Have you ever spent 15 minutes scrolling thru Netflix looking for something to watch, only to realize you could’ve already finished watching something in that time if you had just selected something to begin with? Well, you could spend the next 15 minutes here with me instead!
The soundtrack for this mission briefing comes with two selections:
4 Page Letter - Aaliyah, or
All I Have to Give - Backstreet Boys
Your mission should you choose to select it, starts with this brief video. Click the link, watch the clip till the very end, then read the dossier below.
“Somewhere along the way the man who was hosting me shared with these churches how a recent hurricane had ravaged my city, scattered our church, and destroyed my home along with many others. We came to the last night that I would spend with these churches, and when we finished, Liang, one of the leaders, came up to me with an envelope in his hand. He looked at me and said, ‘We have taken up an offering for you and your church…’
Immediately, I said, ‘Oh no, Liang, I cannot take this from you. I appreciate your generosity but you and your church need this money far more than I do.’
Yet Liang persisted. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We want to give this to you.’
I responded again, ‘No, I can’t take this.’
This dialogue continued until Liang finally insisted.
‘We want the joy of serving you and your church,’ he said. ‘Please take this.’
With that, I took the envelope and thanked Liang and the church profusely. I opened it later to find a relatively meager sum of money in it. Yet that minimal amount was nothing short of a sacrificial gift, for it cost the members of that church much to give. With that picture in mind, I can’t help but wonder what it might look like for Christians and churches in our culture to give like that. Not just to give in a way that is comfortable to us but to give in a way that really costs us. What would it look like for us to give like that with eagerness and enthusiasm, insisting on the opportunity to truly sacrifice for our impoverished brothers and sisters around the world?
This is the clear pattern of giving in the New Testament church, yet it is unfortunately a far cry from common practice in the contemporary American Church. I know that many people protest that we have a primary responsibility to care for people in our own families and our own local churches… If all we do is provide for one another’s needs here in the name of proximity to one another, it is as if we’re saying to our desperately poor brothers and sisters around the world, ‘We are not with you, and you are alone in your need.’”1
C.S. Lewis said,
“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc. is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do no at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them.”2
One of the things that I’ve encountered in my journey abroad is that people are generally reluctant to give either because you’re not partnered with an organization or they don’t know the organization you’re partnered with. Hopefully, the output is not not giving at all but rather giving either directly to the person who you do know, or giving to an organization you do trust. I thank all my supporters who financially supported me on my embarkation over the past year. In the past year and a half I’ve learned to live with very little income. This is in no way a guilt trip to those who don’t give. It’s more a pivot that what I lacked was just as or more important than any financial support I lacked.
When I make plugs for paywalls it’s to elicit a small shock. Is it ostentatious (obviously) to ask people to pay to read my letters? One does that with newspapers (or least people used to). One supports official organizations and ambassadors abroad and in return one expects letters and reports from the field. Do you actually read them? And do those who write actually want to write them? These ambassadors are actually on official, legitimate business and they get stuff done. They have outputs and products. But do they? What if money is spent but nothing actually gets built - no farmhouses or trees are planted and no schools get built. Or farms are planted but yield no crop and schools are built but no learned students are produced? Would you consider the program and mission effective? Would you still give? Would the lack of outputs diminish the value of the inputs or the cause?
The reason I put a paywall around some of my blog posts is to elide a question: do I (no you) think this one post is worth five dollars? Or could this $5 be better spent elsewhere? Why am I (no you) even spending so much effort on determining whether to spend five dollars on a one-time transaction, and justifying the value of a thing determined to be worth $5?3 Shouldn’t that value judgment be better expended on multiple $5 transactions or a single $50,000 transaction?
If you haven’t thought about this, now that you’ve read this far I’ve gotten you to think about this ;) It’s not about whether I am receiving the $5 donation via a paid subscription, but whether a potential reader with an inquiring mind is asking the right questions in making the decision.
