Who are the poor?

Yesterday I had a tremendous opportunity to chat with a man who has been serving as a doctor in Kenya for 13 out of the past 18 years.  We talked about the culture, climate, people, & history of Kenya and Rwanda and had a chance to hear his heart about the differences between African culture and American culture.  At one point I asked him about how we try to communicate the “state of emergency” in Africa to our fellow U.S. residents in an earnest and sincere way without trying to bang them with guilt.  In his wisdom he said the first thing you have to get in your head is the answer to this question: “Who are the poor?”  He acknowledged that they certainly have less food, water, medical treatment, education, and economic infrastructure…. but they have far more sense of community, relationship, and generosity.  He went on to discuss things that affirmed that we (in the United States) are, in fact, the poor.

He shared the story of an area of Kenya that he served in where they went about 18 months without rain and lost all of the cattle that they had – which was their only source of food.  In a response to that situation, some U.S. aid was sent to the region and this man brought it to the residents.  However, the census calculation was wrong and more food was sent than what was really needed.  They were trying to provide 3 months of food using half-rations… instead there was about 50% extra.  Enough for either an extra month of half-rations or an increase in the rations.  Certainly this was cause for celebration by those residents.  However, in an act of unabashed generosity, the residents told him to bring the extra rations to the neighboring villages.  They fully realized that these half-rations would only last 3 months with no guarantee of food beyond that… but they shared what little they had to help their neighbors. 

Back in the U.S., last night someone was sharing the story of their friend who was so excited because they finally were able to move into a new home in a very exclusive neighborhood.  Am I judging them as individuals… no (at least I’m trying hard not to).  Am I furious that we live in a system that the desire for “more for self” is the cultural norm… yeah.  I’m furious that I watch TV and see that if I buy a $50,000 car I will be happier than ever imagined; that I can open a magazine and be told that I can be the “talk of the neighborhood” if I own this $2,000 gas grill.

So who are the poor?  As I look at my relationships, sense of community, & stuff and then compare with other cultures, I’ve never felt more poor in my life.

Kivuruga

Today, I had a details meeting with our representatives from World Vision who is our partner is building a relationship with the people of Kivuruga, Rwanda.  We were able to discuss specifics of the partnership and discussed in more detail the community we will be partnering with.  Kivuruga (pronounced Keev-ur-ooh-ga) is about 35,000 people (roughly the same population as Isanti County) which is comprised of small towns & villages.  Many issues face these residents, but their primary concerns are in the area of HIV/AIDS care & education, agricultural enhancements, and reconciliation & healing (most of which is related to the carryover from the genocide that happened about 15 years ago stemming from the Civil War between the Hutus & Tutsis).

As we get to know the region better and hear stories about these residents, I’m already developing a love & compassion for these people I’ve never met.  I have received 50 child sponsorship packages in the mail and have been looking through the pictures of these kids of different ages, genders, hopes, & gifts.  I am struck with the realization that the only difference between my kids (and their abundance) and these kids (and their lack) is a geography issue — mine happened to be born in one of the wealthiest countries there is.  If my child had as little as these young Rwandans, I would be devastated… but until a couple of years ago I didn’t give it any thought.  What a gift and a burden to have the realization that there are such extremes in this world.

I’m excited to go forward (now about 38 days away) and see what becomes of this entire effort.  Our fundraising is not yet complete, but we’ve seen a number of great partners come forward to invest in this project (you know who you are – THANK YOU).  If you are interested in sponsoring a child before we go over to Rwanda, there is a chance I will be able to meet your child and take pictures of them, their families, & their home (I can’t guarantee this, but I would try to make this happen).  So, if you are thinking of sponsoring a child in Kivuruga, we could set that up ahead of time and then I could try to meet them (and likely bring them a small gift on your behalf).

