always teaching, therefore acting as the intellectual and spiritual superiors, and not putting ourselves in a position to be taught? Do we ever find ourselves using our age, our years of experience, our education, our leadership position, our credentials, our fluency in English, or even our race or nationality as a bludgeon to help us assert our authority in a situation? Or do we subconsciously see ourselves as better than another based on one of those things, potentially allowing it to manifest itself in subtle ways in our actions?

Jesus taught his disciples not to be like that. He taught them that it was good to wash another’s feet, and good to allow your feet to be washed. He taught them that it was essential to give aid to the poor wandering messengers of God’s truth, and commanded them be those poor wandering messengers who would rely on the aid of others as well. He taught them to be served as guests in the homes of “sinners”, to give feasts to those who couldn't reciprocate, to associate side-by-side with women who prostitute and men with leprosy, and to make even the littlest children the focus of their full attention. He taught them to throw away the way the world uses power, and to understand a whole new system of the upside-down Kingdom power.

Lord, I want to be a servant among the poor, not just to the poor. Teach me to consider all others better than myself and to submit to those who I would be reluctant to trust. Help me to learn how much you have to teach me through the words and lives of those who don’t have the world’s authority, but have your blessing. Give me true humility in all my relationships. And may all those who interact with me find more dignity and greater self-image after they see me than they did before.

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave;” Matthew 20:25-27, Mark 10:42-44

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” – Philippians 2:3

“The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” Matthew 23:11-12 (see also Mark 9:35, 10:31, Matthew 19:30, 23:11-12, Luke 13:30, 14:11)

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5

“Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces.” Luke 11:44

"So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God." Luke 16:15

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 18:5 (see also Mark 9:37, 10:14, Luke 9:48, 18:7, Matthew 18:6)

“So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” John 13:14-15

“Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 (see also 3:18-23)

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Ephesians 5:21

“Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.” Romans 12:16

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23

A typically atypical night

2011-06-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

Four of us come together to pray, but spend 45 minutes pouring out the stuff we’ve been seeing in the city first. We cut discussion short and get to prayer.

Rose and I jump on a bus while our two friends take off on bikes.

The walk from the bus stop is the usual…rich Western tourists, rich Muslim tourists, and old men with young “girlfriends”.

We see our friend Ron the second we get to the redlight district. We trade pleasantries and he lets us know which of our friends is around in the redlights today.

We find Nuy right away. She shows us her pretty-smelling flowers, asks Rose if she has coloring, and then pulls us over to a storefront to get started. The coloring pages aren’t to her liking, so Rose draws the dresses that are hanging while Nuy colors them. I offer her a banana but she’s not interested. The rich guys and young Thai women are walking past, looking towards us with bemusement or confusion. After a while two of the young women working the nearby market stands join us. One colors while the other practices her English letters with Rose. They are enjoying themselves – we’ve never interacted like this before. A while later Nuy asks if we’ll go with her to the redlights. We agree and pack up, leaving crayons for the woman who is still coloring away.

Nuy asks for grilled chicken wings and we oblige. She picks out 3 wings on a stick, and then hands one to me and one to Rose. She gives me her flowers to keep too. We go down the street and find her little sister, then talk to her mom and her baby brother. We offer them bananas, and the 2-year old boy is overjoyed. Nuy asks if we can get one more chicken wing stick, and we say okay, but she has to promise to share with her sister. While the wings warm we say our goodbyes and walk out to the street to see if our friends are back on their overpass yet.

As we leave we pass the young woman, who is working hard on her coloring page and more than halfway done. It’s a picture of the father welcoming home the prodigal son.

On the street we pass mother after mother begging with children. A young lady with two tiny sleeping girls – they’ve been around for a long time. She’s a national, but they are homeless in the Bangkok area. We exchange small talk, give them some bananas, and go on our way. Another lady with a slightly older child. She introduces herself as Ti and her daughter as Thom. She tells Rose that she has no place to sleep in Bangkok, and from her appearance I wonder if she is mentally disabled. She says she fell a few days ago, and shows Rose where it hurts. Rose offers her condolences, and we give her some bananas and keep going. The mother we always see with the two little ones and the puppies….another mother after her with two little girls….a tiny barefoot girl we’ve never seen before selling gum…

After much walking we spot kids on our overpass. Is it them? We get to the top and see 6-year-old Lokia and 2-year-old Pim. But where’s mom? We sit with them, Rose talking to Lokia and me trying to entertain Pim enough to keep her from crying for her mom. People walk past, looking at us strange. Finally their mom, Dtao, comes back…she’d been looking for Khuoy. Khuoy is her 11-year-old son. She hadn’t seen him for four days, since the family was taken into custody without him. Rose and I and the staff here had searched for him on the streets during that time to no avail. I begin to feel sick about the situation. While Rose talks to Dtao and then calls our staff to give them the update, I bow my head and pray desperately that he’s safe somewhere and will be found soon.

Dtao decides to go looking again. Rose joins while I call the staff so they know where we’re going. I lose track of them, but the other two guys catch up, and soon we find Rose and the family…and they’ve found Khuoy! He is upset after having to be alone 4 days, and he’s very tired. I don’t know if he’s been eating or where he’s been sleeping. He curls up on their mat to sleep while our staff leader talks to Dtao about their situation. The conversation gets uncomfortable and soon we excuse ourselves. Rose leaves all the crayons with Lokia. Rose and another friend are able to go talk to a new family they spotted across the street, which turns out to include the little barefoot gum seller we’d seen earlier. It’s getting close to 1am, and we decide to call it a night.

What did we accomplish tonight? I don’t know. Good is always mixed with bad here…thank God that Khouy is okay, but the family doesn’t seem any closer to leaving than they were before. It was fun to have the storekeeper color with us and little Nuy, but it’s so hard to see more new families out on the streets. And always there’s the context of the redlights and the hundreds of men who buy women walking on by. In the end, we’re just trying to maintain our relationships, start new ones, and let people know that we care. In time perhaps they’ll trust our love enough to take the next step. We know people in their home country who might take them in, get them an occupation, get the kids in school…but they don’t trust people in their country to really help, or they don’t think they could support themselves financially there like they can here, or they can’t bring themselves to leave the life they’ve known for years. In time perhaps more plans will come together and the staff here will have more opportunities to offer them. Right now all we can offer is our friendship, and our assurances that the people we know who want to help them really are good people. But what we want them to know above any of that is that we love them, we love them because God loves them, and he wants so much more for their lives than this.

Keep praying for us. Please pray for them.

Practical thoughts on Luke 14:12-14

2011-06-02T01:34:00.000-07:00

In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 14, Jesus says to a dinner host,

When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

This teaching has been in my mind a lot the past 8-9 years. At the biggest party I ever threw, I had this verse stuck in my head as I planned. I put effort into trying to fulfill it as well as I could at the time. In the end I was disappointed with how it turned out, but I just figured, “well, at least I tried”. Recently I was thinking again about that effort, and I realized that there were a number of key reasons that my attempts did not go the way I wished them to.

I invited about 10 rich people for every poor person. That meant that the rich people were more likely to feel comfortable coming to the event than the poor people, even if all the poor people came.
I held the event in a rich neighborhood, in a building built by rich people for rich people, in a place many of the rich people I know had spent much time. The poor people I knew had to travel to get there, to be in a place they had never been, in a neighborhood they weren’t comfortable in, in a building they had no connection to. And really, I expected that to work? It’s no surprise that only 2 of the 20-something poorer people I invited actually came.
Why did I invite 10 times as many rich people and hold the event in a rich church in a rich neighborhood? Because most of my family members are relatively rich, and because most of my closest friends are relatively rich. The proportion of rich people to poor people there was right in line with the amount of emotional and relational energy I was investing in the lives of the rich as opposed to the lives of the poor. The fact that I was living in south-central Los Angeles and working full time at Catholic Charities at the time doesn’t let me off the hook, it only indicts me further for my lack of participation in God’s idea of community.

This gives me some food for thought for the next time I want to live out this verse. But the most important lesson is this – if I am truly to follow Christ and his teachings, then applying verses like this is a process that starts right now, in the decisions I make in my everyday relationships and choices of community. Yes, I need to do my best to follow the principle when I’m throwing that party, but if I’m not developing relationships and community with the poor now, then by the time the party comes around it will get pretty difficult.

Be needy, at least some of the time

2011-05-26T23:57:00.000-07:00

Last week a discussion leader asked us to respond to the idea that “God’s heart is found in the poor”. This question led me down a surprising path. As I reflected on the Sermon on the Mount, the Good Samaritan, and Matthew 25, it felt clear that we can see Christ reflected in the needy, and that we can grow closer to God with our interactions with the poor. So that caused me to think, “Am I really being of the greatest service to others if I am never in need, if I am never poor?” To put it another way, in true Christian community shouldn’t I also at times be the person being served, the person in need who others can have the chance to see Christ through? Jesus made that clear to his disciples when He washed their feet. We tend to think of that as an example of how even the great must serve, but there’s an equally important lesson that is drawn out by Peter's initial refusal – we must all be willing to be served as well. And we can't be truly served if we've already made ourselves completely self-sufficient. If we have everything we think we need, then can others serve us on equal terms, or are we just play-acting the roles?

The passage that really drives home this question for me is when Jesus gives his disciples instructions for spreading the gospel. They can’t take supplies. They can’t take provisions. They can’t even pay their own board. They have to go out with nothing but the sandals on their feet and accept the hospitality of the communities they enter in order to do their work of preaching. They must rely on the service of others, because they have nothing else to turn to – they have made themselves poor for Christ. Are we willing to go to that same extent, not only to practice our willingness to trust God, but in order to allow others to bless us by letting them serve us in real need?

India

2011-05-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

There's something in our hosts, our new friends, our modes of transportation. The questions asked by Surya in the bookstore, Sunil on the street, and the auto-rickshaw driver. The books for sale, the kids in the school uniforms, the fantastic food. It is a feeling of belonging that descends upon me within days of entering this country, a feeling I've really only felt elsewhere on a little stretch of Century Boulevard. The feeling that somehow, this place and these people, this region and this culture, hit me too deep in the present to not play a part in my future. I still don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that it means a lot.

The question I have now for myself is, "What would I do here?" I don't know the answer to that yet. Do I need to know before I come?

Deja Vu

2011-05-18T04:09:00.000-07:00

In July 2004, six late-night hours in the streets of Mumbai changed my life. The climax of the experience was staring at police as they ripped apart a shanty-town made of poles and tarps. These “tourist police” were “beautifying” the area, removing the community from the beach so that tourists would not have to see them and get an unfavorable impression of the city. I was furious. I tried to communicate to the police that this tourist was much more upset by their actions than if I had just seen the community without the ransacking. But all I could do was stand there and watch and hope to guilt-trip the police into leaving, then assist the residents with a pittance afterwards. Other than when the police tried (and failed) to order me to leave, I didn’t seem to have much of an effect on them. By the end of that night I had developed a strong feeling that God might want me in a place like Mumbai for the rest of my life. And part of that feeling was the idea that then I could do more, then I could help give some form of real hope to those who suffered the whims of so many oppressive forces.

A few weeks ago we were on the streets of a different city, sitting with a women and children we love. We shared a few bags of food with the mother, gifts to help make life a slight bit easier in the face of the recent arrest and deportation of her 11-year-old son and illness of her 5-year-old daughter. After a short visit we left their spot on the sidewalk. We had only walked about thirty feet when I saw two police officers coming down the sidewalk on a motorcycle. The motorcycle was already ten feet past me when I realized what was about to happen. If only I had jumped in front of the cycle and delayed them by asking directions! (We really were somewhat unsure about what bus to take that hour of the night.) Instead, I saw the officers pull up to our friends, and soon mats were rolled up and bags hastily grabbed as they abandoned their spot. Only the illness of the daughter brought enough compassion from the officers that the family was able to avoid a worse fate (though more would come the next week). And as I watched, once again powerless, my mind flashed back to the night in Mumbai so many years earlier and I thought, “So what has even changed…”

As is so often true, I have to start by reminding myself that I am not their savior. I need to put down the burdens that are not my responsibility, let God do God’s work, and just focus on being as obedient as possible to what He has asked me to do. Then I have to remind myself that the greatest difference is now I am here, actively loving them. I’m not just abstractly feeling love for them, caring about and thinking of them for years but not actually participating in their lives at all (as is true for that first community that moved me). Instead of just seeing one person come into their lives on one night, this family has a relationship with our community that stretches back almost two years, and they know that we will be here for them again the next time something happens. Finally, the staff and the family are talking and sharing together about long-term hopes that could soon see fruition; hopes of land, stability, consistent income, schooling for their children, and a place in a real community. The complexities involved in creating these opportunities and coming to a place where both we and the family can really believe in such a future are many, and it is not the sort of thing that could ever have been brought into place by a one-time encounter. Whatever the outcome of those plans, we are doing our best to really love them, and that is what Christ asked us to do. In the face of so many sad events that so often feel beyond my control, I have to remember that God has just asked me to love my neighbor the way He has loved me, and not feel despair on the occasions when that just doesn’t feel like enough.

Choices

2011-04-25T07:25:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote a 1300 word post about the complexities of the idea of “choice” with women involved in the sex industry. It mentioned kidnapping, physical force, rape, teenagers who are sold by their parents, arraigned marriage, women whose husbands abandon them, lack of education, lack of familial support, having to feed your children, homelessness, awareness of options, economic barriers, untreated trauma resulting from sexual abuse, debt bondage, escape fantasies, materialistic culture, societal values, social stigma, and several other topics. But it was too long and buried the main point I wanted to make. Thankfully, Nicolas Kristof wrote a piece yesterday that addressed many of my ultimate concerns (that’s the second time in a week we’ve said almost the same thing), so read his better-written piece on the ignored girls of human trafficking instead. Just remember that girls like the ones he describes aren’t only in America, but in countries where the more “obvious” forms of trafficking exist as well. But all that wasn’t the main point of my post anyway.

This was the main point: We often judge the people who need help, try to figure out whether their situation was their own fault or not (he's a drug addict, she's mentally ill, he had all the chances in the world, she was asking for it, plenty of other people in his situation turned out fine, etc.) and then spread out our compassion and love accordingly, with little going to those people who we judge "deserve" their lot. However our judgments of people’s motivations and perceived degree of choice in their situation affect our natural willingness to love them and help them out, we must remember that Jesus did not work like that. In the gospels we read the stories of forgiveness for the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus the tax collector, the crying woman, the publican who beat his chest before God, the thief on the cross, the Samaritan who was living with a man who was not her husband, and the paralytic whose friends lowered him through the roof. Jesus never asks how they got in their situation. Jesus doesn’t berate them for creating their own mess. Jesus never passes up a needy sinner on the road in order to reach out to someone whose desperate situation may have been less “their fault”. What Jesus does is reach out with love to every lost person he sees, show his compassion to every desperate person before him, and teach his disciples to do the same. We don’t know the back stories to why the violent man in the caves became demon-possessed or why the beggar Lazarus had never found employment, and the gospels are certainly silent as to why Mary Magdalene had been involved with prostitution (if that tradition is indeed accurate). And if Jesus never asked those questions, do we need to ask them? If Jesus never judged the needy based on their “culpability” for their situation, need we judge them?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do what we can to understand why so many people end up in situations of oppression and address the root causes on a societal scale. But I am saying that we need to do whatever we can to show Christ’s love to those who are hurting, without the judgmental attitude that they deserve their lot. Should it matter to me why the boy in front of me started begging, stealing, selling his body for sex? I know that it shouldn’t. Do I need to set up a scale to determine who is worthy of Christ’s love and who is not? I know that I cannot. What I can try is to love them now, show my care for them as a fellow child of God, and pray that their future chances are better than the ones they’ve had to choose between so far.

Sorry that this is so out of context

2011-03-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

I ask her how she's feeling and get a sarcastic response. Our mutual friend berates me for even asking - of course she's not doing well. I rephrase the question - is she feeling light-headed, dizzy? She is. I make sure she gets more water. I ask her if I can touch her foot and she gives me permission. Someone reminds me that this is a gloves situation and they hunt down a pair for me. I take off the ad hoc wrappings and begin to apply my own. I think about cleaning the wound, but the large amount of blood on the floor concerns me and I decide that blood loss management has to take priority over infection for the moment. I secure the bandage, get her foot elevated, and begin applying pressure to the wound, then ask her if she's comfortable taking the tourniquet off her ankle now. To my relief she obliges - at first she had been too afraid that the heavy bleeding would resume. I ask if she can wiggle her toes and she can. We keep the foot elevated with my pressure on it and encourage her to drink more water. I continue to ask her questions to make sure she's staying conscious and coherent. I pray that she'll stay stable until the ambulance comes and takes her to the hospital. The strong pulse that I begin to feel in her foot as blood soaks into the bandage again gives me comfort.

The ambulance arrives, but the paramedics are a little slow to react to the situation. Since they can't get the stretcher in close enough (too much blood and broken glass), I ask her if I can help her up, and end up lifting and carrying her to the ambulance. They begin to place her in but I've already turned around and begun removing my gloves in the proscribed non-contaminating manner. In a surreal moment I toss them on the floor in the middle of the blood and glass and everything else - can't think of a better place to put them for now. I go back outside for a moment and make sure the paramedics have been informed of the significant details of the situation. They have. There's discussion of who will go with them to the hospital but I'm not paying attention. I don't remember what happens next, but I'm not outside and I'm not looking when the ambulance leaves. The last memory I have of her is making eye contact as she thanks me just after I've set her down into the wheelchair/stretcher. I know our friend was there too, but I can barely remember.

As they left, I realized that I'd likely never see them again.

I wrote that over a week ago, the day after those events happened. I was trying to process what just happened and how I was feeling about it. I didn't send it to anyone at the time because I was having enough difficulty understanding all of my thoughts myself that I didn't feel okay having others read what I was thinking yet.

My writing continued:

At that time following my first aid training and the correct safety protocols felt more important than my own emotional response. That suppression has made it more difficult for me as I try to deal with my feelings now. Last night was one of the worst nights of sleep in my life. The hallucinations (note: my confused waking-dream state I get at night when I'm very sick or under severe stress) were heavy, far worse than I've had in a long time. After many hours of sleeplessness and tossing and turning and hallucinating and mosquito bites, a massive thunderstorm hit and the loudest thunderbolts I have ever heard began booming outside my window. In a way it was a comfort - at least now I had a reason for not falling asleep, and the fury of the storm made me feel like God was acknowledging the turmoil that had just happened and heaven was raging too. In my sleep-deprived state of hyper-attribution, it also worried me, because the violence of the storm felt like a confirmation of the seriousness of the events.

Today I prayed for good news, but when bad news came back I realized that I did not feel disappointment - I already assumed the news would be bad, and good news would have been the shocking surprise. At about the same time I accidentally saw their pictures from just a day earlier - I almost cried. I've had five or six "almost cries" already, but did not release my first tears until an hour ago. There will be more.

I wish I could share more with all of you, but there are many reasons why I cannot, so for now you have to be content with just hearing my feelings. It was hard for me even to say this much - for most of the time since this happened I've been focusing on anything but that, distracting myself with news and sports and other duties here. Please pray for them, and pray for me and the rest of the team here as well. A lot has happened in the 1.5 weeks since I wrote that down, and in many ways we are moving on, but that doesn't change how significantly difficult their situation is, how much it was exacerbated last week, and how much it affected all of us. God is their only hope, and my limited mind is still having trouble feeling secure in that hope.

As a final thought - I know that many of my feelings, most importantly my feelings of borderline despondency and lack of hope, are seriously misplaced. They are in part the result of a major exaggeration of our significance. I can fall pray to the assumption that we are saviors, that our influence is vital under these particular conditions and that the new set of conditions precludes any hope of them, as my friend would say, "finding my happy days". (Lord, please, be with them) I know that is not true - there is one Savior, and he completed His saving work that I may know that I don't have to. Our trust is in Him. In Him we have hope. Thank you for praying.

Thoughts on Egypt

2011-02-18T04:35:00.000-08:00

During the protests in Egypt I did not express an opinion on whether Christians should participate. And now that the protesters have succeeded, I still don't know. Mubarak was a dictator who imprisoned, tortured, or killed thousands of his political opponents, stole billions of dollars while many of his people suffered in poverty, and ruled a government that was full of corruption. But does that mean Christians are obligated to attempt to overthrow such dictators? And by what means? Does it matter that the alternative to Mubarak may be even worse? I don't know. So I couldn't say that Christians "should" work to overthrow him. But as I have prayed and reflected on the present, past, and future in Egypt, there have been a few things that I do feel I can state with confidence.

First, I believe that as Christians we cannot support what Mubarak did or trust him to "protect us". Some Christians told me that while Mubarak was bad, "at least he kept the Islamists in check", and "the alternative will be even worse".

