While we live in this world, time and money are necessary commodities. And, as Marc taught in his Project Management courses and in homeschool seminars, we often have to make value-based decisions and exchange one for the other. For example, if we don’t have enough time to do a necessary task such as mowing the lawn, then we may need to spend the money to have someone do it for us. If our grocery budget is tight, we may need to invest extra time in cooking from scratch instead of buying pre-prepared foods.
The same is true here. When we first arrived in Africa, we got “American-style” bagged rice from the supermarket. No fuss, it was ready to prepare. Buying from the local market, you get rice cheaper but it has to be cleaned to remove rocks, sticks and whatever other debris might find its way into the bag. A little more time consuming and I didn’t really want to deal with it. When I actually compared prices, though, I realized that “clean” rice was almost twice as much in price! So now, it’s become of the children’s almost-daily jobs to clean rice for the afternoon meal.
For our first few months, I did my own wash. However, one of our neighbors has had a hard time providing for her five children (her husband is away on-the-job but doesn’t always have a lot of money to send home). So, sometimes I give her some food for the day and other times I pay her to do my laundry. I feel somewhat guilty about it, as it’s something I can well do myself, but I also know it is a blessing to her and I want to help her out without making her feel like a charity case. On the up-side, her working for us has been a great ministry opportunity and she has come a long way in understanding the Kingdom of God. We’re actually going to go through the Spiritual Inventory tomorrow in preparation for her baptism! God is good.
And truthfully, though I wasn’t sure about consistently having our neighbor do wash, it has turned out to be a blessing in my time/money paradigm. I’ve been going out to speak to church groups and women’s groups, as well as to meet with two of my disciples weekly…a little more social activity than I anticipated, and sometimes more than I would like. But it is comforting to know that the work at home is getting done even if I’m otherwise occupied. I guess God knows what we need even before we ask!
One thing we’ve been struggling with lately is Jesus’ teaching to “give to those who ask.” Marc recently posted this on Facebook, which is a fairly good summation of where we’re at:
Give to those who ask. What a clear command. Poses a challenge when folks ask all the time and the more you say yes, the more they ask. Trying to strike a balance between needs and wants, and filtering out manipulation and abuse. Pls pray for Cindy and I to be discerning and exercise wisdom. There is an assumption we are rich cuz we r white Americans, but in actuality have very limited resources.
Now that you’ve read this far, maybe you’ll be surprised to find that I don’t really intend to draw any conclusions…just, indeed, sharing some random thoughts. Care to share yours?