My daughter, Lauren, served a proselyting mission in Fiji. At the end of her service I took my other daughter, Sara, with me to bring Lauren home. We spent ten days with the meek of the earth.
After this experience I came to understand the outrageous abundance with which I am daily surrounded. It is easy to forget. Even now I'm having difficulty clearly remembering the emotions I felt at the time. But I woke this morning thinking of a Fijian woman whom Lauren had taught and befriended.
She was near my age. She lived in a shack on a hillside. There were no windows or doors. Fabric was tacked over doorways, hung for privacy when it wasn't pulled back to allow for the breeze or light to come in. With her own hands she had built a primitive gazebo/seating area outdoors from scrap wood. It was shaded in the afternoon and she invited us to sit there while we talked about life and Jesus and my daughter, whom we both loved. It reminded me of when I sit beneath walnut trees in my own yard with friends and family. There were scrap-wood shelves on which she placed potted plants—potted in tin cans and maybe plastic dishes or a few broken ceramic pots. She grew a small garden. While we visited, her twenty-something son scrambled up a coconut tree and brought down fruit for us. Her only other child, a toddler from her second marriage, sat on her lap. This woman was beautiful in every way. Physically, spiritually, personality-wise. She felt very much like a sister to me as we sat together and talked. I wish I could recall her name just now. Lauren knows it.
She was a creative, talented woman who dreamed of being a seamstress. She had no electricity so she sewed things by hand and on a treadle machine which had broken a few months earlier. She wove purses and bags from plant leaves and fibers, then lined them with tropical print fabric. I still use the one she gave me. I gave her a framed photograph of the Savior. She showed me a clipping from a newspaper perhaps five or six years old. It was an advertisement for a sewing instruction book. She could not afford to repair her machine. The parts she needed may not have even been available. There was no hope of buying a new machine either. Buying a sewing machine for her would be like buying a new house for you and I. . . if you or I had no steady income.
It would take far too long for me to explain here why I did not simply buy her everything she needed or send money to her for the rest of her life. You can talk to Lauren about that if you want. My belly aches a little right now thinking about it.
As I write this post I am sitting on the sofa. I glance up at a James Christensen print hanging over the fireplace. I think I paid around twelve-hundred dollars for it. The leather chair in the corner on one side of the fireplace was a steal for about six-hundred at Costco. The custom upholstered chair on the other side of the fireplace was seven-hundred and fifty. The laptop I am typing on was a bargain (with student discount) for eleven-hundred and came with a free printer and a hundred-dollar iTunes coupon. There is hot water coming from the tap when I want it. This morning I will make cranberry sauce in a food processor and later I will drive to my sister's home. In a heated car. On paved roads. For Thanksgiving dinner. I could go on and on. . .
. . . I really wish I could remember her name.
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| "Sister Lewis" Fiji 2005 |
After this experience I came to understand the outrageous abundance with which I am daily surrounded. It is easy to forget. Even now I'm having difficulty clearly remembering the emotions I felt at the time. But I woke this morning thinking of a Fijian woman whom Lauren had taught and befriended.
She was near my age. She lived in a shack on a hillside. There were no windows or doors. Fabric was tacked over doorways, hung for privacy when it wasn't pulled back to allow for the breeze or light to come in. With her own hands she had built a primitive gazebo/seating area outdoors from scrap wood. It was shaded in the afternoon and she invited us to sit there while we talked about life and Jesus and my daughter, whom we both loved. It reminded me of when I sit beneath walnut trees in my own yard with friends and family. There were scrap-wood shelves on which she placed potted plants—potted in tin cans and maybe plastic dishes or a few broken ceramic pots. She grew a small garden. While we visited, her twenty-something son scrambled up a coconut tree and brought down fruit for us. Her only other child, a toddler from her second marriage, sat on her lap. This woman was beautiful in every way. Physically, spiritually, personality-wise. She felt very much like a sister to me as we sat together and talked. I wish I could recall her name just now. Lauren knows it.
She was a creative, talented woman who dreamed of being a seamstress. She had no electricity so she sewed things by hand and on a treadle machine which had broken a few months earlier. She wove purses and bags from plant leaves and fibers, then lined them with tropical print fabric. I still use the one she gave me. I gave her a framed photograph of the Savior. She showed me a clipping from a newspaper perhaps five or six years old. It was an advertisement for a sewing instruction book. She could not afford to repair her machine. The parts she needed may not have even been available. There was no hope of buying a new machine either. Buying a sewing machine for her would be like buying a new house for you and I. . . if you or I had no steady income.
It would take far too long for me to explain here why I did not simply buy her everything she needed or send money to her for the rest of her life. You can talk to Lauren about that if you want. My belly aches a little right now thinking about it.
As I write this post I am sitting on the sofa. I glance up at a James Christensen print hanging over the fireplace. I think I paid around twelve-hundred dollars for it. The leather chair in the corner on one side of the fireplace was a steal for about six-hundred at Costco. The custom upholstered chair on the other side of the fireplace was seven-hundred and fifty. The laptop I am typing on was a bargain (with student discount) for eleven-hundred and came with a free printer and a hundred-dollar iTunes coupon. There is hot water coming from the tap when I want it. This morning I will make cranberry sauce in a food processor and later I will drive to my sister's home. In a heated car. On paved roads. For Thanksgiving dinner. I could go on and on. . .
. . . I really wish I could remember her name.
4 comments:
I grew up in a country with no middle class-you were either poor or rich. we felt poor, but the truth is we were considered to be wealthy. When we ventured out to the far reaches of our neighborhood, we'd come across children our same ages with holes in their clothing in places holes are definitely not meant to be. These were children who had to carry water, whose parents had to groom the lice from their heads, whose greatest entertainment was chasing a hoop with a stick. The interesting thing to me (even as young as I was) was how happy those kids were.
Thank you, Melody for reminding me just how very blessed I am.
Buka.
Buka. Yes. Oh, great, now I'm crying...
This world. This dichotomy. I can't even formulate a real sentence, but I feel it.
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