I do not know whether the alternative will be worse. But no alternative can justify throwing our support behind a dictator who steals from the poor, imprisons tens of thousands of his political opponents, and uses torture and murder as weapons to control his people. What good would it do us to save our lives in such a manner, if we lose our souls in the process? What message would that give the world about who Christ is and what He would be in favor of? Better to lose our life to persecution and thereby save our souls than to preserve our lives through the support of such evil.

For those who wish to turn to Egypt's dictator for safety, I think the words of Isaiah 30 and 31 resonate today. The context is similar - the Jewish king was so afraid of the Assyrians and what they would do to Israel that he was willing to turn to the ruler of Egypt for protection. God's response through Isaiah is summarized in the first three verses of chapter 31:

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.

Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster;
he does not take back his words.
He will rise up against that wicked nation,
against those who help evildoers.

But the Egyptians are mere mortals and not God;
their horses are flesh and not spirit.
When the LORD stretches out his hand,
those who help will stumble,
those who are helped will fall;
all will perish together. Isaiah 31:1-3

We are to trust in God for protection, not Earthly rulers who are using unjust means.

My second thought deals with persecution. Persecution is painful, difficult. We need to support and pray for those who are persecuted, and publicly speak up to their persecutors in defense of their lives. But sometimes we may get so caught up in trying to avoid persecution that we forget - blessed are the persecuted!

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. - Matthew 5:10-12

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything...

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. - James 1:2-4, 12

But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life. - Luke 21:12-19

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. - Philippians 1:12-14

There is much more - 1 Peter 3 and 4, 2 Corinthians 12:10, 2 Thessalonians 1:3-5, Acts 5:41, James 5:10-11. Far from being something that hurts believers, persecution strengthens faith and grows the church. The first few centuries of Christianity showed this abundantly. I do not believe that this means we need to seek out persecution. But when the choice is between facing persecution or supporting sin and injustice, then like the early martyrs we can embrace persecution with open arms.

Finally, I believe there is one clear proactive response to such situations. That response is embodied in the greatest commandments - Love the Lord your God, and Love your neighbor as yourself.

Imagine that there were two alternatives during Mubarak's thirty years in power. On the left, the church could have openly supported Mubarak's policies, been glad when he imprisoned and tortured those the church considered to be its enemies, done what it could to ensure that he stayed in power for as long as possible, and campaigned for someone just like him (such as his son) to take over when he died. Until that happened, we could have fervently prayed that Mubarak and his followers were able to stay in power and keep control over our enemies as long as possible.

And on the right, the church could instead have openly loved those that it considered to be its enemies. Millions of Christians could have actively worked day after day for those thirty years to show concrete acts of love to their neighbors. When people were unjustly imprisoned, the church could have spoken out on their behalf, even if they were part of the "enemy" faction. When torture, rape, or murder were sanctioned by the government, the church could have spoken out against it and stood with those who suffered, even if those suffering had hurt Christians in the past. And for thirty years, we could have fervently prayed for the souls of those who considered us their enemies, that through our love and the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts they may come to have an eternal relationship with the true God.

Both choices would have had to face the truth that no human reign lasts forever, and that Mubarak or his successors were bound to one day fall. Until that happened, which strategy would have glorified God more? Which would have a greater chance of bringing an Egypt where Christians could live without "fear of man", but fear God alone? Which one was more likely to bring home the lost sheep that our Lord so deeply loves and wants to come into His fold? Which one shows more of God's love?

And, when Mubarak's reign finally did fall (as it did last week), which strategy would be more likely to have planted the seeds for a future Egypt where Christians are safe and respected as a part of the Egyptian community?

Mubarak's time is over. But Egypt's is not. These are not choices to be made in certain eras or by certain church leaders, but choices that every Christian has to make for herself every day and will still have to make no matter what government controls the nation. Do we trust in man to protect us from those we fear? Or do we make the choice to fear God alone, trust in God alone, and turn to our enemies with open arms and the love that Christ poured out to us when we were opposed to Him as well?

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. - Luke 6:27-28

When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it. - 1 Corinthians 4:12

So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. - Matthew 10:26-31

The one who has none

2011-02-09T02:34:00.000-08:00

About a month ago Rose's family came to town. One night they were able to treat one of our housemates and her baby to dinner out. They started in their hotel room, where baby "Naomi" fell asleep immediately on the cushy bed, the likes of which she had never known. Everyone thought it was adorable how she sprawled out on the covers, as blissfully passed out as she'd ever been.

That is, until her mother, "Marina", tried to pick her up. The second she left the bed she started crying. Marina set her back down, and she fell blissfully asleep again. Tried to pick her up, and she cried again. This scenario repeated itself several times. Naomi could not stand to leave the bed - she had never had a resting place so soft.

It's sort of a cute story, but sad too. Naomi has spent all six months of her life in our home. It's not a bad place to live - probably middle-class by Thai standards - and many of our friends in Thailand are raising their babies in much more difficult circumstances. But it will never compare to the lifestyle our American friends enjoy. Naomi might never get to rest on a mattress like that again.

Since Naomi's time on the bed I've been thinking about the place of luxury a lot. What kinds of comforts do I desire for Naomi's life? What should I be praying for? What does God want for her life? How does he want me to respond?

I believe God wants us to have joy in this life. He wants us to enjoy the good gifts of His creation. But I don't think that means He wants a life of luxury for us. There are many warnings about the dangers of wealth in the Bible (Amos 4, Matthew 19:23, Luke 6:24, Luke 12, James 2 and 5, 1 Timothy 6:6-10). Christ asked wealthy men to give up their lifestyle to follow him, and warned that luxury may not be found on that path (Luke 7:24-26, 9:58).

In practical terms, it would not even be possible for the rest of the world to live like many of us do - Americans alone already use a quarter of the entire world's energy supply and a third of its automobiles, even though they are only 4% of the population. The rest of the world cannot be raised to "American" standards - there will never be enough water, food, metals, energy, etc. for everyone to waste stuff in luxury the way that the richest nations do.

So again, how do we respond? I still want good things for Naomi. So what do I look for? In Luke chapter 3, John tells the crowd, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” In Acts chapters 2 and 4, you see the new Christian community acting this out, for "all the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need" so that soon "there were no needy persons among them." Paul expanded this freely giving community across churches, imploring the richer congregations to give to those churches that were in times of need (2 Corinthians 8-9).

I don't know what kinds of beds God desires for Naomi in her future. I do not know what "comforts" He wants for each of our lives on this Earth. But I do know that if I am living in greater comfort than my neighbors, His desire is that I share that with them, all of my excess going to serve all of their needs, until all those I love are being blessed with those gifts at least as much as I am.

Loving our enemies: More from the Early Fathers

2011-01-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

Last year I wrote this article for our church magazine:

Loving our Enemies

(Somewhat coincidentally, it was a couple weeks before I wrote this blog entry.) At the time I knew that the command to love our enemies was clearly stated in the gospels and New Testament epistles. But I didn't realize how important it was to the early church. Recently, when I began reading the earliest documents of the Christian church, I came to see that loving our enemies was pivotal. Not only was it taught in church documents, sermons, and letters, but the visible fruit of Christian love for their enemies was a major point that Christians made when defending their faith to non-Christians. So what has happened between then and now?

All of the following quotes are taken from the first 160 years of the Christian church. At least two of the authors of the quotes were themselves martyred during this period of persecution.

There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference.

Now, this is the way of life: "First, you must love God who made you, and second, your neighbor as yourself." And whatever you want people to refrain from doing to you, you must not do to them.

What these maxims teach is this: "Bless those who curse you," and "pray for your enemies." Moreover, fast "for those who persecute you." For "what credit is it to you if you love those who love you? Is that not the way the heathen act?" But "you must love those who hate you," and then you will make no enemies. "Abstain from carnal passions." If someone strikes you "on the right cheek, turn to him the other too, and you will be perfect." If someone "forces you to go one mile with him, go along with him for two"; if someone robs you "of your overcoat, give him your suit as well." If someone deprives you of "your property, do not ask for it back." (You could not get it back anyway!) "Give to everybody who asked of you, and ask for no return." For the Father wants his own gifts to be universally shared.

- Opening of the Didache, possibly the earliest church document ever discovered

"Pray also for emperors and magistrates and rulers, and for those who persecute and hate you, and for the enemies of the cross, that your fruit may be manifest in all, so that you may be perfected in him."

- Bishop Polycarp, Orthodox saint and one of the most famous early bishops and martyrs, in the close of his letter to the Philippians (his only existing letter)

For the Lord says, "My name is continually scoffed at by all peoples"; and again, "Alas for whom my name is scoffed at!" How is it scoffed at? By your failing to do what I want. For when the heathen hear God's oracles on our lips they marvel at their beauty and greatness. But afterward, when they mark that our deeds are unworthy of the words we utter, they turn from this to scoffing, and say that it is a myth and a delusion. When, for instance, they hear from us that God says, "It is no credit to you if you love those who love you, but it is to your credit if you love your enemies and those who hate you," when they hear these things, they are amazed at such surpassing goodness. But when they see that we fail to love not only those who hate us, but even those who love us, then they mock at us and scoff at the Name.

- The earliest Christian sermon ever discovered (known as "Clement's Second Letter", though the original author is unknown)

This is what [Christ] taught on affection for all men: "If you love those who love you, what new thing do you do? for even the harlots do this. But I say to you, Pray for your enemies and love those who hate you and bless those who curse you and pray for those who treat you despitefully."

About being long-suffering and servants to all and free from anger, this is what he said: "To him that smites you on one cheek turn the other also, and to him that takes away your cloak do not deny your tunic either. Whoever is angry is worthy of the fire. And whoever compels you to go one mile, follow him for two. Let your good works shine before men, that they as they see may wonder at your Father who is in heaven".

- Justin Martyr, in the first known written defense of the Christian faith, giving examples of the goodness of Christian conduct and the power of God in Christ's words.

Moreover, by showing that the teachings themselves, to which we are attached, are not human, but were declared and taught by God, we can persuade you not to hold us for atheists. What, then, are these teachings in which we are reared? "I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven, who makes his sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sends his rain on the just and on the unjust."

With us...you will find unlettered people, tradesmen and old women, who, though unable to express in words the advantages of our teaching, demonstrate by acts the value of their principles. For they do not rehearse speeches, but evidence good deeds. When struck, they do not strike back; when robbed, they do not sue; to those who ask, they give, and they love their neighbors as themselves.

If we did not think that a God ruled over the human race, would we live in such purity? The idea is impossible.

- Athenagoras, in a 2nd-century defense of the faith to the Roman emperors

If we are enjoined, then, to love our enemies, as I have remarked above, whom have we to hate? if injured, we are forbidden to retaliate, lest we become as bad ourselves: who can suffer injury at our hands? In regard to this, recall your own experiences. How often you inflict gross cruelties on Christians, partly becaues it is your own inclination, and partly in obedience to the laws! How often, too, the hostile mob, paying no regard to you, takes the law into its own hand, and assails us with stones and flames! With the very frenzy of the Bacchanals, they do not even spare the Christian dead, but tear them, now sadly changed, no longer entire, from the rest of the tomb, from the asylum we might say of death, cutting them in pieces, rending them asunder. Yet, banded together as we are, ever so ready to sacrifice our lives, what single case of revenge for injury are you able to point to?

- Tertullian, often called the "Founder of Western Theology", in yet another 2nd-century defense of the faith

Book List

2011-01-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

Rose and I are in the process of making decisions that will affect the rest of the year...and quite possibly the rest of our lives. Our experiences and relationship with God are the driving forces behind those decisions, but the books we've read have influenced us as well. I wanted to put out a list of the books that have strongly influenced/explained the things that we're doing this year. The following books are in no particular order - I'd recommend all ten of them to everyone.

Friendship at the Margins
Making Room
The Road of Lost Innocence
In the Name of Jesus
Compassion
From Brokenness to Community
Not for Sale
First They Killed My Father
Sexually Exploited Children
Freedom of Simplicity

As a bonus, here are five more books that are informing the more long-term decisions that we are making for the future. I recommend these as well, partly on their own merit (especially #1), but also for anyone who wants to understand our lives and our desires for the future a little more.

Three Cups of Tea
Living Mission
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (you're better off taking the class rather than just reading the book)
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Cry of the Urban Poor

I've written reviews of all the books on http://www.goodreads.com/, and I'd be happy to answer any questions at all that anyone has about them.

That they may be one

2011-01-01T02:49:00.000-08:00

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. - John 17:20-23

Unity between Christians is difficult, but I think it is worth it. I want to work towards unity with other Christians so that we may be together in God. I want to work towards unity with other Christians so that the world may know Christ was sent by God. This doesn't mean we need to go to the same church, worship the same way, or agree on all theological details. We have different roles in the Body, and even the apostles had disputes. But I do believe that God calls us to humble ourselves for the sake of unity in His kingdom.

Last month I asked Ash Barker (founder of Urban Neighbors Of Hope) how we could encourage ecumenism. The essence of his answer was that ecumenism is hard for Thai churches to do, but WE need to do it first. While the "we" he referred to was the community of missions/service-oriented Christians in Bangkok, I think his answer can be taken further to say that we as individuals need to practice unity before asking it of our larger church bodies. The most powerful advice regarding unity in Paul's letters are not his statements against church division in 1 Corinthians 1, 3, and 12, but the gentle manner he calls us to act towards those who we disagree with in Romans 14:1-15:7. Until we as individuals learn to tolerate difference of opinion on religious matters, bear those whose faith seems weaker than ours, and stop putting stumbling blocks in front of each other in the name of Christan freedom, we'll have little chance of convincing our churches to get along.

If anyone wants a deeper look at the ecumenical issue, I encourage you to read Chris Heuertz's article "The New Ecumenism: Becoming the Living Body of Christ" in IMMERSE Journal

A Different Christmas in Bangkok

2010-12-26T10:32:00.000-08:00

About 99% of Bangkok either treats Christmas as a Western commercialization-and-decorations holiday or doesn't celebrate it at all. That made the last 36 hours that much more interesting.

On Christmas eve we went out together with some Thai friends and a few people from another organization to sing Christmas carols at the bars of Bangkok's red light districts.

Our resident 3-year-old passed out candy canes to the women while we sang in Thai and English. The women appeared to love it and several of them even gave us gifts in return. The Western men's reactions were mixed. We got everything from guys glaring and making mocking faces to guys who were singing along. One guy had to look away from everything, including the girl he was with, the whole time we were there.

We also got to pass out gifts to our friends who beg out on the streets, and even play with a few of the kids. I had a lot of fun and was wiped out long before we got home.

Christmas morning we had a quiet gift-opening together as a community. Then it was off to a local church for a joint Christmas party for the kids we know who beg on the streets and some kids who are associated with the church. We played games, made nativity scenes, watched a movie about the nativity, and ate lunch (and lots of candy) together. About twenty kids were there, most of whom we know well, and we had a blast.

Then it was home again for a Christmas party with our wonderfully hospitable neighbors. Fantastic food, dancing kids, and silly playing made up the rest of our night.

In the midst of the hard realities we deal with, it is so wonderful to be able to celebrate. Pray for all those we celebrate with, that they may find not only happiness for one day, but eternal joy, and peace on this Earth as well.

Update on our service

2010-12-19T00:02:00.000-08:00

I've talked about the evolving nature of our service in blog posts and emails, but it's been a while since I updated everyone on exactly what we're doing. So here's the latest version of what we're up to:

We still have outreach on the streets every week, but we've cut back how often we go. Instead we are doing more home visits with the families that we've developed relationships with. Rose is also working on a special project to help us in this outreach.

Last month we suspended the drop-in center. The location had become unsuitable for many of the kids, and the one child that was still attending is now with his family and off the streets (and in church!). Instead, we played soccer with a bunch of the kids one week and will join them for a Christmas party next week, and are planning to start a drop-in center in a safer location further from the red-lights.

We're still doing the community-building stuff that I talked about, but two Servant Team members will leave soon and at that point our community activities will look different. Certain community activities related to women in difficult situations may increase.

We continue to teach English to children at a local church every week. We're now breaking for the holidays, but next year we'll start up again and even have a special three-day workshop for older teens.

Our visits to migrants are finally happening! After numerous roadblocks were taken away, we are getting to visit with men and women who don't get very many visitors.

Jonathan is working on a special project to get a picture of how churches across Bangkok serve the poor and marginalized, with the hope of eventually building bridges with other churches.

Our Servant Team coordinators have started a monthly advocacy meeting to bring together those in Bangkok who share God's heart for the poor. So far we haven't had to do much other than set up the space and enjoy the dialog.

That's the basics for now - I'm sure I'll have changes to write about in the coming months. Such is the nature of the service.

Christmas in Bangkok

2010-12-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

It's fair to say that most Thais don't know the connection between Christmas and Christ's incarnation. And you won't see Christmas decorations on private homes. In Bangkok Christmas is a holiday that celebrates consumption, a holiday for flashy decorations at high-end stores and the selling of luxuries. You'll see Santa, reindeer, Christmas trees and bunnies (recycled Easter bunnies?) in all the most expensive business districts, but nothing related to Christ.

And really, if their idea of Christmas comes from what they see Westerners spending the most time and money on, why should I expect any different?

How can we set a different example this year?

One option: http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

Please pray

2010-12-14T07:37:00.000-08:00

Last night had so many positive aspects and so many difficult and/or horrible aspects at the same time. We had a deep (and sometimes difficult, but significant) conversation with a foreigner in Bangkok and served a newcomer in a really simple way, but ended up hearing about some potentially terrible things going on for some of our young friends that we spend time with out on the streets. I don't want to go into details, but they need a lot of prayer. Thank God for the ways in which He brings people together in His timing for His purposes, pray that our new friend is able to follow through with the things He realized last night, and pray much for all our young friends, that whatever we fear has happened in the past is not as bad as we fear it is, that somehow we or someone else can be agents to stop anything from happening in the future, and that they find ultimate healing from all their trauma in Him.

Meeting guys in the red lights

2010-12-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

A few nights ago we were on our way out of the red lights when our 7-year-old friend "Fon" called us to come over. She brought us behind a fast food restaurant where her dad was sitting. She was so proud that her dad was there, being the only kid working the streets that had a father present at all.

As Fon led us behind the restaurant, four young Australian men came over. They asked whose daughter the girl was and then told her dad she was beautiful. (Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they seemed concerned about whether this adorable little 7-year-old was with her parents.) They all put some money into Fon's begging cup and talked to us, asking what we were doing in Thailand. The Aussies shared about their personal lives as well, mentioning how much they loved Thailand and how lucky we were to get to be staying for so long. At one point Fon grabbed one of the guys by the hand and took him over to the nearby 7-11. Both of them were beaming when she came back with her arms loaded up with toys and ice cream.

As they left, they asked where a certain plaza was. One of my fellow teammates later informed me that the plaza they were looking for houses the primary sex bars in the area.

Often we are blind to how our own personal sin affects others. I think those guys adored Fon and wanted to help her family out a little. But I doubt they realized that it was their own adult sex tourism that brings Fon into this vulnerable situation. They don't think about how their support of the red light districts creates a dangerous atmosphere within which parents are willing to risk their kids because it has become the most lucrative spot available to make money. They probably don't consider that some of the girls in those sex bars started out begging on the streets just like Fon, that many if not most of them got their start when they were still legally children, and that they wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't the only option they knew. They don't see that their frequenting of the sex bars brings Fon to that area and puts here that much more at risk, both now and in her future.

They're not the only ones that can be blind. How many of us think about how own materialism and desire to accumulate possessions is also affecting kids like Fon? Researchers and child advocates in Thailand are seeing materialism overtake poverty as the primary factor behind families selling their daughters into prostitution (see Sexually Exploited Children, ed. Phyllis Kilborn and Majorie McDermid). You don't have to be here long to see that the materialism is modeled on American materialism - just look at the prevalence of American brands, songs, movies, and models and the American-style Christmas decorations in the expensive stores. And several authors of chapters within Sexually Exploited Children, who know these families best, make the same point - our decisions and example in terms of how we flaunt our materialism are having a real effect on the lives of these children.

I pray that I can learn to be less self-focused, even in terms of my sin. I pray that I can realize that my sins do not hurt me alone, but affect others around me. I pray that I can take more seriously my own responsibility for the terrible things in this world, even those that at first glance seem to have little to do with my own actions. And I pray that I may humbly keep myself from judgement of others, knowing that the things I bring to their attention are likely happening in my own life as well.

to the johns

2010-11-30T21:00:00.000-08:00

Please read these two articles, written by two of my friends here in Thailand:

The Cowards of Nana

to the johns

If you are moved by that, take a step to help one of their organizations or any of the following organizations (I can personally vouch for all three) that are working to help women caught in such terrible circumstances.