Thanks to all of you who have provided encouragement and financial support; it means a lot to me and us.  Please mark your calendars for December 3rd – we’re not sure of the exact time & location, but we are going to have an all-community-invited event to officially launch Our Response; we will be sharing from our trip and inviting people to join in this community wide effort. Also, we are expecting a significant article in the Isanti County News in late September / early October so watch out for that!

About 45 days to go

The reality of our trip is starting to sink in; we have our flights, passports, shots, & in the process of getting visas.  Although we are still 45 days out, at the same time we are only 45 days out.  There are still a lot of details to figure out (for example, I found out I’ll need to wear khaki pants while in Rwanda – no shorts!).  If any of you have ever seen me sweat in 50 degree weather, it might get ugly in Rwanda… but I’m sure it’s a “dry heat”.  Actually the weather right now is about what we have here… mid 80’s, lows in the mid 60’s; about 75 percent humidity.  Not too bad… but I still want to wear shorts!  

Thanks to those of you who have decided to partner with us in this adventure.  The total cost for the four of us with the cost of the trip, lodging, airfare, local transportation, meals, shots, etc will end up around $15,000.  So far we have partners for $8,400 which we are very excited and grateful for… but we still have another $6,600 to go.  Frankly, we are excited to get the fundraising for the trip behind us so we can start doing the fundraising for the cash that will go directly to that community. The trip is a huge step because it is an investment in building relationships for the next 15 years as we work hard to see the transformation of Kivuruga.  Our goal is to funnel over $1 million into Kivuruga over the next 10 years and we feel trip is a necessary part of building that awareness and momentum.   If you would like to financially partner for the trip, send a check to “Our Response” with the attention to Steve Fredlund, 31465 Cedar Crest Trail NE, North Branch, MN 55056.

We are also expecting to get Child Sponsorship packets within the next two weeks for people to sponsor children in Kivuruga through World Vision… the cost is $35/month for each child sponsored.  The four of us will have the huge privilege of getting to meet the children we sponsor while we are over there.  We are also going to try to arrange a visit with all children that have been sponsored through the connection with Our Response; we would then be able to take pictures of them, their families, and where they live.  If you are interested in sponsoring a child and would like to start that prior to our trip, contact me… I can’t guarantee we’ll get to speak with your child, but we will certainly try.  I could also bring a picture and/or letter to them from you and hand deliver it (I have to verify if I can bring a gift, etc, on your behalf, but I believe I can).

We are starting to build momentum and getting opportunities to share this effort with local groups.  I will be at a local chamber event on October 24th with a table and the opportunity to do a 20 minute presentation; I will also be at First Baptist Church of Cambridge during their Sunday School hour on their Vision Mission Sunday showing people how they can get involved.  Our other trip team members will be involved in other activities such as a group of Senior Adults, a youth group, a gathering of East Central Minnesota clergy, and other opportunities.  We are tentatively planning a December 3rd event (time/place TBD) that will serve as the official community-wide launch of Our Response.  We will be building momentum into that and inviting the community to come and participate.  We will be asking for donations and sponsorships at that event!  If you are a planner of any kind and would like to help plan that event or with details of the other events, let me know. I do have a couple people already interested so we can hopefully create a team to do this.  Also, if you have influence to create an opportunity for us to share our story in front of a group, please let us know… we are willing to go about anywhere to share our story, raise awareness, and hopefully get more people & resources involved.

Finally, if your belief system includes prayer, we would love for you to pray for us and our safety as well as all the details of the trip.

Thanks for your engagement and support.

Violation of human dignity

What do you think of when someone calls something a “violation of human dignity”?  What emotion does it stir up on you to think someone may have their dignity violated?  What if it were your dignity that were violated.  Sounds quite awful… to not only have a violation of our “stuff” but of our “dignity.”  

These are the words the United Nations used to define poverty.  Consider the entire definition:  “Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices & opportunities, a violation of human dignity.  It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society.  It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit.  It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities.  It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation.”

