Conversations

God’s Economics

A few weeks ago I woke up thinking about a dear friend and felt that I should send her $200. Knowing that we were living on the remnants of our MCC Resettlement Allowance until we received Peter’s first paycheck, I thought it best to check with Peter if it was OK to do this. Peter’s first response was, “Do you think it is a God thing?” Sometimes God is not easily recognizable for me, especially when it is just a thought that seems to come from your own mind, but I had a hunch that it was a God thing. “If so,” Peter replied, “we should double it.” So with joy and excitement, I put a check for $400 into the mail for our dear friend. A few days later, I received an email from her and a story which doubled my joy. This is what she wrote about sharing this news with her sweet beau:

“When I showed him the card he said, "Amazing..." After a pause he said, "You know the strangest thing? This morning when I woke up, I felt God telling me to send $200 to Sandra." He donated bone marrow to Sandra 6 years ago and they have stayed in regular contact since then. She and her husband are farmers in Alabama. They lost their home to a tornado just a few months ago and he has been wondering how he might be a tangible support. God told him $200.”

Thrilling to say the least! But then here is the icing on the cake: a few days later we received a letter in the mail from the US Government with a tax return for $800, double the amount we had originally given. How fun is that? We haven’t paid taxes in years, not making enough money to have to do so but we did this year so that we would have documentation and lo and behold, we got money back! I can just imagine God giggling about this distribution of resources from the US government to California to Washington to Alabama!

God and Country

There are many adjustments Brendan has to make at his new American school: no uniform, spelling labor with no ‘u’, different handwriting regulations, the sheer number of students on the playground during recess. But what struck him most during the first few weeks was the patriotism. Daily, the class had to recite the Preamble to the US Constitution, say the Pledge of Allegiance, and sing all three verses of Yankee Doodle. This was a bit of a shock to our son who has spent four years living in Africa and two in Europe. Granted, he is in fifth grade which is the year designated to study US History. But the full force of patriotism left him a bit confused. This led to an interesting discussion he and I had about the merits and pitfalls of patriotism. While it is good to appreciate one’s country of origin and recognize the good things that place has to offer, sometimes patriotism can make one blind to the good of other countries. The belief that one’s own country is the best and can do no wrong can lead to hurting the people of other countries.

Later, when relating this conversation to Peter, he nodded thoughtfully and suggested that a way to further expand Brendan’s understanding would be to note that as Christians, we are primarily citizens of another kingdom, God’s kingdom. Therefore our loyalty is to God and we pledge our allegiance to God and to following in the way of Jesus. Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Gee, it is good to have a theologian in the family. Too bad he wasn’t around when that topic of conversation came up. It was easy enough to revisit the conversation with Brendan and take it to another level. And my guess is that we will have plenty more opportunities to wrestle with this issue together.

Gratitude

Despite our hope to live simply, we have been accumulating quite a bit of stuff. The boys, enamored with smooth sidewalks, love riding their skateboard, ripstick, scooter, and bikes around the block. We also purchased a used trampoline so that Jason can get his endless energy out and they can both perfect their flips. The latest purchase was an aluminum soccer goal which had the boys flying high. I think it will last longer than the makeshift goal we had in our front yard in Zambia made of scrap lumber and old fencing. With all these toys to play with, Jason asked if I ever wished I was a kid now instead of when I was small because there is so much more stuff now. I commented that there are fun things to do now (I secretly love Wii bowling, oops, not so secret now) but it was also great when I was a kid. There was lots of time to rollerskate, read, form clubs, do cartwheels on the front lawn, make a city in a sandbox and catch crickets to reside in it, climb trees and play hide-and-go seek. I told the boys that one of the things that we wanted to give them in Africa was a childhood where they had room to explore, to play, to be creative, to run free. Brendan thoughtfully replied, “You did give me a good childhood. I liked being in Africa and all the things I got to do there. Thank you.” HE ACTUALLY SAID THANK YOU! He thanked us already for his childhood in Africa! I didn’t expect that for another decade at least. I was all ready for delayed gratification but I didn’t have to wait so long this time around.