NightLight

Sari Bari

International Justice Mission

You do not belong to the world: Part II

2010-11-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

I now know that I have a difficult time focusing on God when caught up in the "typical" American life. Being in Thailand has given me energy - energy to read, think, pray, change, and chase after God. As I reflected on that difference last month, I realized that most of my deepest experiences of God have taken place during such displacements - IV summer conferences in the mountains or islands, my trip to India, and my trip to Manila.

In Compassion, Henri Nouwen and his coauthors link God's call to us to come out of this world to our call to form compassionate community together as Christians. They state, "The call to community as we hear it from our Lord is the call to move away from the ordinary and proper places." The Compassion authors use Luke to illustrate this point (9:60-62, 14:26, 18:22), but the same message is illustrated over and over in the Bible. Jesus's own life was one of displacement - a coming down from heaven to an Earthly existence, a move from Nazareth into Bethlehem for his birth, a flight into Egypt, and the eventual call into Jerusalem to face death. God calls Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Elisha, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Nehemiah, Hosea, Amos, all 12 disciples (especially Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Matthew), Paul, Barnabas, Silas, and Timothy to leave their "ordinary and proper place" and enter into a different life with God. And while each one of these displacements disrupted the "normal" life of these people and their families, they brought much greater life to God's people in the long run. It took obedience in the form of displacement, over and over again in history, for God's people to be a "people" and for the Christian church to exist at all.

I don't think that God calls everyone to dramatic moves away from home. But I think he calls all of us to stop listening to the standards of the world and start listening to His voice instead, and in that process to be open to dramatic change. When we open ourselves to the possibility that God is calling us to something different than what the world calls us to in our daily decisions, we make it easier to hear Him when He does call us to those dramatic moves. I think that's why I start doing better spiritually when I am away from "home". When I'm in the typical work/home/church life in California, it's easy for me to get caught up in my society's expectations of a "normal" life. When I pursue God outside of this "normal" routine, whether it be a summer conference in the mountains or an internship in Thailand, I get the constant reminder that the "normal" life is not the life I am being called to lead, and my energy gets shifted to God's calling on my life instead. Then, if and when God calls me to more dramatic defiance of the world's expectations, it will be that much easier for me to hear Him.

The Compassion authors sum up this holy obedience well:

The more we are able to discern God's voice in the midst of our daily lives, the more we will be able to hear him when he calls us to more drastic forms of displacement. Some of us are indeed called to move away from our cities and live in caves; some of us are indeed called to sell all we have, give it to the poor, and follow Christ in total poverty; some of us are indeed called to move away from our more familiar milieus and live with the sick and the dying; some are indeed called to join nonviolent communities of resistance, to protest loudly against social ills, to share in the misery of prisoners, the isolation of lepers, or the agony of the oppressed; some are even called to undergo torture and violent deaths. But no one will be able to hear or understand these very blessed calls if he or she has not recognized the smaller calls hidden in the hours of a regular day. Not everyone is called in the way St. Francis, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day, Jean Vanier, Archbishop Romero, and Dom Helder Camera were called. But everyone must live with the deep conviction that God acts in her or his life in an equally unique way. No one should ever think that he or she is just an "ordinary citizen" in the Kingdom of God. As soon as we start taking ourselves and God seriously and allow him to enter into a dialogue with us, we will discover that we also are asked to leave fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters and follow the crucified Lord in obedience. Quite often we will discover that we are asked to follow our Lord to places we would rather not go. But when we have learned to see him in the small displacements of our daily lives, the greater call will not seem so great after all. We then will find the courage to follow him and be amazed by our freedom to do so.

Only three years after writing this passage, Nouwen took his own "drastic" displacement by leaving the Harvard faculty and living among the mentally disabled in the L'arche Daybreak community in Toronto, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

May we also listen to God's call on our lives and practice obedient in defiance of the standards of the world, that even in old age we can follow God away from this world's call into the greater community that He has to offer us.

You do not belong to the world: Part I

2010-11-22T21:03:00.000-08:00

A benefit of living so far from "home" is that it reminds me not to treat this world as my true home. The earliest Christians were adamant that those who follow Christ are "not of this world" (John 18:36). Having grown up in a nation where most people count themselves within the Christian faith and where much of the culture, economy, and politics are tied around superficially Christian expressions, it can be difficult to remember that we should not try to make ourselves comfortable with what this world has to offer. In Compassion, Henri Nouwen and his coauthors discuss the strong pull we feel to go along with the world and fall in line with its standards. They share:

We want to be ordinary and proper people who live ordinary and proper lives. There is an enormous pressure on us to do what is ordinary and proper - even the attempt to excel is ordinary and proper - and thus find the satisfaction of general acceptance. This is quite understandable since the ordinary and proper behavior that gives shape to an ordinary and proper life offers us the comforting illusion that things are under control and that everything extraordinary and improper can be kept outside the walls of our self-created fortress.

Unfortunately, this "conforming to the pattern of the world" (Romans 12:2) only leads us away from God. Christ calls us to so much more, but we have to give up our love of the "ordinary" world in order to love our extraordinary God (1 John 2:15-17). The Shepherd of Hermas, one of the earliest Christian writers, began his Similitudes by stating that when Christians realize that they are not in their true home but living in a "strange country", they will be free to stop trying to hoard things and be comfortable in this life but instead will open up their possessions to those afflicted by need (Similitudes 1:1-11). More than 200 years later, St. John Chrysostom emphasized the same message over and over again, exclaiming to his flock that they are not to trust in material things for, "You are a stranger and a pilgrim with respect to the things here! You have a country which is your own in the heavens!" (Homily 2 on the Statutes). And it was this rejection of the standards of the world that drove the passions of the Desert Fathers, for "These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster" (Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert).

One unfortunate side affect of the surface-level "Christianizing" of many of our societies is that it has made it easier for us to feel comfortable here. We are not the early Christians living under fear of persecution or the Desert Fathers purposely choosing to remove themselves from the excesses of society. We don't have the constant reminders that the values of the world oppose the values of God. And so we need to work that much harder to remind ourselves that our souls are being prepared for eternity with God rather than comfort in this life, that society's standards for success and achievement are not God's standards, that affirmation in the eyes of the world is not equivilent to affirmation from God, and that our worldly possessions are not our own to keep but are given to us temporarily by God in order to bless others.

It has been a blessing of my experience in Thailand that these things are easier to remember here. This is partially because I now live in a expressedly non-Christian culture, and partially because I am pledged full-time to Christian service, but I think the biggest factor has just been my displacement from the world I was "expected" to be within to a world where I know I am different, and thus am reminded that all of this world stands apart from the expectations of the Kingdom of Heaven.

There's more I have to say, but it will have to wait for another post. I'll end here with the conclusion to John Chrysostom's Homily 12 on Matthew, where he considers the effects that our failure to let go of this world has on our witness as Christians:

For this cause the very heathens disbelieve the things that we say, since our doings, not our sayings, are the demonstration which they are willing to receive from us; and when they see us building ourselves fine houses and laying out gardens and baths and buying fields, they are not willing to believe that we are preparing for another sort of residence away from our city.

For if this were so, say they, they would turn to money all they have here and lay them up beforehand there; and this they divine from the things that are done in this world. For so we see those who are very rich getting themselves houses and fields and all the rest, chiefly in those cities in which they are to stay. But we do the contrary; and with all earnest zeal we get possession of the earth which we are soon after to leave; giving up not money only but even our very blood for a few acres and tenements: while for the purchase of Heaven we do not endure to give even what is beyond our wants, and this though we are to purchase it at a small price and to possess it forever, provided we had once purchased it.

Therefore I say we shall suffer the utmost punishment, departing there naked and poor; or rather it will not be for our own poverty that we shall undergo these irremediable calamities but also for our making others to be such as ourselves. For when heathens see them that have partaken of so great mysteries earnest about these matters, much more will they cling themselves to the things heaping much fire upon our head. For when we who ought to teach them to despise all things that appear do ourselves most of all urge them to the lust of these things; when shall it be possible for us to be saved, having to give account for the perdition of others? Do you not hear Christ say that He left us to be for salt and for lights in this world, in order that we may both brace up those that are melting in luxury and enlighten them that are darkened by the care of wealth? When therefore we even cast them into more thorough darkness and make them more dissolute, what hope shall we have of salvation? There is none at all; but wailing and gnashing our teeth, and bound hand and foot, we shall depart into the fire of hell, after being full well worn down by the cares of riches.

Considering then all these things, let us loose the bands of such deceit, that we may not at all fall into those things which deliver us over to the unquenchable fire. For he that is a slave to money, the chains both here and there will have him continually liable to them; but he that is rid of this desire will attain to freedom from both. Unto which that we also may attain, let us break in pieces the grievous yoke of avarice, and make ourselves wings toward Heaven; by the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.

Humility

2010-11-17T01:30:00.000-08:00

Two American guys walked by us on one of our recent outreach nights. They stopped to look at everyone, and then one of them addressed me:

What's going on here?

We're just hanging out with the family.

Do you ever buy them fruit?

Sometimes we do. Tonight though w..[interrupted]

Buy them fruit don't give them money. [walks away while finishing sentence]

My first thoughts were judgemental. What does he know about this family? We're the ones who come here faithfully and know what their needs are! We know what we're doing better than some random guy walking down the street. If he knew them he'd know that fruit (of which they often get given plenty) will just keep them exposed and vulnerable on the streets one more night, while money will put them one step closer to being able to make the long trip home with enough to live on for a while....

After some period of self-righteousness, I had to stop myself.For one thing, I don't know these answers as concretely as I was telling myself I did. I have already wrestled with the possibility that giving to families who are begging reinforces a dangerous practice that puts the children at risk and offers no long-term stability. Some well-established NGOs advise that tourists not give financially in such circumstances. There are strong potential arguments on the other side as well (giving families the freedom to decide for themselves, keeping our own hearts soft through giving, supporting widows who truly have no other means of sustenance, etc.) but the argument is not nearly as simple as I was making it in my head. And for all I know, this random guy might be a community development expert or social justice advocate, and in a rushed moment he may have condensed a lesson he had learned through years of study and experience.

And how often have I acted or wanted to act exactly as this man was acting? How often have I judged someone serving others, thought I knew a better way of doing it than they did, or offered a fleeting bit of advice that neither spoke to the depth and complexities of the situation nor took into account all that they already knew that I may be ignorant of? How quick I am to judge!

I need to be reminded how much there is that I don't know. I need to stay open to the advice of any who may offer it, not accepting it uncritically but listening for the voice of the Spirit in their words and setting it up alongside all that I have already learned. And I need to place myself in a posture of humility before all who I interact with, for it is only in humility that we learn.

Another lesson on humility. Seems to be a pattern on this trip....

Daily Life Post

2010-11-11T21:10:00.000-08:00

I realized that I never really talk about our day-to-day life in Thailand, and some people might be interested in that stuff. So here goes all the little details so I don't have to do it again. :P

Weather: When we got to Thailand it was the rainy season, which meant highs in the 90s, lows in the 80s, high humidity, and spectacular thunderstorms nearly every day. Now we're transitioning into the cold season, which means highs in the 80s, lows in the 70s, and seeing people wear beanies, scarves, and putting shirts on their dogs.

Food: I bought oatmeal from the local Carrefour and that's what I have for breatfast every day, either with some Thai yogurt or soy milk that I buy from street vendors (with beans and tofu chunks added). I also eat fruit - street vendors sell fresh bananas, pineapples, mangos, pomelos, oranges, apples, grapes, longans, papayas, watermelons, pomegranates, durians, guavas, jackfruits, mangosteens, rambutans, and starfruits. (edit: And dragonfruit! And custard apples! And cherries!)

For lunch we eat street food, usually pad thai, pad see ew, fried rice, noodles, basil chicken, or some thai veggie dish. For dinner we cook and eat as a community. I cook 1-2 times a week, usually making pesto chicken, indian lentils, hummus, or chicken stir fry. When other people cook it might be Nepalese, Thai, or American food.

Transportation: We walk a ton, and most of the time we aren't walking we take the bus. But from time to time we also ride motorcycles, tuk-tuks (similar to Indian autorickshaws), songthaews (Thai version of Filipino jeepneys), cabs, or even boats. On rare occasions we've taken the subway or the "air train".

People: Thai people are extremely gracious and are famous for smiling. You have to be used at getting laughed at if you're a foreigner, but it's all a means of relieving embarrassment and laughing along is best. Everyone in Thailand is shorter than me (I hit my head on stuff a lot) and almost everyone is very slender. Most people are really helpful too - I've been approached by security guards while catching frogs on business/park property at night, and the typical response is to help me out!

Money: Thai currency is the baht, which exchanges at about 30 baht/1 dollar. Some stuff is relatively cheap - lunches are 25-30 baht, bus fare is 7-8 baht, and my good-quality sandals were 99 baht. Other stuff is expensive - anything electronic and anything remotely foreign (like American food) will usually cost even higher than typical American prices.

Clothing: I wear shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt everywhere, every day, as does nearly everyone (except for the Thais that are bundling up now that it's the cold season).

Animals: My herpetology interests have continued, and so far I've identified 35 species of reptiles and amphibians, including 9 species of snakes. We also see 10" long centipedes, lots of spiders, land crabs, fish that walk on land, and all sorts of weird insects. On our trips outside of the city we see water buffalo, monkeys, and giant fruit bats.

Other differences from life at home: Well, everyone speaking Thai is the obvious one. Showers are cold but that usually doesn't matter with the heat. I wash my own laundry by hand. Every trip crossing the street is a Frogger-style adventure, since crosswalks are rarely at places where traffic actually stops. Buddhist temples and animist spirit houses are absolutely everywhere. You get used to the nearly constant presence of geckos, cockroaches, and rats around the house. Unfortunately, being in the city also means that you constantly see older White men with young Thai girls.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Any questions at all about life here?

Cambodia

2010-11-03T00:57:00.000-07:00

I don't think there's an adequate way to put my experiences of the last two weeks into words. I am glad to be here, have met good people here, have felt real hope here....and yet have learned of more past and present pain than anywhere I have ever been.

I can't give you these experiences, and it's hard for me to put my feelings from them into words. For now, I just want to share what kinds of things I did. The only way I know to lead you through the feelings would be if you were able to get to do these things too

1) Spent a couple months getting to know a number of Cambodians. Spent enough time with them that I consider them friends and care deeply about how they are doing in their lives.

2) Did some research into Cambodian history. I read the excellent book Brother Enemy and several historical accounts on the internet for this, but there are plenty of other options.

3) Read first-person accounts from Cambodians. I read First They Killed My Father and The Road of Lost Innocence. I highly recommend these - they are at the extremes of experience, but they are extremes that many, many Cambodians have had to face in the last 40 years. I also read Lucky Child and will soon start Bou Meng: A survivor from Khmer Rouge prison S-21.

4) Went to Cambodia. Met some of my friends there and tried to learn what they could do to make the best life possible for themselves in their home country. Spent a night in Poipet and learned something of the terrible things that go on there. Went further into the country and learned something of people's lives in a more typical town. Stayed in the big city of Phnom Pehn and saw a very different side of Cambodia. Throughout this time visited the archaeological sites, former prisons, and killing sites and stood face-to-face with Cambodia's past. And as much as possible every day, visited the businesses, NGO's, and churches and learned what is being done for Cambodia's future.

5) Asked myself: what is God speaking to me in all of this?

For me, the shortest answer I can give right now is that I have basically the same feelings that I had in my March 24, 2005 post on my xanga blog, except that I feel a lot less desperation now because I feel much closer to being where I need to be.

Beautiful family

2010-10-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

Three times last week I got to do street outreach with the same family. They were great to hang out with. The mother is kind, warm, and deeply loves her children. Her oldest son is so small for his age, but learns so quick - just in the span of three short lessons we went from not adding digits in the right order to being able to consistently and correctly add large two-digit numbers with carrying. The middle daughter is super cute and loves to color. And the baby stumbles around making cute faces and throwing things. They've been friends of WMF-Thailand for a long time now, but I only first got to meet them last week.

I can work on math with the boy and keep the baby occupied for stretches, do a little coloring, go down to 7-11 and get treats and water, and even ask a simple question here or there. But it was a greater joy to see our Servant Team Coordinator, Amy, communicating and sharing in her friendship with the mother. They were very happy to see each other last week and talked for a couple of hours while we played with the kids. They are Christian but only know a little, and when the son expressed interest in a Thai picture book in our outreach bag Amy explained the crucifixion and the resurrection in Thai. Then the mother was able to share a worship song in her language with us, complete with hand motions and clear joy. It was good to be with them last week.

The family has needs that we have the capacity to meet, and we had ambitious plans to help them meet some of those needs in the coming week. But this Monday we went to visit and could not find them. Tuesday they were nowhere to be found again. I am concerned for their well-being, and if we cannot get in touch with them by today then all our plans may go out the window. Please pray for this family, that God may be sheltering them as we speak and that His will may be done in their lives.

Good people

2010-10-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

The other night we were sitting on a pedestrian overpass with a family we know well. I'll share more about these friends and others soon, but something else is on my mind right now. As we were sitting with the family, talking to the mother and playing with the kids, three Asian (but not Thai) men walked by. One could not help staring at us, and as the others passed he stopped and said, "Excuse me, what you are doing is a very good thing. Very good thing. You are good people. God bless you." Then he turned and left.

This isn't the first time this has happened, though it is rare compared to other reactions. Most people just stare in apparent confusion as they continue walking. A few (mostly motorcycle guys) laugh at us. Many others ignore us completely. Occasionally someone stops and gives food or money to the people we're with. But to stop and say anything at all to us is quite rare. When someone has stopped, it is always to tell us how nice it is that we're doing what we're doing.

They mean well. But we are not "good" people. We are sinners like everyone else, weak in many ways, and I personally struggle with my weaknesses and faults as much or more in my service here as anyone I know. There is little difference between us and all those (whether they're here or in America) who walk right on by the homeless, the hungry, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger every day. The only reason we're out there is that someone (be it a friend, author, preacher, or the Holy Spirit) helped us to realize that loving and befriending the poor is an absolutely central part of Christ's message (see Matthew 11:2-6, Matthew 25:31-46, Luke 10:25-37, Luke 14:7-24, Luke 16:19-31, Hebrews 13:1-3, James 1:27-2:26, 1 John 3:11-18), and we realized that we had no reason not to do it. There are many, many people who follow Christ much more faithfully than I, but something about modern culture has hidden this particular part of Christ's message from the eyes and ears of many of those who otherwise give so much to God.

God is a friend of the poor, and calls us to befriend them as well. I thank God that He has led me to this service.

Lighter glimpses of life in Thailand

2010-10-08T00:47:00.000-07:00

Little moments that help define my life here so far:

Hearing "How long have you been here? You speak Thai so well!" after speaking 1 or 2 words in Thai

Getting Phil, Rose, and Hope to pose behind huge monitor lizards

Watching Thai students (from a shy 12-year-old to rambunctious 14-year-olds to a very sweet mute woman in her 50s) jump up, clap their hands, or run in place at our command

Being desperately grateful to get a seat on the bus, or at least a standing spot close to a fan

Having our resident two and three-year-olds switch from "Rose" to "Rosey" after hearing me say it so much

Getting our portraits done on a whiteboard by a young friend who sells roses on the street

Running a 61-story high "vertical marathon" together as a bonding experience

Knowing why "I have lots of fans", "Go home, it's better", and "PEPSEEEEE" are all funny

Bumping my head on everything

Playing Bingo in Thai to practice our number comprehension skills

Having that one 25-minute period where our most consistent and most difficult student does all his math with me perfectly, praying that it could be a small step towards stability in everything else in his far-too-turbulent life

Some words on hospitality

2010-10-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

There He was, homeless. Would a church take Him in today -- feed Him, clothe Him, offer Him a bed? I hope I ask myself that question on the last day of my life. I once prayed and prayed to God that He never, ever let me forget to ask that question. - Dorothy Day, reflecting on Matthew 25

be meek, sympathize with the suffering, bear the weak; and on this occasion of the concourse of so many strangers, and needy, and suffering people, let your hospitality and your good works abound. - Augustine

Therefore, whatever man you meet who needs your aid, you have no reason to refuse to help him. Say, "He is a stranger"; but the Lord has given him a mark that ought to be familiar to you, by virtue of the fact that he forbids you to despise your own flesh (Isa. 58:7). Say, "He is contemptible and worthless"; but the Lord shows him to be one to whom he has deigned to give the beauty of his image. Say that you owe nothing for any service of his; but God, as it were, has put him in his own place in order that you may recognize towards him the many and great benefits with which God has bound you to himself. Say that he does not deserve even your least effort for his sake; but the image of God, which recommends him to you, is worthy of your giving yourself and all your possessions. - John Calvin

How is it something that has been so important in Scripture, in the early church, and among foundational figures of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches is so rarely spoken about or put into practice today? How often do we welcome strangers into our homes, invite them to our parties, give them food and rest in our churches, visit them (strangers, remember) when they are sick or in prison? Why isn't this a constant practice in our lives, rather than a maybe-once-in-a-season-if-we-have-the-time practice? And what will have to change for this to become real in our lives?