At the World Summit on Social Development, Absolute Poverty was defined as “A condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information.  It depends not only on income, but also on access to services.”  There are 7 standards laid out for “severe deprivation” related to food, water, sanitation, health, shelter, education, & information… if an individual meets at least two of these thresholds, they are considered to be living in absolute poverty.  These are not simply lacking luxury type of things– for example, the severe deprivation of sanitation facilities means there is NO ACCESS to a toilet of any kind in the vicinity of their dwelling (no private or communal toilets or latrines).

I’ve shared before that 1 billion people live on less than $1/day and half the world (2.6 billion) live on less than $2/day.  These are numbers used by the World Bank (largely because it is much more measurable).  But because income (especially in US terms) can mean so many different things in different areas, the UN adopted some of the definitions above to help understand the magnitude of poverty in our world.  Although difficult to quantity, all estimates are over 1 billion people that live in “absolute poverty.”  We are not talking about people that can’t afford to enclose their porch or get season tickets in the new Twins stadium. We are talking about 1 billion people who have no concept of running water near their home, much less water that is disease free.  1 billion people that don’t know what it’s like to go poop in a toilet, have something to wipe with, and then flush it down so it’s not just sitting their near their homes where the kids play.  1 billion people who have no concept of what it means to get an immunization against a common disease.  

It’s shocking.  It’s an emergency.  And we have understated this problem way too long.  This is unacceptable.  You now have some information…. you are aware that if you make $25,000 per year you make more money than 95% of the world; if $50,000 year, you make more than 99% of the world’s people.  You have some of the facts; you’ve heard some of the stories.  So the question I will keep asking is this:  What is your response…. what is Our Response?  It’s one thing when we don’t know… it’s a whole different deal when we know.  And now we do.  How will we respond?

Blowin’ smoke

I love to fish.  There is something about it that just allows me to decompress from the pressures of life.  95% of the time I fish I do so from shore because I only have an hour or so, but both last year and this year, my Father-in-law has generously lent us his small aluminum Lund boat and last year I bought an old 4 horsepower Evinrude motor to get me around a little bit.  Well, at the end of last year it started overheating after about 3-5 minutes of running and that has continued this year.  So, Sunday afternoon I decided I would hit the lake for about 4 hours and just get as far onto the lake as I could before overheating (going as fast as a 4 horse motor will go — rowing is often faster).  Anyway, I show up at Big Horshoe lake (note that “big” is relative to “little” rather than relative to most other lakes).  I unload the boat right next to a huge, docked pontoon boat with a 200hp motor – sweet deal.  As I’m unloading I start talking to the guy and find out that his battery is dead and just needs to get his pontoon about 100 yards down the shore to the dock where he lives.  He was wondering if I would tow him.

I told him that all I had was a 4hp motor which overheats about 3 minutes into running; but he had a number of kids wanting to go on a pontoon ride and all he had to do was get it over to that dock.  I said, “sure, let’s give it a shot.”  So we did.  My motor was smoking about half way there and died & seized up about 30 yards from his dock.  I was able to pull on the rope to get him some momentum, throw him an oar, and he made it the rest of the way.  After getting my oar back I was able to paddle away from shore a little bit and fish for a few hours.  Once the motor cooled down I was able to get back to shore and end my day.  

That story is not very exciting in and of itself (I have others such as a lost 50″ northern or musky, getting shipwrecked in a pontoon, having a northern bite into a bass I was reeling in, etc) but it made me think of something related to Our Response.  There are many times in my life when I have so much going on that I feel like that 4-horse Evinrude that only has about 3 minutes left in it before it will start over-heating; I just know that if I try to do something I’m gonna start smokin’ and seize up.  This is my life without Our Response.  I work at New Hope Community Church officially 36 hours (yeah, right), I do adjunct teaching at both Bethel University & St. Mary’s University, and I’m trying to manage the rest of life with a wife, 3 kids, bills to pay, soccer games to get to, etc.  So I feel like the little Evinrude… cranking as best I can with the horsepower I have.  And then comes along the burden of global poverty and the call to Rwanda.  It’s like the huge pontoon that my Evinrude is being asked to pull.  I don’t see how it’s possible for my motor to be involved in, much less lead a community-wide effort to connect with an area of Rwanda and transition that community into self-sustainability.  But the call to Rwanda, for me, is exactly like the pontoon on the dock… it is absolutely something I need to do regardless of my concern for overheating.  

