remember.

While the poverty around us seems to be unchanging, coming to terms with it shifts as often as the seasons.

Sometimes, we feel "used" to it.  We've made our peace, poverty and I, and I know how to address it and how to think about it and how to "deal" with it.  When "A" happens, I do "B".   When "C" comes up, I address it with "D."  I'm always praying for help and wisdom.  

But other times, a puzzling or heartbreaking situation breaks down my equations, or His Word or a book or blog or email or prayer seems to put me back at ground zero.

What in the world do I do with all this poverty?

How does my child sit next to her child at school, and my child doesn't like what I fixed for dinner, and her child's never HAD dinner?

How do I frustrate over every single rain flooding our living room, and my neighbors put their feet off their pallets into 12 inches of mud, sewage, garbage and rain water?

How do I fire a women who undoubtably needs fired, but whom is pregnant...lives in a mud/stick hut...kids look like stick figures?

How do I drive past hundreds, hundreds, in a car that costs more than 5 homes?

If asked for help 10 times a day, how do I know when to say yes and how to say no?

A combination of the Cadet situation, a talk on the carpool and having Dr. Thorton here has me back to baffled.

I just want to do what God wants me to do.  And what in the world is that?

Cadet has come four times now in 7 days for money.  First, for her kids.  Then, to go to the doctor.  Then, to go to Ti-Boss's funeral.  Yesterday, to go to the doctor again.

When she popped in yesterday, no longer interested whatsoever in listening or talking about Jesus or anything much else for that matter, a dawning of the "D" word crept in.

Dependency.  Did I somehow between sharing the Gospel/being heartbroken by her situation/trying to be faithful to The Word go from "moved" and "compassion" to "creating unhealthy dependency"?

I know that before last week, somehow, Cadet was making it.  Not doing well, by any means.  But, making it.  And suddenly, every second day, every need or even want, she's knocking at my office.

Am I helping her? Truly?  Am I hurting her?  Am I empowering her?  Belittling her?  Loving her?  Satisfying my discomfort?  Advancing His kingdom?

I have the money.  I could say yes every time.  I could give her $20 every single day, and my children would still not go hungry.  So, should I say yes every time?

If not, how do I say NO to a dying woman???  Sitting in my office with flies settling upon her gaunt skin, as if she were already dead.  I have in my office alone enough resources between my laptop, chair, printer and stapler to sustain her and her two little ones for a while.

And yet, suddenly she is reduced to come to the foreigner every two days, drawn by the money--not the relationship--forced to uncomfortably ask (though asking in this culture is not the same as asking in mine), forced to walk past dozens of people who know why she's here.

Then there's the "carpool", a group of about 20 or so little ones that we shuttle back and forth to school each day.  Here was my thinking:  here's all these little kids who have to walk through the mud almost two miles each morning and afternoon to go to school.  I was friends with--or am now--with some of their mothers.  Our kids always had a ride.  We had to take our kids anyway.  

So, why not take ALL the kids?  Which many days, is over 20-25 children.  Pick them up, drop them off, pay for the gas, constantly muddy up the truck, no big deal.  It's the only right thing to do.  Right?

But then I'm standing out front, waiting, and notice that one of my friends, a motorcycle taxi driver, gave me the cultural cold shoulder.  He knew I saw him.  I knew he knew I saw him.  But he didn't acknowledge me.  

So, instead of ignoring it, I walked over with Sofie and forced him to talk to me.  Asked about his kids, his family, how things were going.

"Not good!" he said.  "They're not going well at ALL."

He's usually quite a chipper friend, Matheiu is, so I pursued.

Turns out, he's not making ends meet.  Not finding the money, the work, to pay for his kids to be in school.  To feed his family.  He's in trouble.

Know why?

Cause he had a contract last year for three of the families who now get a free ride with me.  He picked up and dropped off their kids on his motorcycle every single day.  And got paid every Friday.  There ARE no other kids in Saccanville going off to school.  They ALL ride with me. 

I took his job.  Without ever thinking of him, or his kids.  Cause it was the "only" right thing to do.

And then there's Dr. Thorton, who has studied and served in cultures and anthropology his whole life who's saying wisely over breakfast with a child climbing up my leg and egg smeared on my skirt, "Wait, girl.  Wait.  Much damage has been done by jumping to respond.  Think.  Analyze.  Pray.  Make sure what you're doing, every time, is what is best...not just firing away at the problem before thinking."

I think of Galatians 2, one of the many passages I've poured over over the years to find a response to these questions.

Remember the poor, Paul says.  Remember.

What does that mean?

First of all, "the poor" will never again be "the poor" to our little family.  I don't remember "the poor".  I remember Cadet.  I remember Ta-Ta.  I remember Pehpay, Ezekiel, Enick, Micheline.  Baby Thalia.  I remember every man, woman and child in this muddy village.  I remember the hands I touched days after the earthquake.

I can't forget the poor anymore.  I can't even close my eyes and forget for a second, because it is all around me and I am in the middle.  I am the exception here.  I'M the 10% of the world living in the 90%.  Am I to dig out a bill for every person on my path? Is that the very best thing?  Or is there perhaps MORE--something more difficult than giving--to remembering?

When I ask YOU to remember US, my little family, what do I mean?

Well, sometimes it means help us.  Sure.  We very much so rely upon your support.  But most often, I mean THINK of US.  I mean, PRAY for us.  I mean, make us a part of your day, praying for us a part of your schedule, loving us a part of your family activities.  I mean pray for my girls in the morning when you pray for yours.  I mean send me a Christmas card.  I mean email me that verse that made you think of me, tell me what's happening in your life, ask me to pray for you.  I mean love us.  Remember us.

When asked to "remember the poor", is it possible that we're not just talking about remembering to send off our $24 dollars a month for our World Vision child, not just tying a string around our finger to give the kids' old coats to the Sally's?  Maybe not saying sweep their children off to school, maybe not saying to give every time?  I don't know.

Thorton says this in another crazy moment as I'm trying hard to make mental notes.  "Go.  Live with the people.  Learn from the people.  Love the people.  Work and play with the people.  Start with what they know.  Build with what they have.  And when the work is done, and the tasks are accomplished, the people will say, We have done this ourselves."

In case you haven't noticed, I don't have a lot of answers here.  Just more to think about.  More we need to think about.

Remember us.  Remember the poor.

What does that mean to you?