Those quotes and those that follow come from Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, by Christine Pohl. I highly recommend it to everyone, because I think that it is a practice that we are all called to, and if we listen to Pohl's challenge and act upon it I do not think we could help but be drawn closer to God.

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all of the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, "Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me....Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." - Matthew 25:31-36, 40

God Himself is in our home, is being fed at our house, is lying down and resting - Martin Luther

[Some ask] "what does it avail to feed or clothe men's bodies, if they are just dropping into everlasting fire."...whether they will finally be lost or saved, you are expressly commanded to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. If you can, and do not, whatever becomes of them, you shall go away into everlasting fire. - John Wesley

Then He also said to him who invited Him. "When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just." - Luke 14:12-14

I know that many wealthy and devout persons by reason of their weak stomachs carry on this work of mercy by the agency of others, and show mercy with the purse, not with the hand. I do not blame nor do I by any means construe their lack of fortitude as lack of faith. But while I excuse their weakness, I extol to the skies the ardent zeal that perfect courage possesses. - Jerome

The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. - Leviticus 19:34

The stranger requires much attendance, much encouragement, and with all this it is difficult for him not to feel abashed; for so delicate is his position that whilst he receives the favor, he is ashamed. That shame we ought to remove by the most attentive service, and to show by words and actions, that we do not think we are conferring a favor, but receiving one, that we are obliging less than we are obliged. - John Chrysostom

Why do we not observe that it is their benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead and the pretended holiness of their lives that have done most to increase [Christianity]?.... For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galileans [Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us. Teach those of the Hellenic faith to contribute to public service of this sort. - Emperor Julian

Mistakes there were, there are, there will be....The biggest mistake, sometimes, is to play things very safe in this life and end up being moral failures. - Dorothy Day on Catholic Worker hospitality

Yet another reason to pray

2010-10-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

Another setback today, completely unrelated to the previous one. Not too much to do other than pray, practice patience, and try another route.

Having the humility to be blessed

2010-09-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

Mission or ministry with people who are poor or vulnerable often assumes that "our" task is to meet "their" needs. Whether their need is for the good news of Christ or for bread and a place to sleep, we tend to think that we have the resources and they have the needs. A focus on friendship rearranges our assumptions. What if the resources they have also meet our needs? What if Jesus is already present in ways that will minister to us? What if in sharing life together as friends we all move closer to Jesus' heart?

- Christopher Heuertz and Christine Pohl, Friendship at the Margins

In a limited sense, this is a concept that many people manage to take the first step on. I've heard things like "service is for your own soul" or "I think I got more out of that short-term mission than they did". While both statements may be true, they don't really challenge the lopsided power dynamic that can be brought into service situations with the poor. The assumption is still that it is our service that makes the difference, our actions that drive the experience. The question that I think needs to be asked, if we are to be each other's neighbor and build mutually edifying friendships in Christ, is "Am I allowing myself to learn from and be served on their terms?"

Of course, if we ask this question in our own little bubble then we won't be doing much better. Our friends who are poor are the ones who can answer the question, if we place ourselves into the vulnerable relationships that allow them to start meeting our needs.

There's another concept that's important to add here. In the course of recognizing God's focus on the poor and our own need to enter into relationship with them, we run the risk of our language reflecting the very walls we are trying to break down. As Pohl and Heuertz state:

the very emphasis on the importance of "the poor" can reinforce conventional categories of otherness. It is easy to slip into one more version of "us and them," the very pattern we are trying to break down. Serveral things can help us avoid this tendency: remembering our own vulnerability, dependence and need for community, being truthful, and practicing confession and forgiveness.

- Christopher Heuertz and Christine Pohl, Friendship at the Margins

Living in simplicity and reducing the discrepancies in our possessions, maintaining a loose grip on those possessions and time that we do have, and a deepening of the friendships we are talking about can also help to reduce that "otherness" that we are trying to eliminate in our heads.

Still, none of this can make us "the same" as the poor people in our lives. Heuertz and Pohl note that we will always have the benefit of the education and social connections we grew up with. Most of us will always have a greater access to money and other resources than the poor will ever have, even if we get wealth out of our own hands for the moment. Through our friends, family, citizenship, and the circumstances of our upbringing, we have a safety net they will never have. But that's part of the reason we need these friendships, that we can see an aspect of life we don't have to face ourselves. We must learn from those for whom trust in God takes on dimensions that are difficult for us to experience ourselves. Through the mutual edification that can take place in real friendships, we can bring together the strengths of different parts of the body in order to realize a more complete expression of the Body of Christ. Pohl and Heuertz emphasize that the differences are "only part of the story, because the ways God works in and through us are much more connected to tender hearts and open hands than to personal assets and skills. Our completeness is found in Christ and community where distinctions in status or resources mean much less."

Am I learning from our friends who live in poverty? Do I have the humility and willingness to submit that will allow that to happen? Am I developing my friendships in such a way that empowers them to give me as much as I want to give them? Until I can answer these questions in the affirmative, neither of us will get all that God desires for us in these relationships.

Pray for them

2010-09-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

Painful events have occured in the lives of the children we serve with, and our fledgling classes are in limbo for now. We will still do outreach, but don't know who we'll be able to find. I wish I could say more, but it will have to wait until I get back. Please pray for them.

Hanging out on the streets

2010-09-21T19:43:00.000-07:00

The last two days of service have been my best so far here. It started quietly enough - myself and three of my Thai friends went out to a red light district to hang out with street kids, only to find our friend we wanted to meet asleep at a storefront. "Plan B" was just to hang out across the street until he woke up. It was oddly peaceful - I just sat on a bench praying for the people who walked by. Interesting people pass by in a red light district, many showing some aspect of their prayer needs right on the surface, though all have needs apparent only to those who get to know them. We went on like that for quite some time, just sitting and silently praying.

As the night got late our friend woke up and came over to join us. Two of the Thai friends I had come with bantered with him while I hung back, but soon enough another one of our street friends joined us, and her and I settled in for some games of tic-tac-toe, drawing, and English letter practice on my whiteboard. It was my most satisfying moment in three weeks, mostly because I felt accepted and blessed by the interaction, knowing that she was willing to be my friend. We can't yet communicate much verbally as we are both still weak in our newly shared 2nd/3rd language, but we could tell that each other was having fun, and that's what mattered.

Soon two more "farangs", another Thai friend from our group and another friend from the streets showed up. Then several more street kids found us and we had a near-party on our hands. We grabbed some treats, shared them and played around in the midst of all the weirdness that is the red lights. Though a couple of the boys got a little rambunctious, we had fun, and despite not returning home until after midnight I still felt full of energy.

The next day picked up where we left off with the opening of a little drop-in center we're starting up for those same kids. We were disorganized on day one, but we'll learn and grow. We started out with lunch, did an art project, and played some games while making nametags and messing with the alphabets a little. Only a few kids were there for most of it, but a couple more came late and we pray it will grow a little with word-of-mouth. In our next session (later this week) we'll incorporate Thai and English literacy lessons along with the art and games, and we'll see what happens from there. It's new territory and we're trying to keep expectations low and flexibility high. Our first objective is just that the kids can have fun, and if God can use us to help them process something or expand their opportunities along the way, then we will engage that chance with joy.

And joy is what I got to have in those interactions. It's only a small start, but I am grateful for that blessing and pray for many more such blessings to come, God willing.

This is why I'm doing what I'm doing

2010-09-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Evangelism, and even the notion of mission itself, has sometimes been reduced to the words we share with another person, telling them about Jesus, salvation or eternal life. Words are important, but they can also be cheap. If we use words and get words in response, sometimes we think we've done mission or evangelism. Ministry among poor and vulnerable people reminds us that words are rarely enough--what each of us needs is to know that we are loved by Jesus, beloved of God. Everything else flows from that. In situations of injustice or despair, words alone are particularly insufficient. People need to be loved and valued by others. They need to see what love looks like.

- Christopher Heuertz and Christine Pohl, Friendship at the Margins

I first read this quote in July and meant to blog about it then, but Rose gave away the book before I got around to it. :P I just got another copy and will probably be quoting from it a lot. I was really, really moved by the subject of the book and think that it does more to explain why Word Made Flesh does what it does and why Rose and I chose to join up with them than anything else I've seen. Please read it if you're interested.

Loving my enemy

2010-09-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. - Romans 2:1

Surprisingly, the most difficult aspect of volunteering in red-light districts has been my feelings towards the foreign men I see on the streets. There's something about the in-your-face audaciousness, the party atmosphere, and the large numbers of foreigners that make it easy for me to make assumptions about these men. The fact that I've recently read several books dealing with human trafficking and the abuses committed against women in this environment hasn't helped.

The first two times I went into the red lights, I vacillated between maddogging these "johns" and trying to openly express sadness. I assumed that every man I saw was looking for sex. Unless they were clearly tourists, I assumed that nearly every woman I saw with a man had been bought. And when I saw middle-aged and older White men with apparently teenaged Asian girls, I had difficulty holding back my anger. Scenarios would play in my mind that could provide an excuse to act out physically. I also imagined taking a camera and getting pictures of all the guys I saw, to be posted on the Internet and viewed by wives, girlfriends, coworkers and fellow churchgoers. These ideas were not Christ-like and they did not make me feel better, but I didn't know how to deal with what I saw.

The issue came to a head when a very intoxicated individual forced himself into a situation I felt some responsibility for and I confronted him. He drew out the situation the way only a drunk man can, and while it didn't turn violent there was an extended period of time where it felt like we were right on the edge. The confrontation didn't end until outside circumstances brought it to a close, and nothing was gained by the encounter. Soon afterwards I began openly seeking advice regarding my feelings towards the men I am encountering in these dark places.

I am learning to view them with compassion and love rather than hate. Part of the reason for this is practical truth - many of my assumptions are false. Not every man I see is looking to buy someone, and not every couple I see is the result of a financial transaction. Some may even be here for the same reasons that me and my wife are. But even for those who are engaging in the abuses I hate so much, anger and desire for violent confrontation aren't the solution. There is a brokenness here that I only understand a little bit of, but God sees it. He knows how these men are hurting, he knows the pain that drives them to seek love and acceptance and control in a place like this, and He desires for them to live a fuller life. If I could see them with His eyes, I would see wounded souls made in the image of God, and I would see the potential for so much more than the moral gutters they are dragging themselves through.

If I could look at these men through God's eyes, I would also see much more of myself than I realize. I have my own brokenness, and I've acted out my own sin in failed attempts to deal with it. It is far too easy for me to see other paths that could have led me to the red lights. And if I had, I would have brought to God's truth not via hateful stares and verbal confrontations, but through the kind of compassion that envelops its target in love and can still say, "Go and sin no more."

Lord, I know you love the men on these streets with every bit of the intensity that you love the children we spend time with, the women suffering here, and those of us who call you Savior. I know you desire to forgive them of every bit as much sin as you've forgiven me. Give me eyes to see and a heart to love in the same manner that you do, and through your love may they one day be able to see themselves as children of the most high God and the women in their lives as the same.

These pages are to tell you,
my brother, my sister,
not to run away from people who are in pain
or who are broken,
but to walk towards them,
to touch them.
Then you will find rising up within you the well of love,
springing from resurrection....

If you walk with Jesus along this path,
he will lead you
to the poor, the weak, the lonely and the oppressed,
not with fear and despair,
not with feelings of guilt and helplessness,
not with anger and revolt,
not with theories and preconceived solutions,
but with a new and deeper
peace and love and hope.

And he will reveal to you the new meaning
of pain and darkness;
how joy springs
from the wounds of brokenness.
He will reveal to you
that he is hidden in
the poor, the weak, the lonely and the oppressed.

He will reveal to you the way to refind,
rebuild, renew and receive
the relationship of gentle love and fidelity
that is at the origin of all existence.
It will be revealed as a tiny seed
but one from which can grow new life for the world.

Let us walk together along this path
with our sisters and brothers
in this broken world of ours.
Let us walk together along this path
with Jesus,
and discover that it is a path of hope.

Jean Vanier, introduction to the Broken Body

Do we stand with Tutella Dhas?

2010-09-07T05:38:00.000-07:00

In Simple Spirituality, Chris Heuertz tells a story of his encounter with Tutella Dhas, a young man Chris and his friends found dying on the streets of Calcutta. After trying to speak and cleaning him as well as they could, they were able to find a taxi to go Mother Theresa's House for the Dying. It wasn't until after Tutella left with two of Chris's friends that Chris noticed a sign less than five feet away. It stated "All are welcome here" and was posted in front of a church. Chris asks the obvious question:

If all were truly welcome, then why was a man dying at the threshold of the church? Why didn't anyone come out to help him?

Chris goes on to bring the lesson closer to home - the closed church gate is not merely an institutional issue, but reflects our own closed hearts and isolated Christians communities. How often have I eaten a free meal at a church and looked around to see only the same middle and upper-middle class people that fill the church every Sunday? Jesus explicitly commanded: "When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind" (Luke 14:14), so where are they? I can count on one hand the number of homeless and poor people I treated to lunch/dinner last year, while I sat down with rich friends on a monthly basis.

This lack of hospitality does not just hold for meals. How many of our church buildings sit empty every night while people sleep out in the elements on the city streets outside? Why did I go two entire years with an empty room in my house when its so difficult for so many people to afford rent in Los Angeles? These aren't imagined needs - I spent two years in a position where I was trying to help people find temporary shelter and affordable rents in L.A., and I was unsuccessful more often than not. So why haven't we done more when we have the chance?

I'm not aiming to lead us all down a guilt-trip road that will inspire us to work harder on one aspect of Christian living for a season. I think it goes deeper than that. We can't talk about this lack of priority that the needy have in our lives as if its one more commandment that we just have to spend a little more time on. Loving our neighbors, especially those who are most in need, is at the center of what Christ taught us that it means to be followers of Him. Read Matthew 11:2-6, Matthew 25:31-46, Mark 10:17-31, Luke 10:25-37, Luke 14:7-24, Luke 16:19-31, John 13:1-20, John 13:31-35, Acts 2:42-47, Acts 4:32-37, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, Galatians 2:7-10, James 1:27-2:26, and 1 John 3:11-18. These passages make it clear that a deep concern for the daily welfare of our neighbors isn't just a bit of advice - it's central to Christ's message. There are a hundred more passages across nearly every book of the Bible that can be used to augment this priority. So what are we so fearful of that forces us to keep our church buildings sitting empty at night, our meals limited to those friends well-off enough to return the favor later, and our money expended on things that most of the world would consider a luxury? What are we missing in who Christ was, what He said, and how He acted in this world that leads us to make this point an afterthought rather than giving it the central focus in our lives that it deserves?

LORD, may I be able to look into Tutella Dhas's eyes with love instead of shame. May I continue to learn from You how I may live more simply so that others may gain the bare essentials they need to live. May I trust in You for everything, that I can both believe the message You have given and may obey it without fear. And may all of us in the Church gain a deeper knowledge of Your love for us, that we may be able to turn around and act towards the most vulnerable around us with that same love.

Freedom of Simplicity

2010-08-31T02:23:00.000-07:00

Last year Rosey and I read a wonderful book by Richard Foster called Freedom of Simplicity. I resonated a ton with the book and have recommended it to numerous people. However, Rose and I have mentioned that we feel we are just in the beginning stages of adopting the lifestyle discussed within the book. I don't think I had begun to feel the depths of the title until I was sitting in the airport last night, my earthly possessions whittled down to what could fit in a backpack and a couple duffel bags, and just feeling free. I'm sure part of the feeling came from the impending trip, and part came from getting to go on this journey with Rose. But the depth of the feeling came from having dropped my responsibilities and material possessions down to only those which fit within the particular service God has led us to. Numerous friends have asked me when I was going to get excited about leaving, and I kept telling them that I was taking things one day at a time. Well, I think the truth was that I couldn't feel the excitement while I was still dealing with the responsibilities I had taken on back in Los Angeles. Now I have only my chosen service to focus on, and I am giddy.

What Pays for Service?

2010-06-10T12:46:00.001-07:00

The process of leaving my current job for service overseas has forced me to think about financial questions. The central one has tended to be "Why do we have to raise support to take on this position?"

As I thought about that question, the first answer is the obvious one - because this service does not lead to a direct financial profit. However, I've always worked jobs that didn't have direct profits - working at charity centers, teaching in jails and public schools, and doing basic scientific research. So there is an additional issue going on here.

When I worked for Harvey Mudd, the funding came from donations to Harvey Mudd as well as federal grants that they received. In a way I actually was working off of support, it's just that I didn't have to raise the support myself - HMC had a whole division focused on that. When I was working for public schools, the funding came from the government. They were able to raise that funding through taxes. At my charter school, they also raised additional funds through private and corporate donations. When I worked at a charity center, part of the money came from the government and part came from private donations for the center.

So I've actually been living off of the support of others already. Nearly everyone who works in a nonprofit enterprise is either getting their support from the government or from private donors. (Some nonprofits run for-profit businesses to help their bottom line, but these often fail to cover even their own costs and almost never cover all the work of the nonprofit.) A few (Bill Gates) may be working off of their own former earnings. Since I'm not independently wealthy, working overseas and in a religious context pretty much assures that I will be living off of the support of other people.

The big difference between everything I've done before and the work I'm doing now is that I'm the one responsible for raising the funds. I'm not relying on the federal government or Harvey Mudd College or operations of the Catholic Church to raise the money for me anymore. That's good and bad. It should be much better for the people supporting me - they get to be in direct contact with the service they're supporting, they get to feel more a part of what is going on there, and we get to grow together through our relationship with each other throughout the whole process. And I've seen this in my own life - there's a difference between sending money to an agency or cause that you support and being able to directly support someone who is working towards that cause. However, there's a downside too. The biggest is the lack of certainty. That should be an upside, right? It allows us to trust in God and helps us avoid the trap of thinking that we "deserve" our money via the fruits of our labors. But that's hard! So far we've only raised a little more than $3,000 of the $18,000 we need for all the transportation and living costs for the year (Bangkok turns out to be a fairly expensive city overall, especially in terms of housing), and the prospect of not having our funding assured by the normal means is scary. And having to ask is scary too - I think that many of us have an internal desire and embarrassment about asking other people for money.

I really want to get joy out of this part of the process too. Partnering with other people in this service should be a joyful thing. Working with the support of a wide network of friends back home should be much more fulfilling than just being sent by a faceless agency to do the work in isolation. We just have to figure out how to focus on those positives, and overcome our own issues with asking for money and living "off of" other people. Getting support from other people may be completely Godly and Biblical (and WMF has certainly shared with us how that is true), but it still takes a lot of getting used to.

p.s. - I've been thinking about this since the beginning, but I posted now because Rosey and I are discussing having to write an email to everyone to talk about our support situation. It led me to share all those feelings I've been having about this whole idea of support. If you got this far, you're amazing - thank you for reading!

So what will we be doing abroad?

2010-05-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

Before getting into the specifics, there is a broader message about what we will be doing that I think comes before and above any single ministry idea. The Word Made Flesh website states it this way:

Servant Team Values: Community
The Servant Team will live as a community united in the love of Christ. Community is our means of ministry. It is through community that the values of the Kingdom of God are established in our lives and service. It will be through community that the redeeming love of Christ will be reflected in such a way that the poor are welcomed into our fellowship.

Word Made Flesh has been in this country for two years via the persons of Tim and Amy Hupe and their daughters, Elijah and Arielle. There have also been various Servant Team members and interns partnering alongside them during this time. Tim and Amy have been looking into various ways of serving the people around them, but at the root it always goes back to building a community united in love and opening that community up to those we are serving alongside. Some of the specific things we could possibly do over our 12-month internship include:

Spending time with people (especially children) who beg on the streets, looking to find ways to meet their needs, break the cycle of begging and prevent the eventual path towards prostitution
Planting a drop-in resource center in the slum community
Reaching out to and spending time with women
Assisting local churches in teaching English
Spending time with the local church
Meeting with and building relationships with people from other ministries in the city
Aiding individuals in desperate need in areas such as temporary housing, relocation assistance, safe relationships, learning English, computer training, taking part in our community events and just having a time of healing
Meeting together to discuss issues of “ poverty, the poor, ministry and our corporate responsibility as the body of Christ”
Bible studies, worship, and prayer
Exploring more possibilities for ministry in the area

Rose and I have spent significant time developing skills that may help us in our service there – myself in teaching and working in social services, Rose in counseling and relational ministry. However, our priority is to listen to the needs of the people there, rather than coming in with presumptions about what service we are determined to give them. WMF emphasizes that “Ministry will not simply be the 'things we do.' It will be the very essence of the lives we live with each other and among the poor.” One aspect of our service that I ask you to pray for is that we internalize this, that we understand that it is not doing this or that that will define our ministry, but the way we live our lives in community. This will be a flexible time in which we expect God to stretch us and grow us into roles that He will sustain us through. We will continue to learn more about how we may be asked to serve as our departure approaches, and if you call me or speak to me in person I may be able to fill you in on more details. I also suggest that you read Dispossessed: Life in Our World's Urban Slums and Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade--and How We Can Fight It to get an idea of the issues that we may address during our time there.