I actually write my letters a month in advance and withhold them so maybe this giving topic isn’t relevant anymore. Hurricane season’s over and we’re nearly in November now. People will move on to their normal lives. But maybe by the time you open this letter it’ll be Thanksgiving, so this letter will be relevant again.
One thing that I’ve learned is that the Lord doesn’t necessarily require burnt offerings of Turkey over Thanksgiving, as much as we love to eat turkey and offer it as a sacrifice. Rather, a broken spirit and a contrite heart are ultimate gifts during this time. So I will be contrite and say, “maybe I did make a mistake in opening this business.” If that’s the case, anyone who didn’t donate should be cheering - yay! But, that’s not the point. The point is, a brick and mortar business is what I wanted to do, but the Lord doesn’t need that either. This physical construction we do is for ourself (or at least me). Until we get right with ourself, we can’t get right with others or God. So this is what’s been working in me while I’ve been in Cambodia. Thank your lucky stars you didn’t pour money into a losing cause where concrete for foundation was never even poured. Yet, the focus shouldn’t be on me or the lack of a start of a physical building. It should be directed back to the beginning of this letter, a heart of giving, in whatever form that looks like. If our foundation is correctly set, then we can endeavor to move forward and build great things, not necessarily physical.
Thanks for reading this far. I limit my letters to two pages but I couldn’t help myself with this one.
Some interesting stats - CARS, CARTS, CARDS.
In Cambodia, the U.S. lends $1 for every $9 it gives away in grants. On the other hand, China gives away $1 for every $9 it lends.4 In Cambodia, microloans of $50,000 can get up to 40% in usury. They’re also not really microloans when you consider the ratio of income to interest, where someone’s annual interest payment is greater than his annual income.
A way to get into debt is through coffee carts. A successful, coffee cart vendor might want to open up a stationary location but needs money to build a building; he gets a loan from the bank and builds a lavish building based on the footfall from his little coffee cart. Four months later he is out of business and stuck paying the interest on his loan and commits suicide out of depression.5
One silly example of debt happening is when someone buys sim cards - the newest Samsung or Pixel phone, and then they can’t afford the payments so two months later the person returns the phone to the store and buys a different phone that retails for 50% less, still at the same interest rate. This crazy situation can also happen with cars. People drive around in Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Maybachs, and Humvees and then some drive home to their shack. These are some inane reasons why some people stay poor in this country. You might think “this country” refers to Cambodia but hey it could refer to the U.S too!
Many people in the U.S. say the U.S. should spend less on foreign aid. However, the U.S. only gives 0.25% of its gross national income to foreign aid.6
That’s not 25%. That would be a quarter of a dollar. No, the U.S. does not give a quarter of every dollar of national income away to foreigners. The U.S. government only gives away 0.25% - that’s ¼ of one-percent! Take one penny, break it up into four pieces, and then take one of the four leftover pieces and that’s what the U.S. gives to the rest of the world!
Don’t be guilted out over a lack of financial giving, however. There are various other ways of giving besides the financial type, like the giving of time or emotional support. All highly important. It is for you to decide what giving looks like and how to give.
Hey, guess what!? Thanks for making it all the way down here! As a special treat, I have a special teaser for you. And it’s free - I won’t put it behind my pay wall.
Oh yea, Saturday nights watching USAID Administrator Samantha Powers in Cambodia.
Not satisfied with that snapshot? Here’s a full video for you!
These guys are giving their time dancing to an audience who’s not there. Does that mean they’re not giving their time dancing? No! This video illustrates the answer to the question posed at the top of the second page regarding productivity and effectiveness. Even if the outputs are not there and there’s only an audience of one person to receive and watch, does not diminish the body of their work.
References
1. Platt, Counter Culture, 44-46
2. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 82.
3. I don’t set the $5. I would make it $1 a post if the website let me.
4. USAID press conference in Phnom Penh
5. The Guardian, Spotlight on loan firms in Cambodia.
6. Spending of the US and Other Rich Countries on Foreign Aid