What Do You Do?

Let me introduce you to my lovely friend from Bedrock whom I will call Ms. Shoe. Photogenic, I'm not sure, but her inner beauty shines forth like a bright light.

Ms. Shoe was a gardener/maintenance worker/trash collector at my apartment complex in Bedrock. I felt sorry because Ms. Shoe's husband left her to raise two daughters on her own. Ms. Shoe only makes the equivalent of $70 a month. One day I asked her if her husband was able to help support the daughters financially. That's when I found out that Ms. Shoe's husband didn't leave the family, he left this earth four years ago in a tragic fall from the high-rise hospital a block from where I lived; he was a construction worker. My heart sank at this news.

Ms. Shoe has a daughter in college. This daughter's tuition is paid for by bank loans plus about 20% of Ms. Shoe's monthly income. It will take her daughter a lifetime to repay those student loans. Ms. Shoe has to send this daughter even more money for food and dorm costs.

Ms. Shoe has a daughter in sixth grade. Ms. Shoe and this daughter live in a one-room rental that costs another 20% of their monthly income. There is no bathroom, no place to take a shower, and no kitchen. It is just four walls with one dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling. They were sharing a single bed, either scrunched up together or sleeping in shifts. I gave her my extra bed (a comfy cot, really). Tears poured from her eyes at this cheap gift of mine; finally they would each have their own bed. Their room has no heating in winter, and no air-conditioner for summer. Even if they had a fan or heater, they could not afford to pay the electric bill. Ms. Shoe has an old cell phone, but cannot afford to add money to it to make it work (in this country people pre-pay for phone service). Her daughter in college in another town has no way to contact mom in case of emergency. The 6th grade daughter eats one bread roll for lunch every day. They never eat meat.

I told another Chinese friend about Ms. Shoe, and that Chinese friend said "she will never make it."

Ms. Shoe's parents are elderly and unemployed. Her in-laws broke contact with them when Ms. Shoe's husband died; the in-laws have no use for granddaughters--they are, in the opinion of the fraternal grandparents, useless girls. Ms. Shoe's financial contributions to her family are the only resource. Imagine her stress, trying to survive.

Ms. Shoe is your sister in Christ. Your sister is the face of poverty.

Ms. Shoe doesn't have a mean bone in her body. She never asks for a single thing. She wasn't trying to criticize me, but just spoke the truth--tears streamed down her face as she told me that my dog had a better life than her daughters.

What do you do about poverty? I'm not sure, but I know you don't just sit back and do nothing.

Matthew 25:40 (NIV) tells us the words of Jesus: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'