Thank you for reading, and definitely let me know if you have any questions at all.

Word Made Flesh

2010-05-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

I tried to think of various ways I could sum up the reasons I like Word Made Flesh, but nothing I thought of summed it up as well as their “philosophy” page. So here it is:

PHILOSOPHY

Word Made Flesh is united in philosophical commitments, which are expressed in seven missional starting points.
Jesus and the Kingdom of God Hebrews 12:28, 13:8. We are an ecumenical community of Christians united in obedience to Jesus for service among the poor. Our service flows from intimacy with Jesus and is guided by the values of the Kingdom of God.
The Most Vulnerable of the World’s Poor Matthew 25:40, James 2:5. We respond to the needs of the world by building community among those who lack sustainable access to resources and availability to opportunity.
Community Genesis 1:27, Mark 6:7, John 13:35, I Corinthians 12, Acts 4:32, Philippians 2:2, 2 Corinthians 5:17. Community, a tangible sign of the Kingdom of God, is our starting point for theological, ecclesiological and missiological activity. Solidarity with the most vulnerable of the world’s poor fulfills our community.
Incarnational, Holistic Mission John 1:14, 20:21, II Corinthians 5:18-20, 8:9, Luke 4:18-19, Matthew 25:35-46, James 2:15-16, I John 3:16-18. We do not minister to the poor; we are in mission among the poor, identifying with them rather than integrating the poor into our reality. Identification is central in the ministry of reconciliation. Our purpose is for the redemption of the whole person toward the redemption of society. We participate in holistic transformation, desiring to facilitate regeneration and restoration.
Simplicity Matthew 10:7-10, I John 3:16-18. We posture ourselves in simplicity with open hands, dependent on God.
Partnership in Mission Revelation 5:9-10, Galatians 3:28. In our praxis of mutual submission, mission is dependent on partnership with local Christians and churches. Mission unifies us.
The Urban Context Isaiah 60, Matthew 9:35-36, 21:10, Luke 13:34-35, Revelation 20-22. Our eschatological hope for the renewed city calls us to give ourselves to the redemption of urban settings.

In a nutshell, that philosophy explains why we want to be a part of the work that WMF is doing. Rose and I want to grow in service to Christ and deeply value the possibility to do that within an ecumenical community that partners across national, denominational, and organizational lines. We have both felt a calling to serve among the most vulnerable. We feel a need to be a part of a community living in simple incarnational solidarity with the poor. These things that we value most in service, we see in the mission of Word Made Flesh.

There is much more I can say, but I would rather you discover it for yourself. Word Made Flesh has a publication called The Cry that comes out 4 times a year. Each one of the issues focuses on one of their lifestyle celebrations, and each involves WMF staff members getting into the heart of why they are serving and how they and their community are growing through that service. All of the issues of The Cry can be found online at www.wordmadeflesh.org/the-cry-issue-downloads/. If you find God speaking to you, you have until September 15 to apply for one of next Spring's servant teams. ;)

Help Fight Hunger

2007-05-10T13:59:00.000-07:00

Church World Service is having their annual CROP Walks to fight hunger across the world. Communities across the United States have walks to raise funds - 25% of the money goes to local hunger-fighting efforts (including food pantries such as ours) and 75% of the money goes to international hunger relief efforts. Our LAX community (Inglewood, Lennox, Hawthorne, Westchester, and El Segundo) is having their hunger walk at 8AM on May 19. The walk is a 10K through the Inglewood, Hawthorne, and Lennox neighborhoods, but there's also a 2K for those of you who don't want to go quite so far. ;)

If you would like to walk with us, go here to sign up:

WALK WITH US

If you would just like to help the hunger efforts financially, you can pledge here:

RAISE FUNDS WITH US

Thank you so much ahead of time for those of you who join us in support of the hungry.

A Powerhouse for the Poor

2007-05-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

A short introduction to Bob Greenstein from the Washington Post:

For the past 25 years -- starting with the Reagan budget cuts of the 1980s, through the Republican takeover of Congress in the 1990s and continuing through the Bush tax cuts and entitlement reforms -- Greenstein & Co. have been there for every hearing, every amendment and every budget reconciliation, ensuring that the interests of the poor and working class are considered.

Their weapons in these battles are reliable data, sound analysis and an ability to deliver it when needed. They know when and how to cut and deal. And thanks largely to the center's work, programs like food stamps, nutrition for mothers and children, and the earned income tax credit have grown despite decades of cuts in domestic programs.

Read the rest of the article here.
Learn about the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities here.

Bill Richardson

2007-04-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

Richardson has had an interesting career in the public eye. He has moved from representing a single district to occupying federal posts, returned to state politics, and now is seeking a federal position again (the biggest one). In some respects this made him harder to research than other candidates - there doesn't appear to be a great resource for recording what the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. or the U.S. Secretary of Energy does in their posts. So I did the best I could with the information available, and if anyone else has more than I'd be happy to have you share it.

Since I already gave my personal opinions on the major candidates, I'll break from structure and give my full opinion on Richardson at the end of the post. But please read the facts first so you can develop a picture of him yourself.

What does Bill Richardson think about helping the poor?

Political History

Bill Richardson was a U.S. Representative from 1983-1997, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. from 1997-1998, the U.S. Secretary of Energy from 1998-2001, and the Governor of New Mexico from 2003 to present.

U.S. Representative 1983-1997

Sponsored bills to bring humanitarian aid to El Salvador¹, protect some American Indians from forced relocation², increase health care programs in the Peace Corps³, promote economic development among American Indians^{4 5 6 7 8}, extend the National Health Service Corps⁹, improve health programs for Hispanics and other minorities^{10 11}, allow social service block grants to be made directly to tribes¹², establish a program to fight fetal alcohol syndrome^{13 14}, consolidate community health centers¹⁵, and provide federal funding for foster care and adoption for American Indian children¹⁶.
Served on the Helsinki Commission on Human Rights.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. 1997-1998

Helped negotiate peaceful transition of power in Congo.¹⁷
Made general calls for the need to protect human rights across the world.

U.S. Secretary of Energy 1998-2001

Wikipedia states that Richardson pushed through a number of initiatives to benefit Native Americans - the statement was unsourced and I have been unable to find other corroboration on this point.¹⁸

Governor of New Mexico 2003-present

In 2005, initiated home heating relief for low-income families¹⁹.
In 2006, signed legislation to create savings accounts for low-income families²⁰.
In 2006, signed an increase in the minimum wage to $7.50.
In 2006, signed a large tax cut for low-income families²¹.
In 2006, Offered tax breaks to companies that paid higher than the prevailing wage²².
In 2006, led effort to call for full federal funding of the CSFP (a food program)²³.
In 2006, signed bills and proposed legislation to expand health care coverage to more workers²⁴.
In 2007, was part of effort to urge federal government to fully fund SCHIP (a children's health insurance program)²⁵.

Statements About the Poor

²⁶

²⁷

²⁸

²⁹

³⁰

³¹

³²

Private Life

Richardson is worth around $5-7 million dollars, which he holds in investments and rental properties. His income is evenly divided between the governor's pay, investments, and income from the rental properties. I was not able to find any information about his charitible donations.
Richardson has been routinely criticized by political opponents for what they consider to be lavish excesses in his governor's lifestyle. He pushed the New Mexico legislature to fund a $5.5 million private jet for his use.³³
Has been the Chair of Freedom House and participates with Big Brother/Big Sister of Santa Fe and the Santa Fe Jaycees.
Has made trips to Sudan to negotiate with leaders there and push for peace, and has frequently called out U.S. and international political leaders on the need for peace and human rights in Sudan.³⁴

I was not impressed while researching Richardson's record. Like McCain, he has shown some concern for Native Americans and human rights overseas (actually, not even as much as McCain), but otherwise he rarely focuses on the poor. His record is fairly similar to the Democratic platform, which on this issue is better than the Republican platform. But unlike the other three Democratic candidates in this race, he hasn't shown any special concern for those in need or any desire to focus on the issues that pertain to them. I don't know that his tenure as president would be bad for the poor. But I don't have the confidence that their needs would be a priority to the degree that it would for Edwards, Clinton, and Obama.

But what do you think? Has he done more than I've seen? Or does he have competence that overshadows the efforts of the other candidates and would do more practically to help the poor? On a personal level, does Bill Richardson hear the cry of the poor?

^[1]A bill to authorize assistance to help alleviate the human suffering...
^[2]A bill to place a moratorium on the forceable eviction...
^[3]A bill to provide for a 2-year pilot program in the Peace Corps...
^[4]A bill to provide for and promote the economic development of Indian tribes...
^[5]Indian Development Finance Corporation Act
^[6]Indian Finance Corporation Act
^[7]Indian Employment and Investment Act of 1993
^[8]Native American Financial Services Organization Act of 1994
^[9]National Health Service Corps Revitalization Act of 1990
^[10]Hispanic Health Parity Act of 1990
^[11]Minority Health Improvement Act of 1997
^[12]To grant authority to provide social services block grants directly to Indian tribes.
^[13]Comprehensive Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Act
^[14]Comprehensive Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Act
^[15]Health Centers Consolidation Act of 1996
^[16]To amend part E of title IV of the Social Security Act to provide for Federal funding...
^[17]White House Press Release, June 18, 1998.
^[18]Bill Richardson, Wikipedia entry.
^[19]Press release, September 20, 2005.
^[20]Press release, March 8, 2006.
^[21]Press release, March 17, 2007.
^[22]"Bill Richardson content to start slow in White House race", Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2007.
^[23]Press release, April 12, 2006.
^[24]Press release, July 20, 2006.
^[25]Press release, Feb. 28, 2007.
^[26]"The New Realism and the Rebirth of American Leadership ", Speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Feb. 8, 2007.
^[27]USUN Press Release, pertaining to remarks made at City of Denver's 18th Annual Free Trade Day Dinner, May 19, 1998.
^[28]Speech made at the UN General Assembly's third committee, Nov. 14, 1997.
^[29]Speech on comprehensive immigration reform, Dec. 7, 2006.
^[30]Speech on comprehensive immigration reform, Dec. 7, 2006.
^[31]"MyDD Interview with Bill Richardson", www.MyDD.com, Mar. 26, 2007.
^[32]"Priorities", www.RichardsonForGovernor.com, Oct. 24, 2002.
^[33]Profile of Gov. Bill Richardson, About:Liberal Politics:U.S.
^[34]Press Release, Jan. 7, 2007.

The Democrats

2007-04-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder--alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware--is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.

Suffice it to say that the perspective of the Democratic candidates in this race contrasts against the Republicans a bit.

Republicans and Democrats are going to adopt different solutions to solving poverty. And they're going to emphasize their fight against poverty in different ways. But this election seems to be shaping up as a special contrast between parties in terms of how often and how forcefully the poverty issue will be publicly addressed. While a couple of the Republicans are running away from even their own efforts in support of the poor, the Democrats are approaching it head on. And because of the publicity that's surrounded the candidates' proposals, we hear more about what they are saying about the issue than what they have actually done. So who has had the most to say, and who has done the most to back it up?

And now for the Democrats:

John Edwards
John Edwards has picked up an image as the "candidate for the lower-class". He ran in 2004 on the theme of "two Americas", a powerful and a powerless. And Edwards has spent much of his time the last two years campaigning for rights of the poor, running a poverty studies center at UNC, and undertaking a demonstration of his college aid proposal. His 2008 campaign has taken on much of the same themes as the 2004 campaign, with even greater vigor.

What worries me about Edwards is the disconnect between his recent public life and everything else he's lived for in the 53 years he's been around. As others pointed out already, if there are two Americas, he's a member of the rich and powerful one. So what was he doing for the poor in his law career? At what point are the poor going to take priority over his enormous house and bank account? And if he is so single-minded for this issue, why did he have such a paltry record in the Senate on it? Unlike some of the candidates I mentioned yesterday, John Edwards doesn't need to say more on behalf of the poor. He needs to explain how everything he says aligns with what he's done, and show specifically why his presidential service would look different than his Senate service and the rest of his life.

As a side note, I also worry whether he is concerned with the foreign poor. In his populist tack, I see inklings of a protectionist ideology that "protects" the American worker while ignoring the plight of those overseas. This may help win votes among the working poor, but I would not consider it a good indicator of someone whose heart is truly in line with the needy.

Hillary Clinton
Before doing this research I had assumed Clinton was basically an average Democrat in regards to concern for the poor. It was nice that I could be surprised by the record of someone who has had so much public exposure. Clinton's concern for children, women, and health care has been strong throughout her life, from volunteer work during her college years, through her professional life, her terms as First Lady, and her Senate career. And it hasn't stopped with those concerns - her effort on other poverty issues has been strong as well. She has both talked the talk and walked the walk in these manners, and I believe her feelings on this issue are legitimate.

A question I have about Clinton is whether she will be effective in addressing her concerns. During the 6+ years she has spent in the Senate, only one of the poverty-relevant bills she sponsored became law, and that one was buoyed by 9/11 sentiments. She attacked Republicans on their lack of concern...but in such a way that I felt would have been more appropriate from their constituents, not from a lawmaker they have to work with. A second concern that I have about her effectiveness is whether she understands these issues at the root. All of her work for the poor has come from "helping" them from above - working as a lawyer in courts and dictating policy from public office. As wordcat mentioned earlier, she's a little bit of a wonk. Does that mean she won't make good policy? No, but I worry that there might be something missing from it.

What I really want to hear from Clinton is this - how have your own personal experiences informed what you are going to do for the poor from the presidential office? Are there things that you have learned from all your time in public service? What good things have you done that you will replicate, and what mistakes have you made that you will learn from? And with a country whose parties are so incredibly divided right now, how will you work with the rest of government to make sure that the things you want to happen actually come to pass?

Barack Obama
Because of his more recent appearance on the national scene, Obama was the candidate whose public record I had probably known the least about when I started blogging. I was amazed to find him to have a longer and more personal record on these issues than any major candidate in my lifetime. The first part comes from spending part of his childhood in a third-world country, spending part of his adult life as a community organizer in the inner city, and choosing to work as a civil-rights attorney when he entered the legal world. But the important part is that he matched this personal experience with ten years of public service that show a consistent concern for the poor across all demographics - domestic and foreign, working and unemployed/homeless, majority and minority. I haven't imagined that we would get a candidate with such a broad set of experiences working on behalf of the poor, and that such a candidate would be intelligent, elegant, and bipartisan-minded enough to make me believe that he could get significant things accomplished on their behalf as well.

The greatest questions that need to be raised about Obama's candidacy have to do with his unfamiliarity with the national stage. The presidential office would be substantially different from the positions he's held so far - what is he going to do on behalf of the poor when he gets there, and how will he get it done? What policies will he follow that will look different than what the other Democrats plan to do? And how has his personal experience informed the policy that he will make? He needs to answer these questions very specifically in order to quell the concerns of some that he is too much of a political neophyte to thrive on the biggest stage in the world.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the Democrats have shown far more of a response to the cry of the poor than the Republicans have shown so far. But this does not mean that they don't each have their own weaknesses that they need to address. Before my research I shared the mistaken impression of many that Edwards was the candidate who cared the most about the plight of the poor - can he show that he actually does care despite his light public record on the issue, and can the other candidates show how they will continue their own strong records while in the presidency? And can all three candidates show that their policies will be successful in an ideologically split nation where Congressional control could flip once Bush leaves office and stops dragging down Republican sentiment?

Most of all, can we as the voters keep these issues on the forefront of the campaign? Can we make enough noise that Obama and Clinton will speak as often about poverty as Edwards does? Can we even, in the brightest of hopes, make enough noise that this becomes a deciding issue in the general election where the Republican candidate will be forced to address our concerns and respond to his opponent's proposals?

Only if we hear the cry ourselves.

The Republicans

2007-04-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

My previous posts were attempts to objectively analyze the record on poverty of each presidential candidate (and don't worry, I will get around to Richardson at some point). Now I want to tell you how I really feel about these people. This can function as the crib notes for readers who don't favor 3,000 word blog entries.

When I started profiling politicians, I was open to many of the potential nominees. As an independent who disagrees with both parties, I had also seen things to like about candidates on both the right and the left. In fact, I had considered voting for five of the six current frontrunners at some point in the last two years.

Detailing their positions on the poor drastically changed my opinions of several of the candidates. I found that there is a difference between the public perception that develops around a candidate and the actual record they have behind them. The one I thought was the worst moved up into the middle, and the one I thought was the best moved backwards. I found that media rhetoric, both that of supporters and detractors, often failed to reflect a candidate's history.

So how do I feel that each candidate's record stacks up? And what do I think we need to be pressing each candidate to do to make poverty a front-and-center issue in this campaign?

Let's start with the Republicans:

Mitt Romney
I was fond of Romney coming into this analysis - with his experience as a conservative, religious governor in a liberal state (and his role in instituting universal health care), I thought that he might be the compassionate conservative that some hoped Bush to be in 2000.

Initially, Romney's record encouraged me further. His press releases while governor showed compassion towards the homeless and acknowledgement of the need for affordable housing. He also had a healthy concern for others in his private life. But detractors showed that much work for the poor during his tenure came over his veto, not because of his support. And I was most worried about his drop-off in vocal support for the poor during the last two years. Recently, I have heard that he is distancing himself from the universal health care bill he signed as well.

It is apparent to me that Mitt Romney views the Republican base as not caring about poverty issues, and does not believe he should focus on them to win the nomination. (He also strikes me as someone who bends everything he says around what he thinks he needs to say to win the nomination.) That's a sad situation, and something that voters need to do something about. Those of us who participate in political discussion need to make poverty an issue in the Republican primaries. Do Republicans care about the poor? Do religious conservatives believe there is a mandate to help the most vulnerable in our society? Or will ignoring poverty, homelessness, low-income housing, health care, disaster relief, and foreign aid be the best way to pick up the Republican nomination this year? This is a conversation we need to drive. Otherwise, candidates like Romney will continue to mold their message away from the issues that matter to the poor.

John McCain
McCain's record had a surprise for me. Despite his position in national politics for several decades, I had no idea that he cared so much about the state of American Indians (a map of reservations in the US helped me to see how this might matter to an Arizonian). McCain has chosen time and time again to sponsor bills and push legislation that assisted those living in reservations, especially the most vulnerable of them. He also showed a positive record in terms of foreign aid to populations hurt by oppressive regimes. Unfortunately, it was hard to find a consistent pattern of concern for the poor outside of these two groups, and McCain was the candidate for whom I had the hardest time digging up quotes relating to the state of the poor.

Can McCain's concern for American Indians and the foreign oppressed carry over to the rest of America's poor? Is he willing to put forth the initial political and financial capital necessary to make real change, or would something like universal health care be too great a financial investment to garner his support? Most of all, can we drive the public discourse so that he's forced to talk about these issues in his campaign? I really want to know what McCain thinks about poverty and what he's willing to do to fight it. I don't want the primaries to come and go without the public getting an upfront answer about it.

Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani was the one candidate whose presidential aspirations I had never remotely considered supporting. The spin I had heard from the media was that he didn't care about the poor, hated the homeless, and oppressed minorities in order to reduce crime. But time spent with his record showed a more nuanced picture. Yes, he cut welfare rolls by more than half - but part of his strategy was to increase accessibility to work, even using government money to directly fund jobs. Yes, he instituted a crackdown on the homeless - but he often did it by getting people into shelters, rehab programs, and job training that would help them to turn their lives around. Yes, he was aggressive in his fight against crime - but doesn't a dramatic reduction in crime have the potential to help the poor more than any other group?

The hardest thing to judge about Giuliani's record is his true motivation in all of this. Does he really care about the poor like he claims to in his public statements, or does he consider them a nuisance that needs to be swept away? Are his policies meant to help those on welfare, in the streets, and in high-crime neighborhoods, or is he just trying to contain the problem so we won't have to spend money or worry about them affecting the quality of middle-class life? Giuliani's detractors and supporters have very different views of his true aims in these issues. His private history doesn't seem to reflect a strong response in his heart to the cry of the poor. And I feel that understanding where his heart lies will go a long ways to figuring out whether his policies will address the problems or just make them a little less visible. Giuliani needs to be forced to directly answer these questions: Does he care about the end state of the homeless? Does it matter to him what happens to families after they leave welfare? And can he show a concern about these results in his policies?

While I started this blog really liking Romney and considering both Romney and McCain among my favorite choices for the presidency, my analysis of their records and current statements discouraged me. I don't have a favorite among the three Republicans anymore. My biggest question between now and the primaries is going to be this...Who is going to make poverty a real issue in the presidential race? Which one of these three is going to start addressing it in their campaign? Who is going to put forth policies that will legitimately help the poor?