Some people will tell me I’m crazy for taking that on, just like some will tell me I was crazy for tugging that huge pontoon with my overheating Evinrude.  But what we put our hands to in life is something each of us must wrestle with individually; it’s not about comparing ourselves to each other or judging what someone else should or should not be doing.  It is about getting up in the morning, looking in the mirror and feeling like you are living in a way that adequately reflects how you feel you were wired to live; it’s about putting your head down at night feeling you fully lived.  It is not possible to judge that in anyone else; it is only possible to know the feeling inside ourselves.  

PS – any good & cheap small engine folks out there?  This is for the motor, not me…

Priorities

Last week our minivan blew a head gasket.  Today, the 3rd of our 4 windows in our car stopped working and now won’t roll up.  In the morning, instead of celebrating our anniversary, I will be tearing apart the door so I can pull the window up and then I’ll probably drill a hole & screw in something to lock the window up so it won’t fall down anymore – just like the back two windows.  After that, we will go shopping for some cheap van to get us by for another couple of years.  It is times like these that we want to go against the manner in which we’ve chosen to live; it’s times like these that we feel entitled to purchase a newer vehicle with a loan and enjoy something where everything works (doors, windows, air conditioning, heater, etc).  We could make this happen; but there are a couple of things that keep us from making this sort of move.  The first is that the central person in our faith commanded us to be wise stewards with all we have been given and to live a life that participates in the redemption of this world through helping widows & orphans and giving cold cups of water – we are never commanded to have luxury when others have nothing.  The second thing that keeps me from buying the new vehicle I could argue I deserve are the faces and stories of those we are compelled to help in Rwanda.  Taking on a car payment of $250/month is the equivalent to saying no to about 7 children who could be sponsored with part of that money giving them all they need and part of it going toward enhancing the standard of living for the community of Kivuruga, Rwanda.  I’ve reached a point in my faith and my convictions, where driving in that vehicle would haunt me with images of those 7 kids.

Every day we make decisions on how we will spend our time, our money, and our energy.  We must be aware that everything we say “yes” to means we are saying “no” to something else. One of the greatest things we can do is to take the time to assess our lives, but first to start from a blank sheet of paper and ask the following question: “What are my priorities in life for how I spend my time, money, & energy.”  Then, take a look at how the priorities line up with the realities.  And I would personally challenge you to strongly evaluate any system of priorities that puts personal “luxury” (however you define that) over others necessities.  Consider the question: What could possibly be the reason we have been given the amount of financial resource we have been given?  Simply coincidence? Dumb luck?

For a minute, try to pretend you were born in Rwanda living in extreme poverty.  How would you survive day to day?  What options do you have for money?  How would you feel if you found out that Americans spent $54 billion last year on soda pop?  The US population is about 300 million people – so that is about $180 per person per year on pop.  Consider that the average income for a resident of Rwanda for 2008 was $370. 

I recognize my journey is not everyone’s journey; but my challenge to you is to consider your priorities in life and consider how the priority for your own luxury compares to your priorities for other people’s necessities.  This is not a specific “ask” for Our Response – this is a challenge to consider the Matrix we have become a part of; a system that seems to benefit us but is really sucking the true life out of us in exchange for our output, production, and efforts.  True life, the life many of our souls cry out to us about, is not found where we are taught to look for it.  It is found in prioritizing others ahead of ourselves; in giving that cold cup of water; in helping the widows & orphans.  Life…. abundant life…. is not a luxurious life; it is not an externally abundant life but an internally abundant life.