And will we be able to raise our voices high enough to make them do it?

Hillary Clinton

2007-03-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton was an interesting subject because of the pseudo-offices she has held as first lady of Arkansas and of the nation. While they are not elected positions, as I did my research I realized that there was much she did within those roles that bore mentioning. So while she doesn't get any credit for anything her husband did in his capacity, I did choose to highlight the things she was able to do from her position.

I also had to analyze her senate record. In my quest to show you exactly what the senators supported while they were in office, I only had to deal with a few hundred bills each time. This was because John Edwards did not sponsor many bills, John McCain did not sponsor many for the poor, and Barack Obama has only had a little over two years to work at his breakneck pace. So how was profiling Hillary, who's had over six years in the senate sponsoring bills at Obama's pace and cosponsoring 600-700 more on top of that every Congress? Looking at 2,600 bills this week has not been fun.

That aside, Clinton's prominence over the last 15 years made her the easiest candidate to get a complete picture of. So here's what I found:

What does Hillary Clinton think about helping the poor?

Political History
Hillary Clinton was First Lady of Arkansas from 1979-1981 and 1983-1993, First Lady of the United States from 1993-2000, and the Senator representing New York from 2001 until now.

First Lady of Arkansas: 1979-1981, 1983-1993.

Clinton chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital, Legal Services, the Children's Defense Fund, and Wal-Mart.¹
In 1985, Clinton directed the establishment of the Home Instruction Program for Pre-School Youngsters (HIPPY), a program directed at boosting low-income children².

First Lady of the United States: 1993-2000.

In 1993, headed the president's Task Force on Health Care reform. She put together a proposal on universal health care that was seen as too complicated by some and/or "socialist" by others and eventually abandoned by democratic leadership in the House and Senate.
In 1997, initiated the Children's Health Insurance Program, which facilitated states to provide health insurance for low-income children.
Initiated the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, stating that it provided her with the "greatest satisfaction" of her time as First Lady.^{3 4} Also supported and pushed the Foster Care Independence Bill, an effort to help foster children transition to adulthood.⁵
Helped create Vital Voices, was an active supporter of the US Agency for International Development, and helped create the Office on Violence Against Women, strongly pushing for international women's rights in all three efforts.⁶
Supported the 1996 welfare reform bill signed by Bill Clinton⁷, although some sources cite initial misgivings over certain parts⁸.

107^th Congress: 2001-2002

Sponsored bills to expand the number of low middle income children eligible for health care assistance⁹, provide resources for children who lose parents in the event of a disaster¹⁰, extend unemployment benefits for those affected by 9/11¹¹, providing assistance for people who become disabled in foreign countries¹², improve services for youths in foster care programs¹³, extend and expand unemployment benefits¹⁴, and increase benefits for blind veterans¹⁵. The bill extending unemployment benefits for 9/11 victims became law.
Also sponsored an amendment to require a study on the effect of dilapidated school buildings on children¹⁶ and providing funding to assist children suffering in disasters/crises¹⁷. The amendments passed the senate.
Cosponsored resolutions to call for a fight against drugs and crime in public housing¹⁸, state that all workers deserve fair and safe working conditions¹⁹, call on the US to combat the global AIDS pandemic²⁰ and to reaffirm a stand against genocide²¹. None of the resolutions passed.
Also cosponsored bills to increase the minimum wage^{22 23 24}, increase the availability and affordability of early learning²⁵, improve preventive health care for women²⁶, give incentives to employers to expand health care²⁷, extend health care to the families of covered children^{28 29}, increase funding for low-income energy assistance^{30 31}, promote economic recovery in Zimbabwe³², facilitate the funding of social services³³, give American Indian children equal access to adoption and foster care³⁴, allow states to extend health insurance to certain immigrants³⁵, improve nutrition assistance for families and the elderly^{36 37}, create programs and campaigns to promote fatherhood and strong families³⁸, support broad community youth programs^{39 40}, create an international food assistance program for schools⁴¹, provide assistance for communities hurt by trade⁴², fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis in developing countries^{43 44}, extend the development of affordable housing⁴⁵, provide economic assistance to victims of domestic and sexual violence⁴⁶, provide education and health care assistance to Afghan women⁴⁷, forgive loans for the spouses of 9/11 victims⁴⁸, increase accessibility of enrollment in MediCare and MediCal^{49 50}, promote charitable giving⁵¹, increase the number of areas designated "renewal communities"^{52 53}, provide additional housing assistance⁵⁴, improve health care for pregnant women⁵⁵, reauthorize TANF⁵⁶, reauthorize specific homeless assistance⁵⁷, prioritize health care provision for low-income veterans⁵⁸, increase unemployment compensation^{59 60} and increase microenterprise assistance in developing countries⁶¹. The bills providing assistance to Zimbabwe and Afghanistan became law.
Also cosponsored amendments to increase low-income energy assistance⁶², create a prescription drug benefit⁶³, extend TANF funding⁶⁴ and increase mental health benefits in health care plans⁶⁵. The amendments increasing low-income energy assistance, extending TANF, and increasing mental health benefits passed the Senate.

108^th Congress: 2003-2004

Sponsored a resolution to express a need to expand support for children whose parents have died⁶⁶. The resolution did not pass the Senate.
Also sponsored bills to authorize microcredit and housing assistance in Kosovo⁶⁷, fund job training and language acquisition programs⁶⁸, provide a national information service for social services⁶⁹, improve mental health services for older adults⁷⁰, fund economic development in low-income communities^{71 72}, provide aid to related foster-care providers⁷³ and provide education aid in developing countries⁷⁴. None of them became law.
Also sponsored amendments to improve women's health⁷⁵ and provide funds to address disparities in minority health⁷⁶. The amendment addressing minority health disparities was agreed to in the Senate.
Cosponsored resolutions directing Congress to create comprehensive health care legislation⁷⁷, declaring genocide in Darfur⁷⁸, speaking out against genocide⁷⁹ and condemning human trafficking and slavery⁸⁰. None of the resolutions passed.
Also cosponsored bills to expand and improve health care coverage^{81 82 83 84 85 86 87}, expand an array of early child development programs^{88 89}, increase the minimum wage^{90 91}, extend unemployment aid^{92 93 94 95}, increase support for veteran's health care⁹⁶, extend child care for welfare recipients⁹⁷, promote justice for seniors⁹⁸, provide housing assistance for intergenerational families⁹⁹, expand renewal communities¹⁰⁰, address health care disparities^{101 102}, improve food assistance to seniors¹⁰³, increase mental health coverage¹⁰⁴, provide assistance to disabled individuals in foreign countries¹⁰⁵, provide grants for transitional job programs^{106 107}, promote the adoption of special-needs children¹⁰⁸, protect families affected by worldwide conflict¹⁰⁹, prioritize health care for low-income veterans¹¹⁰, provide disadvantaged children with dental services¹¹¹, expand volunteer opportunities for youths¹¹², increase development of affordable housing¹¹³, provide mentoring for children in foster care¹¹⁴, protect overtime compensation¹¹⁵, improve access to services for disabled homeless and foster children¹¹⁶, improve working conditions for migrant laborers¹¹⁷, extend adoption incentives¹¹⁸, provide support to families with severely emotionally disturbed children¹¹⁹, reduce complications and mortality resulting from premature birth¹²⁰, extend government programs to help the poor¹²¹, expand trade benefits to African countries^{122 123}, extend SSI benefits for refugees and asylum-seekers¹²⁴ and improve microenterprise programs¹²⁵. One of the bills extending unemployment compensation and different forms of one of the African trade benefits bills and the microenterprise bill became law.
Also cosponsored amendments to increase low-income energy assistance^{126 127}, extend unemployment assistance^{128 129 130 131 132 133}, increase global AIDS funding^{134 135 136 137}, provide a prescription drug benefit¹³⁸, provide a tax credit for long-term care¹³⁹, state that nutrition aid should not be reduced¹⁴⁰, increase medical aid for veterans of current wars¹⁴¹, guarantee MediCare to all who qualify every year¹⁴², increase education aid for the disadvantaged¹⁴³, protect overtime compensation¹⁴⁴, increase funds for Head Start¹⁴⁵, express the need for all low-income housing vouchers to be utilized¹⁴⁶, expand Pell Grants¹⁴⁷, provide additional funding for childcare¹⁴⁸ and provide assistance to help those in Darfur and Chad¹⁴⁹. The amendments providing low-income energy assistance, increasing AIDS funding, stating that nutrition aid should not be reduced, protecting overtime compensation, providing additional childcare funding, and one amendment extending unemployment compensation were passed in the Senate.

109^th Congress: 2005-2006

Sponsored a resolution to express the need to prevent child abuse and provide stable foster care¹⁵⁰. The resolution did not pass.
Also sponsored bills to create a national infoline for social services¹⁵¹, provide more assistance for relatives caring for foster kids¹⁵², provide mental health services for seniors¹⁵³, give incentives for housing assistance¹⁵⁴, establish a congressional commission to investigate the response to Katrina¹⁵⁵, extend the child tax credit to Puerto Ricans¹⁵⁶, improve MediCare and MediCaid¹⁵⁷, help seniors get long-term care¹⁵⁸, increase the minimum wage¹⁵⁹ and assist education in developing countries¹⁶⁰ None of the bills became law.
Also sponsored amendments to establish a commission to investigate the response to Katrina¹⁶¹ and create a national infoline for social services¹⁶². Neither amendment passed the Senate.
Cosponsored resolutions to assess the possibility of a no-fly zone in Sudan¹⁶³, call for universal health insurance¹⁶⁴, express the importance of MediCaid^{165 166}, promote adoption¹⁶⁷, urge a commitment to earthquake victims in South Asia¹⁶⁸, call for immediate steps to help Darfur¹⁶⁹, support peace in Uganda¹⁷⁰ and urge the Sudanese government to accept peacekeeping terms¹⁷¹. The resolutions promoting adoption, calling for immediate steps in Darfur and urging the Sudanese to accept peacekeeping terms, and supporting peace in Uganda passed the Senate.
Also cosponsored bills to improve health care for veterans^{172 173 174}, increase the minimum wage and protect wage laws^{175 176 177}, improve Medicare^{178 179 180}, extend Medicaid to the families of disabled children and low-income AIDS patients^{181 182}, improve work conditions for migrant laborers¹⁸³, support families of severely emotionally disabled children¹⁸⁴, extend SSI to refugees and asylum-seekers¹⁸⁵, improve long-term care for Medicaid patients^{186 187}, improve education for at-risk students¹⁸⁸, provide additional assistance to premature births¹⁸⁹, provide support services for the homeless^{190 191}, provide paid sick leave for all families¹⁹², reduce hunger in America¹⁹³, assist banks in developing countries¹⁹⁴, improve mental health provision under Medicaid¹⁹⁵, extend services for homeless veterans¹⁹⁶, provide mentoring for children in foster care¹⁹⁷, promote peace in Sudan^{198 198a}, improve health care for minorities¹⁹⁹, provide relief to Katrina victims^{200 201}, establish an office in charge of Katrina relief²⁰², improve health care for Katrina victims²⁰³, reconstruct the Gulf Coast^{204 205}, protecting communities (especially disadvantaged ones) affected by environmental health issues^{206 207}, setting foreign policy goals and providing aid to Congo²⁰⁸, increase coal mine safety²⁰⁹, provide for low-income energy assistance²¹⁰, make drugs affordable to Medicare recipients²¹¹, provide international aid for tuberculosis treatment²¹², improve nutrition for low-income children²¹³, improve newborn care²¹⁴, provide development assistance in the Appalachians²¹⁵, provide assistance to combat AIDS in youth²¹⁶ and extend kindergarten for low-income families²¹⁷. The bills providing additional assistance for premature births, providing aid to Congo, promoting peace in Sudan, and providing low-income energy assistance became law.
Also cosponsored amendments to increase the minimum wage^{218 219 220}, increase funding for veteran's medical care²²¹, impose sanctions against those perpetuating crimes in Darfur²²², provide legal services for those affected by Katrina²²³, provide emergency funds, health care, and educational assistance for those affected by Katrina^{224 225 226}, provide low-income energy assistance^{227 228 229}, improve Pell Grants and other student aid^{230 231}, prevent high school dropouts²³², increase funding for Head Start²³³, provide funds to improve Hispanic education²³⁴, add additional Title 1 funding²³⁵, provide Medicaid assistance for low-income HIV patients²³⁶, contribute additional money to the Global Fund²³⁷, increase disaster assistance²³⁸. The amendments sanctioning and promoting peace in Sudan, providing legal services for Katrina victims, preventing dropouts, improving Hispanic education, contributing extra to the Global Fund, and one amendment increasing low-income energy funds passed the Senate.

110^th Congress: 2007-present

Sponsored bills to establish a national infoline for social services²³⁹ and provide benefits for relatives who care for foster children²⁴⁰.
Also cosponsored bills to increase the minimum wage²⁴¹, increase student aid²⁴², improve the work situation of migrant laborers²⁴³, extend development in the Appalachians²⁴⁴, improve coverage for mental health benefits²⁴⁵ and improve the care of newborns²⁴⁶.

Statements About the Poor

²⁴⁷

²⁴⁸

²⁴⁹

²⁵⁰

²⁵¹

²⁵²

²⁵³

²⁵⁴

²⁵⁵

Private Life

Has net worth of between $10 million and $50 million. Most came in last decade from Bill Clinton’s speeches and from their books. Between 2001 and 2005, the Clintons put $5.16 million to a private foundation that Hillary runs. The foundation has so far given away $1.25 million of that money, mostly to colleges they attended, landmarks in their home state, their church, and tsunami relief in Asia.
During her second year in law school, Hillary Clinton volunteered at Yale's Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development, as well as New Haven Hospital, where she took on cases of child abuse, and the city Legal Services, where she provided free legal service to the poor.²⁵⁶
After graduating from college, served as an attorney at the Children’s Defense Fund. Continued pro bono work in child advocacy when she moved on to Rose Law Firm.
Co-wrote Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda: Drawings by Child Survivors of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.
Clinton’s husband, Bill, founded the William J. Clinton foundation to address world health, economic improvement, leadership development, and racial reconciliation. He also took on a position as president for a few years back in the '90s.

Anyone get through that? I'll admit that trying to read and record thousands of bills took a lot of time, and a result there are probably more omissions and summarizations in her bill record than anyone else's. But trust me, I'm sure I got over 90% of them, and all the important ones are there. Of course, as always if you know of anything I left out that's important, please post it. Or if you've picked up any sort of ideological bias in any of this, offer a counter. I want the full picture to be out there of each candidate, so we can form the best opinions possible. Does Hillary Clinton hear the cry of the poor?

^[1]Biography of Hillary Clinton, www.whitehouse.gov
^[2]Hillary Rodham Clinton Biography, www.notablebiographies.com
^[3]Adoption and Safe Families Act
^[4]First Lady Biography: Hillary Clinton, www.firstladies.org
^[5]Foster Care Independence Act
^[6]First Lady Biography: Hillary Clinton, www.firstladies.org
^[7]"Is Sharpton Protecting Hillary?", The Village Voice, May 24, 2000.
^[8]First Lady Biography: Hillary Clinton, www.firstladies.org
^[9]SCHIP Enhancement Act of 2001
^[10]To amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act...
^[11]To extend the period of availability of unemployment assistance...
^[12]International Disability and Victims of Landmines, Civil Strife and Warfare Assistance Act of 2001
^[13]Opportunity Passport Act of 2002
^[14]To extend and expand the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002
^[15]To amend title XVI of the Social Security Act to provide that annuities paid by States...
^[16]Senate Amendment 516
^[17]Senate Amendment 2066
^[18]Expressing the sense of Congress that reducing crime in public housing should be a priority...
^[19]Expressing the sense of the Congress that all workers deserve fair treatment and safe working conditions...
^[20]Whereas the international AIDS pandemic is of grave proportions and is growing;
^[21]Whereas the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide confirms...
^[22]Enhancing Economic Security for America's Working Families Act
^[23]Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2001
^[24]Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2002
^[25]Right Start Act of 2001
^[26]WISEWOMAN Expansion Act of 2001
^[27]Bipartisan Patient Protection Act of 2001--Part II
^[28]Dylan Lee James Act
^[29]FamilyCare Act of 2001
^[30]Energy Emergency Response Act of 2001
^[31]Low-Income Energy Assistance Reinvestment Act
^[32]Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001
^[33]Social Services Block Grant Restoration Act of 2001
^[34]Indian and Alaska Native Foster Care and Adoption Services Amendments of 2001
^[35]Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act of 2001
^[36]Nutrition Assistance for Working Families and Seniors Act of 2001
^[37]Senior Nutrition Act of 2002
^[38]Strengthening Working Families Act of 2001
^[39]Younger Americans Act
^[40]School Service Act of 2002
^[41]George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Act of 2001
^[42]Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers, Farmers, Communities, and Firms Act of 2001
^[43]GLIDER Act
^[44]International AIDS Treatment and Prevention Act of 2002
^[45]National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act of 2001
^[46]Victims' Economic Security and Safety Act
^[47]Afghan Women and Children Relief Act of 2001
^[48]September 11 Surviving Spouse Student Loan Relief Act
^[49]Medicare+Choice Consumer Protection Act of 2001
^[50]To temporarily increase the Federal medical assistance percentage for the medicaid program.
^[51]CARE Act of 2002
^[52]To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for additional designations of renewal communities.
^[53]To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow for the expansion of areas...
^[54]Welfare Reform and Housing Act
^[55]SMART Mom Act
^[56]Work and Family Act of 2002
^[57]Community Partnership to End Homelessness Act of 2002
^[58]To amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs...
^[59]Economic Security Act of 2002
^[60]Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002
^[61]To amend the Microenterprise for Self-Reliance Act of 2000 and the Foreign Assistance Act...
^[62]Senate Amendment 28
^[63]Senate Amendment 172
^[64]Senate Amendment 317
^[65]Senate Amendment 2020
^[66]Expressing the Sense of the Senate that Congress should expand the supports...
^[67]Kosovar-American Enterprise Fund Act of 2003
^[68]Access to Employment and English Acquisition Act of 2003
^[69]Calling for 2-1-1 Act of 2003
^[70]Positive Aging Act of 2004
^[71]To establish a grant program to support cluster-based economic development efforts.
^[72]To establish a grant program to support broadband-based economic development efforts.
^[73]Kinship Caregiver Support Act
^[74]Education for All Act of 2004
^[75]Senate Amendment 652
^[76]Senate Amendment 2780
^[77]Whereas the United States has the most expensive health care system in the world...
^[78]Whereas Article 1 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention...
^[79]Whereas in 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, the international community...
^[80]Whereas it has been nearly 2 centuries since the abolition of the transatlantic...
^[81]Health Care Coverage Expansion and Quality Improvement Act of 2003
^[82]To temporarily increase the Federal medical assistance percentage for the medicaid program.
^[83]Dylan Lee James Act
^[84]Medicare Safety Net Access Act of 2003
^[85]Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act of 2003
^[86]Early Treatment for HIV Act of 2003
^[87]Start Healthy, Stay Healthy Act of 2003
^[88]Right Start Act of 2003
^[89]Head Start Coordination and School Readiness Act
^[90]Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2003
^[91]Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2004
^[92]A bill to provide for a 5-month extension of the Temporary Extended Unemployment...
^[93]Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 2003
^[94]Economic Security Act of 2003
^[95]Unemployment Compensation Extension Act
^[96]Veterans Health Care Funding Guarantee Act of 2003
^[97]Children First Act of 2003
^[98]Elder Justice Act
^[99]LEGACY Act of 2003
^[100]To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow for the expansion...
^[101]Patient Navigator, Outreach, and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2003
^[102]Healthcare Equality and Accountability Act
^[103]Senior Nutrition Act of 2003
^[104]Senator Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act of 2003
^[105]International Disability and Victims of Warfare and Civil Strife Assistance Act of 2003
^[106]Business Links Act of 2003
^[107]Trade Adjustment Assistance Equity for Service Workers Act of 2004
^[108]Adoption Equality Act of 2003
^[109]Women and Children in Conflict Protection Act of 2003
^[110]To amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs...
^[111]Children's Dental Health Improvement Act of 2003
^[112]School Service Act of 2003
^[113]National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act of 2003
^[114]Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2003
^[115]Overtime Compensation Protection Act of 2003
^[116]Improving Education for Homeless and Foster Children with Disabilities Act of 2003
^[117]Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2003
^[118]Adoption Promotion Act of 2003
^[119]Keeping Families Together Act
^[120]PREEMIE Act
^[121]Poverty Reduction and Prevention Act
^[122]United States-Africa Partnership Act of 2003
^[123]AGOA Acceleration Act of 2004
^[124]SSI Extension for Elderly and Disabled Refugees Act
^[125]Microenterprise Results and Accountability Act of 2004
^[126]Senate Amendment 27
^[127]Senate Amendment 1595
^[128]Senate Amendment 40
^[129]Senate Amendment 315
^[130]Senate Amendment 544
^[131]Senate Amendment 832
^[132]Senate Amendment 1170
^[133]Senate Amendment 2617
^[134]Senate Amendment 127
^[135]Senate Amendment 1174
^[136]Senate Amendment 1283
^[137]Senate Amendment 1966
^[138]Senate Amendment 294
^[139]Senate Amendment 349
^[140]Senate Amendment 407
^[141]Senate Amendment 459
^[142]Senate Amendment 931
^[143]Senate Amendment 1543
^[144]Senate Amendment 1580
^[145]Senate Amendment 1597
^[146]Senate Amendment 2183
^[147]Senate Amendment 2725
^[148]Senate Amendment 2937
^[149]Senate Amendment 3493
^[150]Senate Resolution 566
^[151]Calling for 2-1-1 Act of 2005
^[152]Kinship Caregiver Support Act
^[153]Positive Aging Act of 2005
^[154]Housing America's Workforce Act
^[155]To establish a congressional commission to examine the Federal...
^[156]To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make residents of Puerto Rico...
^[157]Patients Before Profits Act of 2006
^[158]Community-Based Choices for Older Americans Act of 2006
^[159]Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2006
^[160]Education for All Act of 2006
^[161]Senate Amendment 1660
^[162]Senate Amendment 4072
^[163]Calling on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to assess the potential effectiveness...
^[164]To express the sense of Congress concerning the provision of health insurance coverage to all Americans.
^[165]Expressing the sense of the Congress with respect to the importance of Medicaid...
^[166]To express the sense of the Senate regarding the impact of medicaid...
^[167]To express support for the goals of National Adoption Month...
^[168]Commending relief efforts in response to the earthquake in South Asia...
^[169]Calling on the President to take immediate steps to help improve the security situation in Darfur...
^[170]Calling on the United States Government and the international community...
^[171]Whereas Congress declared on July 22, 2004 that the atrocities in Darfur...
^[172]Fulfilling Our Duty to America's Veterans Act of 2005
^[173]To appropriate $1,975,183,000 for medical care for veterans.
^[174]Veterans Long-Term Care Security Act of 2006
^[175]Fair Wage, Competition, and Investment Act of 2005
^[176]Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005
^[177]Tax Relief and Minimum Wage Act of 2006
^[178]Meeting Our Responsibility to Medicare Beneficiaries Act of 2005
^[179]Ending the Medicare Disability Waiting Period Act of 2005
^[180]Medicare Beneficiary Assistance Improvement Act
^[181]Dylan Lee James Act
^[182]Early Treatment for HIV Act of 2005
^[183]Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2005
^[184]Keeping Families Together Act
^[185]SSI Extension for Elderly and Disabled Refugees Act
^[186]Money Follows the Person Act of 2005
^[187]Improving Long-Term Care Choices Act of 2005
^[188]GRAD Act
^[189]PREEMIE Act
^[190]Services for Ending Long-Term Homelessness Act
^[191]Community Partnership to End Homelessness Act of 2005
^[192]Healthy Families Act
^[193]Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2005
^[194]Development Bank Reform and Authorization Act of 2005
^[195]Medicare Mental Health Copayment Equity Act of 2005
^[196]SAVE Reauthorization Act of 2005
^[197]Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2005
^[198]Darfur Peace and Accountability Act of 2005
^[198a]Senate Amendment 4912
^[199]Healthcare Equality and Accountability Act
^[200]Katrina Emergency Relief Act of 2005
^[201]Hurricane Katrina Bankruptcy Relief and Community Protection Act of 2005
^[202]Oversight of Vital Emergency Recovery Spending Enhancement and Enforcement Act of 2005
^[203]Public Health and Health Insurance Emergency Response Act of 2005
^[204]Gulf Coast Infrastructure Redevelopment and Recovery Act of 2005
^[205]Hurricane Katrina Response Act
^[206]Healthy Communities Act of 2005
^[207]Healthy Places Act of 2006
^[208]Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006
^[209]Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 2006
^[210]To make available funds included in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 for the Low-Income...
^[211]Medicare-Guaranteed Prescription Drug Act of 2006
^[212]Stop Tuberculosis (TB) Now Act of 2006
^[213]Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2006
^[214]Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2006
^[216]HIV Prevention for Youth Act
^[217]Kindergarten Plus Act of 2006
^[218]Senate Amendment 44
^[219]Senate Amendment 2063
^[220]Senate Amendment 4322
^[221]Senate Amendment 149
^[222]Senate Amendment 517
^[223]Senate Amendment 1659
^[224]Senate Amendment 1661
^[225]Senate Amendment 2356
^[226]Senate Amendment 1706
^[227]Senate Amendment 2033
^[228]Senate Amendment 2194
^[229]Senate Amendment 3074
^[230]Senate Amendment 2213
^[231]Senate Amendment 3028
^[232]Senate Amendment 2219
^[233]Senate Amendment 2254
^[234]Senate Amendment 2262
^[235]Senate Amendment 2275
^[236]Senate Amendment 2390
^[237]Senate Amendment 3052
^[238]Senate Amendment 4600
^[239]Calling for 2-1-1 Act of 2007
^[240]Kinship Caregiver Support Act
^[241]Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007
^[242]College Opportunity Act of 2007
^[243]AgJOBS Act of 2007
^[244]Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2007
^[245]Mental Health Parity Act of 2007
^[246]Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007
^[247]"Hillary Clinton, in China, Details Abuse of Women", The New York Times, Sept 6, 1995.
^[248]"Hillary Clinton talks religion", cnn.com, June 29, 2006.
^[249]Remarks of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Senate Floor About Misplaced Budget Priorities, Dec 14, 2005.
^[250]Remarks of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Senate Floor About Misplaced Budget Priorities, Dec 14, 2005.
^[251]"Helping the Jobless", New York Times, Sept 20, 2002.
^[252]Remarks of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at ACORN’s 2006 National Convention, July 10, 2006.
^[253]"Hillary Clinton Attacks Arrests of the Homeless", The New York Times, Dec 1, 1999.
^[254]"'Microcredit Summit' Gets Macro Attention In Capital", CNN News Briefs, Feb 3, 1997.
^[255]"Future Role of United Nations within the Framework of Global Security", World Security Network, Feb 13, 2005.
^[256]First Lady Biography: Hillary Clinton, www.firstladies.org.

John McCain

2007-03-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

McCain has a longer record of government service than the other candidates - in fact, he's spent more time in national office than all of the other candidates combined. Because of this lengthy record, I summarized his first 18 years of service into two groups. Since he has not sponsored quite as many bills relating to the poor as some other candidates, I was still able to convey the extent to which he has worked for the poor in his service. I then detailed his most recent record in the same manner as the recent record of the other candidates.

I'll let his actions speak for themselves from there.

What does John McCain think about helping the poor?

Political History
John McCain was a U.S. Representative from Arizona from 1983-1986 and the U.S. Senator from Arizona from 1987 until present.

U.S. Representative 1983-1986

Sponsored bills to create rehab programs for American Indian youth¹ and stimulate economic development for American Indians².

U.S. Senator 1987-2000

Sponsored many bills related to American Indian issues, including bills to improve economic development^{3 4 5 6 7 8 9}, AIDS programs^{10 11}, mental health programs¹², housing programs^{13 14 15}, substance abuse programs^{16 17}, health services¹⁸, social service grants¹⁹, and many other types of assistance to American Indians.
Also sponsored bills to extend states' ability to apply for aid for abused children²⁰, expand telecommunications for the deaf^{21 22}, encourage volunteer service²³, provide hospice care for veterans²⁴, increase funding for AIDS programs²⁵, remove barriers to interethnic adoptions²⁶, encourage economic development in depressed communities²⁷, increase the accessibility of Medicaid for children²⁸, increase the number of people who qualify as refugees^{29 30}, require that homeless shelters identify and provide specific services to veterans^{31 32}, and provide educational opportunities for disadvantaged children^{33 34}.

U.S. Senator, 107^th Congress 2001-2002

Sponsored bills that provided incentives for companies to expand health care coverage³⁵ and encouraged economic development for American Indians³⁶. Also sponsored a resolution to call for human rights in Central Asia³⁷. None of them became law.
Also cosponsored bills to revise and extend the Indian Health Care Act³⁸, provide equal access for Indians to adoption and foster care services³⁹, expand immigrant families' access to health insurance⁴⁰, make generic drugs more available and affordable⁴¹, improve health care access for low-income women and children⁴², and continue housing assistance to American Indians⁴³. Only the bill continuing housing assistance became law.

U.S. Senator, 108^th Congress 2003-2004

Sponsored a resolution to call for human rights in Central Asia⁴⁴. The resolution did not pass.
Also cosponsored resolutions to condemn the government of Iran for its oppression of those of Baha'i faith⁴⁵, condemn the government of Sudan for its attacks on civilians and genocide in Darfur^{46 47}, and call on the UN Security Council to condemn and sanction Burma for its oppression⁴⁸. All of the resolutions except one to declare genocide in Sudan were passed by the Senate.
Cosponsored bills to provide equal access to foster care and adoption for American Indian children⁴⁹, increase affordable housing and economic opportunity along the US/Mexico border⁵⁰, improve health care for American Indians^{51 52}, improve families' access to health care⁵³, improve immigrant families' access to health insurance⁵⁴, provide support for women and children in humanitarian emergencies⁵⁵, improve vision services for Medicare⁵⁶, accelerate an increase in the child tax credit⁵⁷, improve outreach to veterans who need benefits⁵⁸, improve availability and affordability of generic drugs⁵⁹, improve the health of low-income border residents⁶⁰, expand trade benefits to African nations^{61 62}, increase development aid in the Middle East and Central Asia⁶³, and provide assistance for the crisis in Darfur⁶⁴. The second bill concerning African trade and the bill providing assistance for Darfur became law.
Also cosponsored amendments to improve the affordability of pharmaceuticals^{65 66}. The second amendment increasing affordable pharmaceuticals became law.
In 2003, McCain signed a letter (along with 42 other senators) urging President Bush to fully fund AmeriCorps⁶⁷.

U.S. Senator, 109^th Congress 2005-2006

Sponsored bills improving health care for Indians^{68 69}. Neither bill became law.
Cosponsored resolutions to pledge continued support for international hunger-relief efforts and express need for US leverage in securing more food aid⁷⁰, express the need for humanitarian support for Northern Uganda⁷¹, condemn Burma for its oppression of minorities⁷², urge the president to appoint a special envoy to Sudan⁷³, and call on the president to do something about the violence in Darfur⁷⁴. The resolutions addressing Uganda and Burma and the second resolution addressing Sudan were passed.
Cosponsored bills to extend trade preference to least-developed countries⁷⁵, provide American Indians with greater access to foster care and adoption⁷⁶, establish a Hurricane Katrina Recovery Chief Financial Officer⁷⁷, expand preferential trade with Haiti⁷⁸, address mental health and suicide for Indian youth⁷⁹, and reduce deaths among immigrants crossing the border⁸⁰. None of the bills became law.
In 2005, voted against raising the minimum wage to $7.25⁸¹.

US Senator, 110^th Congress: 2007-present

^th

Cosponsored a resolution calling for support for a peace process in Uganda⁸² and bills to address mental health and suicide for Indian youth⁸³ and to provide better job opportunities for immigrants⁸⁴.

Statements About the Poor

⁸⁵

⁸⁶

⁸⁷

⁸⁸

⁸⁹

⁹⁰

⁹¹

Private Life

Has a net worth of around $30 million. Donated his $250,000 in book proceeds to charity last year, as he had done previously with income from book sales. At a 2000 Republican debate, McCain said that he donates his congressional pay raises to charity. He also contributes significantly to Food for the Hungry.⁹²
John McCain's wife, Cindy, founded and ran the American Voluntary Medical Team and the Hensley Family Foundation and is on the board of HALO, Operation Smile, and CARE.
The McCain family strongly supports adoption and adopted one of their children from Bangladesh.

One special difficulty that occurred was assessing McCain's record on health care. He has sponsored many bills throughout his tenure that dealt with health care. Unfortunately, for many of these bills I am not skilled enough to discern whether they help or hurt the poor. Some raise funding, some lower it. Some extend provisions, some delay them. Even the ones that would obviously decrease aid to the poor - is he trying to decrease aid, or is he trying to reach a compromise to avoid an even worse bill? It was hard for me to tell, so I ended up leaving out all of the health care bills that I was unsure of. But I would consider his record on that issue slightly suspect.

It is also significant that he has spent much more time in Congress than the other candidates. He has sponsored many bills, but the number of them that relate to the poor from year-to-year (other than those providing assistance to American Indians) is quite low. And how important is the special concern he has for American Indians? I think that these are issues to consider.

What do you think? Does John McCain hear the cry of the poor?

^[1]A bill to authorize programs for the treatment and prevention...
^[2]Indian Economic Development Act of 1985
^[3]Indian Economic Development Act of 1987
^[4]Indian Economic Development Act of 1989
^[5]Indian Economic Development Act of 1991
^[6]Indian Employment and Investment Act of 1992
^[7]Indian Employment and Investment Act of 1993
^[8]Indian Reservation Jobs and Investment Act of 1995
^[9]Indian Reservation Jobs and Investment Act of 1997
^[10]To provide for the development and implementation of...
^[11]To amend Title II of the Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990 to ensure that Native Americans...
^[12]To provide an Indian mental health demonstration grant program.
^[13]To increase housing opportunities for Indians.
^[14]Indian Housing Development Act of 1992
^[15]Indian Housing Development and Reform Act of 1994
^[16]To reauthorize certain provisions relating to Indian alcohol and substance abuse...
^[17]Indian Anti-Drug Abuse Amendments of 1991
^[18]Innovative Indian Health Facilities and Delivery System Demonstration Project Act
^[19]To grant authority to provide social services block grants directly to Indian...
^[20]A bill to extend the period for waivers of State eligibility requirements...
^[21]A bill to expand our national telecommunications system...
^[22]COMMUNICATIONS SERVICE FOR HEARING-IMPAIRED AND SPEECH-IMPAIRED INDIVIDUALS
^[23]To establish a foundation to operate a program of voluntary part-time national service...
^[24]Veterans Hospice Benefit Act of 1991
^[25]MCCAIN AMENDMENT NO. 2461
^[26]Adoption Antidiscrimination Act of 1995
^[27]Community Renewal and Economic Opportunity Act
^[28]Children's Health Assurance through the Medicaid Program (CHAMP) Act
^[29]MCCAIN AMENDMENT NO. 409
^[30]MCCAIN (AND KERRY) AMENDMENT NO. 461
^[3l]MCCAIN AMENDMENT NO. 3196
^[32]To require certain entities that operate homeless shelters to identify...
^[33]To provide educational opportunities for disadvantaged children...
^[34]To provide educational opportunities for disadvantaged children...
^[35]Bipartisan Patient Protection Act of 2001
^[36]Indian Reservation Economic Investment Act of 2001
^[37]Expressing the sense of the Senate with respect to human rights in Central Asia.
^[38]Indian Health Care Improvement Act Reauthorization of 2001
^[39]Indian and Alaska Native Foster Care and Adoption Services Amendments of 2001
^[40]Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act of 2001
^[41]Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceuticals Act of 2002
^[42]Start Healthy, Stay Healthy Act of 2001
^[43]Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2001
^[44]Expressing the sense of the Congress with respect to human rights in Central Asia.
^[45]Condemning the repression of the Iranian Bahai community...
^[46]Condemning the Government of the Republic of the Sudan...
^[47]Whereas Article 1 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and...
^[48]Expressing the sense of the Senate that the United Nations Security Council...
^[49]Indian and Alaska Native Foster Care and Adoption Services Amendments of 2003
^[50]Colonias Gateway Initiative Act
^[51]Native American Health and Wellness Foundation Act of 2003
^[52]Indian Health Care Improvement Act Reauthorization of 2003
^[53]Dylan Lee James Act
^[54]Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act of 2003
^[55]Women and Children in Conflict Protection Act of 2003
^[56]Medicare Vision Rehabilitation Services Act of 2003
^[57]Working Taxpayer Fairness Restoration Act
^[58]Veterans Outreach Improvement Act of 2003
^[59]Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceuticals Act
^[60]Border Health Security Act of 2003
^[61]United States-Africa Partnership Act of 2003
^[62]AGOA Acceleration Act of 2004
^[63]Greater Middle East and Central Asia Development Act of 2004
^[64]Comprehensive Peace in Sudan Act of 2004
^[65]To provide for the procurement of certain pharmaceuticals at the lowest possible price...
^[66]To ensure that there is competition in the pharmaceutical industry and increased access...
^[67]Letter from 43 senators to the President on June 17, 2003
^[68]Indian Health Care Improvement Act Amendments of 2005
^[69]Indian Health Care Improvement Act Amendments of 2006
^[70]Whereas although there is enough food to feed all of the people in the world...
^[71]Whereas Joseph Kony has led the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) since 1987...
^[72]Expressing the sense of the Senate condemning the military junta in Burma...
^[73]To urge the President to appoint a Presidential Special Envoy for Sudan.
^[74]Calling on the President to take immediate steps to help stop the violence in Darfur
^[75]TRADE Act of 2005
^[76]Indian and Alaska Native Foster Care and Adoption Services Amendments of 2005
^[77]Oversight of Vital Emergency Recovery Spending Enhancement and Enforcement Act of 2005
^[78]Haiti Economic Recovery Opportunity Act
^[79]Indian Youth Telemental Health Demonstration Project Act of 2006
^[80]Border Death Reduction Act of 2006
^[81]Vote to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage.
^[82]Whereas for nearly two decades, the Government of Uganda has been engaged...
^[83]Indian Youth Telemental Health Demonstration Project Act of 2007
^[84]AgJOBS Act of 2007
^[85]Remarks at GOPAC dinner., Nov. 16, 2006.
^[86]Address at Ohio Wesleyan University, May 11, 1996.
^[87]Remarks at GOPAC dinner., Nov. 16, 2006.
^[88]GOP Debate, Feb. 16, 2000.
^[89]GOP Debate, Jan. 10, 2000.
^[90]GOP Debate, Dec. 13, 1999.
^[91]Project Vote Smart - Senator McCain
^[92]2000 Presidential Candidates' Positions on Charity, GuideStar.org

Barack Obama

2007-03-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

After looking at three straight candidates whose public service only included a single post (and two of the three only serving a single term in that post), a candidate with a long public service record presented a new challenge. While Obama is only in his third year on the national scene, he has been in public office for ten years, which makes quite a few bills to look through. On top of his length of service, Obama sponsored more bills in two years than John Edwards did in six, which made his record that much harder to detail in full. In order to keep myself from going insane referencing bills, I decided to summarize his service before the current term in the US Senate, and if you want a detailed breakdown of his bills before then you can go ahead and look at the links.

That being said, it's time to look at what he's done.

What does Barack Obama think about helping the poor?

Political History
Barack Obama was a State Senator in Illinois from 1997 until 2004 and the U.S. Senator from Illinois from 2005 until now.

Illinois State Senate

Voted to raise the state minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.50, helped pass a state Earned Income Tax Credit, then worked to make the tax credit permanent, sponsored a successful health care bill that implemented studies on how to make a universal state health care system, sponsored a measure to create an employment program for ex-criminals, and sponsored a bill that protected Illinois workers from federal rules that reduced overtime pay.¹
Amended state welfare reform bill to include studies that would track families who were on welfare and determine what happened to them when they left welfare.²
Also was the chief sponsor of bills that created job training programs^{3 4}, facilitated transportation aid for working welfare recipients^{5 6}, required city redevelopment plans to address fair employment and affordable housing impact⁷, expanded health care for families⁸, created community mental health councils across the state⁹, funded college education for low-income parents¹⁰, prevented utility companies from shutting off residents' heating during the winter¹¹, funded AIDS prevention in minority communities¹², and many others^{13 14 15 16}.

109^th Congress: 2005-2006

Sponsored bills increasing funding and allocations for Pell Grants¹⁷, extending services for homeless veterans¹⁸, increasing the ease with which volunteer medical forces are mobilized in the event of a disaster¹⁹, creating evacuation plans for individuals with special needs in the event of a disaster²⁰, allowing advance payments of the Child Tax Credit for Hurricane Katrina victims²¹, protecting communities (especially disadvantaged ones) adversely affected by environmental health issues^{22 23}, setting forth foreign policy objectives and providing aid for the Democratic Republic of Congo²⁴, increasing the refundable tax credit for people affected by Hurricane Katrina²⁵, relaxing work requirements for two-person families and disabled parents under TANF²⁶, providing comprehensive services for the continued recovery of Hurricane Katrina victims²⁷, establishing a reporting system for quality of care in VA hospitals²⁸ and hospitals in general²⁹, providing housing assistance for low-income veterans³⁰, and improving health and mental health benefits for veterans³¹. Only the bill providing aid for Congo became law.
Also sponsored amendments providing food and telephone services for veterans recuperating from injuries sustained in current wars³², contributing $13 million to the Special Court for Sierra Leone³³, increasing reintegration and job services for homeless veterans³⁴, guaranteeing wages in the temporary worker program³⁵, improving location services for missing persons in the event of a disaster³⁶, and ensuring the evacuation of persons with special needs in the event of a disaster³⁷. All of these amendments were agreed to in the Senate.
Cosponsored bills giving trade preferences to underdeveloped nations³⁸, extending health care to low-income HIV patients³⁹, improving conditions for immigrant farm laborers⁴⁰, proposing sanctions against those committing crimes against humanity in Darfur⁴¹, increasing resources to advocate for human rights and democracy in foreign countries⁴², reducing pregnancy-related deaths and infant mortality⁴³, improving emergency medical services for children⁴⁴, promoting financial education under TANF^{45 46}, increasing the minimum wage^{47 48}, reducing hunger in the United States⁴⁹, helping improve banks in developing countries⁵⁰, requiring a report on progress towards the Millennium Goals⁵¹, providing debt cancellation for poor countries⁵², promoting peace and accountability in Sudan⁵³, improving heath care for minorities^{54 55}, establishing a commission to improve response to disasters⁵⁶, providing relief for the immediate needs of Katrina victims^{57 58 59 60}, increasing the number of families who would qualify for the Child Tax Credit⁶¹, protecting Medicare enrollees in the federal drug program⁶², providing for workers for the Katrina recovery⁶³, expanding preferential trade treatment for Haiti⁶⁴, prohibiting racial profiling⁶⁵, making coal mines safer^{66 67}, making all immigrants eligible for Medicaid⁶⁸, establishing a national health program⁶⁹, tying the minimum wage to Congressional pay⁷⁰, improve services for homeless veterans⁷¹, promoting fatherhood and supporting stability in low-income families⁷², adding incentives for the employment of individuals in impoverished areas⁷³, fully funding health insurance programs for children⁷⁴, and creating a new educational grant for low-income high school students⁷⁵. The bills reducing infant mortality, promoting peace in Sudan, and protecting miners became law.
Also cosponsored resolutions assessing potential of a NATO no-fly zone in Darfur⁷⁶, imploring that Medicaid, Medicare, and federally-qualified health centers be continued and prioritized^{77 78 79}, pledging continued support for international hunger-relief efforts and expressing need for US leverage in securing more food aid⁸⁰, calling on the president to take immediate steps to protect civilians and stop violence in Darfur^{81 82}, and calling on the UN Security Council to condemn and sanction Burma for oppression of minorities ⁸³. The resolutions asking for action in Darfur and Burma were agreed upon in the Senate.
Also cosponsored amendments increasing medical care for veterans⁸⁴, restoring funding for the community block grants⁸⁵, maintain US support of the Global Fund⁸⁶, protecting Medicaid funding from cuts in impoverished areas⁸⁷, providing additional assistance to Haiti⁸⁸, providing additional assistance in Sudan⁸⁹, supplementing funding for international food assistance⁹⁰, imposing sanctions on those committing crimes against humanity in Sudan⁹¹, funding the Africa Union Mission in Sudan^{9299 93}, providing funds for legal services for Katrina victims⁹⁴, supporting small businesses and homeowners hurt by Katrina^{95 96}, funding low-income energy assistance programs ^{97 98 99}, increasing funding for educational programs for Hispanic students¹⁰⁰, providing tax relief for low-income families^{101 102 103}, establishing a congressional committee to examine the response to Katrina^{104 105}, proving tax incentives to increase miner safety¹⁰⁶, increasing funding for health, education, and low-income programs¹⁰⁷, increasing funding for health care for veterans^{108 109}, funding a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur¹¹⁰, funding the provision of health care to noncitizens¹¹¹, and requiring the president to develop a comprehensive strategy towards Somalia¹¹². The amendments supporting the Global Fund, protecting Medicaid from cuts, providing assistance to Haiti, providing assistance to Sudan, supplementing international food assistance, imposing sanctions against human rights violators in Sudan, funding the Africa Union Mission, funding legal services for Katrina victims, supporting small businesses hurt by Katrina, funding educational programs for Hispanic students, increasing miner safety, increasing funding for low-income programs, increasing outpatient care for veterans, and funding a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur were agreed to in the Senate.

110^th Congress: 2007-present

^th

Sponsored bills improving medical and mental health services for veterans of current wars¹¹³ and overseeing and improving health care in VA hospitals^{114 115}. He has also sponsored bills involving services for legal immigrants and funding for AIDS research that are not yet available online.
Also cosponsored bills increasing the minimum wage¹¹⁶, allowing more families to be eligible for the child tax credit¹¹⁷, improving agricultural jobs and benefits for immigrants¹¹⁸, extending and increasing Pell grants¹¹⁹, eliminating funding gaps in children's health insurance¹²⁰ and providing funding for local governments hurt by Katrina¹²¹. He has also cosponsored a bill improving education in the area hurt by Katrina that is not yet available online.

Statements About the Poor

¹²²

¹²³

¹²⁴

¹²⁵

¹²⁶

¹²⁷

¹²⁸

¹²⁹

¹³⁰

Private Life

Has a net worth over $2 million, the majority of which was made in '05/'06 due to proceeds from his books. Donated $77,000 to charity in 2005, mostly to literacy funds, AIDS action funds, and his church.¹³¹ Is writing a children's book with his wife and has pledged the profits to charity.
From 1985 to 1988, organized and directed a non-profit community development program that raised up local leaders in a low-income community and encouraged job training, college prep, school reform, and hazardous waste cleanup.
From 1993 until the present, worked as a lawyer specializing in civil rights and the representation of nonprofits in urban redevelopment, including housing developments, community health clinics, social service agencies, and schools.
While visiting Kenya, publicly took an HIV test to help dispel fears about the danger of such tests.
Chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the Woods Fund of Chicago, and the Joyce Foundation, directed the Developing Communities Project, and has been involved with ACORN, the Centers for New Horizons, Leadership for Quality Education, and the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law. Has also spoken on behalf of "Wake Up Wal-Mart", "Families USA", and the "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church".^{132 133}

It was more difficult to provide balance in this entry, mostly because it was difficult to find people criticizing Obama's commitment to the poor or show evidence that he is lacking in his commitment in one way or another. So if you find anything that I have overlooked, please post it. And even if you don't, share what you think about his record. Does Barack Obama hear the cry of the poor?

^[1]"A look at Obama's record in the Illinois Senate", Chicago Tribune, January 17, 2007.
^[2]"What the Data Actually Show About Welfare Reform", The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 21, 2002.
^[3]CHICAGO COLLEGES-JOB PROGRAM
^[4]DHS-TANF-JOB SKILLS TRAINING
^[5]PUB AID-JOB TRANSPORTATION
^[6]TRANSPORTATION TO WORK ACT
^[7]MUNI CD-TIF-AFFORDABLE HOUSING
^[8]CHILDRENS HLTH INS ADULT
^[9]MENTL HLTH-LOCL PLANNNG COUNCL
^[10]H ED FOR REAL OPPORTUNITIES
^[11]UTILITY NO WINTER TERMINATION
^[12]PUBLIC HLTH-AIDS-MINORITIES
^[13]Bills sponsored by Barack Obama, 90th General Assembly.
^[14]Bills sponsored by Barack Obama, 91st General Assembly.
^[15]Bills sponsored by Barack Obama, 92nd General Assembly.
^[16]Bills Sponsored by Barack Obama, 93rd General Assembly.
^[17]Higher Education Opportunity Through Pell Grant Expansion Act
^[18]SAVE Reauthorization Act of 2005
^[19]Hurricane Katrina Emergency Health Workforce Act of 2005
^[20]To ensure the evacuation of individuals with special needs in times of emergency.
^[21]Hurricane Katrina Fast-Track Refunds for Working Families Act of 2005
^[22]Healthy Communities Act of 2005
^[23]Healthy Places Act of 2006
^[24]Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006
^[25]Hurricane Katrina Working Family Tax Relief Act of 2006
^[26]Equality for Two-Parent Families Act of 2006
^[27]Hurricane Katrina Recovery Act of 2006
^[28]VA Hospital Quality Report Card Act of 2006
^[29]Hospital Quality Report Card Act of 2006
^[30]Homes for Heroes Act of 2006
^[31]Lane Evans Veterans Health and Benefits Improvement Act of 2006
^[32]Senate Amendment 390
^[33]Senate Amendment 1264
^[34]Senate Amendment 3144
^[35]Senate Amendment 3971
^[36]Senate Amendment 4573
^[37]Senate Amendment 4972
^[38]TRADE act of 2005
^[39]Early Treatment for HIV Act of 2005
^[40]Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2005
^[41]Darfur Accountability Act of 2005
^[42]ADVANCE Democracy Act of 2005
^[43]PREEMIE Act
^[44]Wakefield Act
^[45]TANF Financial Education Promotion Act of 2005
^[46]TANF Economic and Financial Education Promotion Act of 2006
^[47]Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005
^[48]Tax Relief and Minimum Wage Act of 2006
^[49]Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2006
^[50]Development Bank Reform and Authorization Act of 2005
^[51]International Cooperation to Meet the Millennium Development Goals Act of 2005
^[52]Multilateral Debt Relief Act of 2005
^[53]Darfur Peace and Accountability Act of 2005
^[54]Healthcare Equality and Accountability Act
^[55]Minority Health Improvement and Health Disparity Elimination Act
^[56]To establish a congressional commission to examine...
^[57]Katrina Emergency Relief Act of 2005
^[58]Hurricane Katrina Bankruptcy Relief and Community Protection Act of 2005
^[59]Oversight of Vital Emergency Recovery Spending Enhancement and Enforcement Act of 2005
^[60]Gulf Coast Infrastructure Redevelopment and Recovery Act of 2005
^[61]Working Family Child Assistance Act
^[62]The Medicare Informed Choice Act of 2005
^[63]Rebuild With Respect Act
^[64]Haiti Economic Recovery Opportunity Act
^[65]ERPA
^[66]Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 2006
^[67]MINER Act
^[68]To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to repeal the amendments...
^[69]Small Employers Health Benefits Program Act of 2006
^[70]Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act of 2006
^[71]Comprehensive Homeless Veterans Assistance and Prevention Act of 2006
^[72]Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2006
^[73]To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to alleviate poverty by encouraging the employment...
^[74]Education Opportunity Act
^[76]Calling on NATO to assess...
^[77]Sense of Congress with respect to MediCaid
^[78]Sense of Congress with respect to MediCare
^[79]Sense of Congress with respect to federally-qualified health centers
^[80]Whereas although there is enough food to feed all of the people in the world
^[81]Calling on the President to take immediate steps to help improve the security situation in Darfur...
^[82]Calling on the President to take immediate steps to help stop the violence in Darfur.
^[83]Sense of Senate regarding military junta in Burma...
^[84]Senate Amendment 149
^[85]Senate Amendment 156
^[86]Senate Amendment 169
^[87]Senate Amendment 204
^[88]Senate Amendment 342
^[89]Senate Amendment 368
^[90]Senate Amendment 380
^[91]Senate Amendment 517
^[92]Senate Amendment 1290
^[93]Senate Amendment 4912
^[94]Senate Amendment 1659
^[95]Senate Amendment 1695
^[96]Senate Amendment 1717
^[97]Senate Amendment 2033
^[98]Senate Amendment 2077
^[99]Senate Amendment 2194
^[100]Senate Amendment 2262
^[101]Senate Amendment 2616
^[102]Senate Amendment 2652
^[103]Senate Amendment 2665
^[104]Senate Amendment 1660
^[105]Senate Amendment 2716
^[106]Senate Amendment 2728
^[107]Senate Amendment 3048
^[108]Senate Amendment 3007
^[109]Senate Amendment 3642
^[110]Senate Amendment 3777
^[111]Senate Amendment 4072
^[112]Senate Amendment 4526
^[113]Lane Evans Veterans Health and Benefits Improvement Act of 2007
^[114]VA Hospital Quality Report Card Act of 2007
^[115]Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act of 2007
^[116]Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007
^[117]Working Family Child Assistance Act
^[118]AgJOBS Act of 2007
^[119]Student Debt Relief Act of 2007
^[120]Keep Children Covered Act of 2007
^[121]Local Government Disaster Relief Act of 2007
^[122]Keynote Address, 2004 Democratic National Convention.
^[123]Keynote Address, 2004 Democratic National Convention.
^[124]"Renewal of American Leadership", July 12, 2004 Press Release.
^[125]"Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007", Speech to Senate, Jan. 30, 2007.
^[126]Keynote Address, "Call to Renewal" conference, June 28, 2006.
^[127]Keynote Address, "Call to Renewal" conference, June 28, 2006.
^[128]"LATIN AMERICA", Speech to Senate, Mar. 8, 2007.
^[129]Selma Voting Rights March Commemoration Speech, March 4, 2007.
^[130]World AIDS Day Speech2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church, December 1, 2006.
^[131]"For Obamas, it was a very good year", The Chicago Tribune, Sept. 26, 2006.
^[132]"What Makes Obama Run?", Chicago Reader, Dec. 8, 1995.
^[133]Project Vote Smart Biography.

Rudy Giuliani

2007-03-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

I thought this was going to be a simple one to write. I hadn't heard much about Giuliani and the poor, other than that he is not the most compassionate person and that he instigated a crackdown on crime that included a crackdown on the homeless. When I started doing research, however, I found that there are two sides to the story, and his work in addressing poverty issues while in office was more significant than I had been led to believe. That doesn't mean he did the right thing, or that he even really cares for the poor. Just that I judged quicker than I should have.

But I'll let you decide for yourself.

What does Rudy Giuliani think about helping the poor?

Political History
Rudy Giuliani was Mayor of New York City for two terms, from 1994 to 2001.

Started a “workfare” program even before national welfare reform was passed. In the first year of reform 20% of welfare recipients were cut off due to fraud. Over the course of reform the number of New Yorkers on welfare was reduced from over 1,100,000 to under 500,000.¹ All welfare offices were converted into job centers and able-bodied recipients were required to work at least 20 hours/week to get benefits. According to some sources, 100,000 welfare recipients are finding jobs every year.² Many opponents saw the improvements as cosmetic and felt that real opportunity did not occur for those in the workfare program. ³
In 1999, began a crackdown on homelessness, increasing police activity against homeless people who were breaking the law and requiring able-bodied, mentally stable adults in shelters to work. Some activists complained of massive harassment without cause of the homeless population.⁴ Giuliani defended the police work as a compassionate program to address the specific needs of the homeless.⁵ Some sources claimed that homelessness decreased, and gave credit to Giuliani’s reforms in city programs and shelters.⁶ Others claimed that the homeless population in NYC increased by 50% from 1998 to 2002.⁷
Despite the major downturn in welfare enrollment, the poverty rate did not change significantly while Giuliani was in office. However, certain segments of the population may have become less vulnerable to falling back into poverty.⁸
Set up Heath*Stat in New York City, a program designed to ensure that everyone who was eligible for health care would actually get it. In the next year, 140,000 New Yorkers were enrolled in health care programs as a result.⁹
Strongly defended the “zone of protection” for all undocumented immigrants in New York who were seeking the protection of the police, receiving medical care, or trying to enroll their children in school.¹⁰
Reformed foster care system to increase local control, campaigned for permanent homes for foster kids, and took credit for a 65% increase in adoptions that occurred in his second term.^{11 12}
Final State of the City address included plans for a new foster parent drive, new adoption goals, several funded initiatives for increasing enrollment in health care plans, subsidized jobs for people whose welfare time was expiring, and a $1.2 billion housing plan.¹³

Statements About the Poor

¹⁴

¹⁵

¹⁶

¹⁷

¹⁸

¹⁹

Private Life

In 1982, argued as the Associate Attorney General that there was no political repression in Haiti under their “president-for-life” Jean-Claude Duvalier and that Haitian refugees should be returned to their country.²⁰ Duvalier was overthrown by a popular uprising three years later.
Most of his wealth is in private holdings that he has not disclosed, so it is unclear what his net worth is. He earned $16 million last year, mostly from speaking fees, his investment firm, and his law and lobbying firm.²¹ He has recently sold his bank, which may have been worth as much as $100 million.²² His charitable giving is unclear. Giuliani critic Wayne Barrett claims that his tax returns from the 80s show almost no charitable deductions,²³ but I haven’t found corroborating evidence (and it’s clear that he has donated to charities on occasion since then).
In 2005, Giuliani publicly stated that he was donating $20,000 to the South Asian tsunami victims while speaking at a fundraiser for that cause. It was later revealed that he was being paid $100,000 to speak at the fundraiser.²⁴ Under pressure, Giuliani later donated another $60,000 of the money to the charity. Giuliani has often accepted large speaking fees and other perks to speak at charity events, sometimes earning more than the net intake of the event.²⁵
Supports Tuesday’s Children, runs the Twin Towers fund, works with Changing Our World, Inc. and helps raise support for the St. Vincent’s Medical Centers.²⁶ There has been controversy over his management of the Twin Towers fund.²⁷

Because of the ferocity of opinions of both sides, I suggest you take a look at a few of the sources to see why people are so divided over Giuliani. Is he finding the best solutions to really help people, or destroying their lives? Does Rudy Giuliani hear the cry of the poor?

^[1]"Transforming Welfare and Expanding Opportunity", Mayor's Weekly Column, July 9, 2001.
^[2]"Giuliani the Conservative", Wall Street Journal editorial, Feb. 27, 2007.
^[3]"Workfare and the Nonprofits?", www.sullivan-county.com, Dec. 1997
^[4]"Giuliani's Message To Homeless -- No Room For You On City's Streets", Pacific News Service, Nov. 23, 1999.
^[5]"Addressing, not Ignoring, Homelessness", Mayor's Message, Dec. 5, 1999.
^[6]"Rudy's right and Rosie's wrong", Salon.com News, Jan. 4, 2000.
^[7]"Homelessness in America", Safety Net, Spring 2002.
^[8]"Poverty in New York, 2002", Community Service Society, September 30, 2003.
^[9]"Building on our Record of Success in Public Health", Mayor's Weekly Column, August 20, 2001.
^[10]"Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996", Speech delivered on Sep. 11, 1996.
^[11]Biography of
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, www.nyc.gov.
^[12]"Honoring Our City's Foster Parents", Mayor's Weekly Column, May 22, 2000.
^[13]State of the City Address, Jan. 9, 2001.
^[14]State of the City Address, Jan. 14, 1999.
^[15]"New Urban Agenda", speech delivered on Sep. 29, 1997.
^[16]State of the City Address, Jan. 14, 1999.
^[17]State of the City Address, Jan. 13, 2000.
^[18]State of the City Address, Jan. 13, 2000.
^[19]State of the City Address, Jan. 14, 1999.
^[20]"U.S. Official Finds No Repression in Haiti ", The New York Times, April 3, 1982.
^[21]"Rudy Inc., or Rudy sink?", New York Daily News, Jan. 7, 2007.
^[22]"Giuliani sells bank in presidential campaign move", www.msnbc.msn.com, Mar. 5, 2007
^[23]Rudy!: An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani, 2000.
^[24]"Giuliani fee for speaking at tsunami charity: $100k, private jet", www.rawstory.com, Feb. 16, 2007.
^[25]"Giuliani speaking fees draw scrutiny", Chicago Tribune, Feb. 7, 2007.
^[26]"Giuliani Town", Manhattan Society Report, Nov. 6, 2005.
^[27]"Giuliani to Give Money Quickly In Shift on Twin Towers Charity ", The New York Times, Feb. 27, 2002.

Food for the Poor

2007-03-09T08:29:00.000-08:00

Future funding levels for food programs are being debated in Congress right now, and there has been a worrisome development.

First of all, the Bush Administration has proposed cutting funding to CSFP, a supplemental food program that provides food for low-income seniors. Just here at St. Margaret's, about 125 seniors are assisted every month through the program.

The Administration actually proposed the cut last year as well, but Congress maintained funding.

The Farm Bill is also being debated in Congress right now. Among other things, the Farm Bill provides funding for food programs like Food Stamps and the Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP). The funding level for the next five years is being debated. Food Banks are asking for an increase in funding because the USDA hasn't been supplementing the EFAP program at the level that they used to. There are reports that new policies being debated may cut many people off of food stamps as well.

Our food programs (at the charity I work for) rely heavily on CSFP and EFAP, and many of our clients also rely on food stamps. Please spread the word on the need for these programs, and think about calling your congressman and/or senator to let your voice on the issue be heard.

For more information on CSFP, see this America's Second Harvest press release. For more information on the Farm Bill and how to be active in it, see the FRAC web site.