Trying to follow

In our recent search for a neighborhood and place to make home, the term “Safe” has been thrown around quite a bit by others. Those who say it are usually very genuine and well-intending: “Now that you have a baby, you’ll want to make sure you find a safe area of the city,” or “I’m sure you’ll be able to find a nice, safe neighborhood to purchase a home in.” I find it extremely difficult to respond to statements like these because of the layers and layers of underlying assumptions behind them. Let me try and break this down a little bit.

What do they mean by ’safe?’ I think the most obvious is that they don’t want us living where the feature crime stories on the evening news are located. Physical safety is their obvious concern and there is certainly some validity to that. Unfortunately, our major indicator of ’safety’ is the evening news, which tends to categorize it’s media in interesting ways, and it continually reinforces our stereotypes. First, the news covers mostly negative stories, ‘if it bleeds, it leads.’ Second, the news, and people, tend to categorize in ways we understand; so a large geographic area, falls into one categorization (just like a large people group or income level). What you end up with is that ’safe’ means living anywhere other then the area of town where the poor, and many minorities, have been isolated to.

I guess I would like to start by asking different questions, and having different concerns then ’safety.’ Shane Claiborne touches on it well:

“People sometimes ask if we are scared of the inner city. I say that I am more scared of the suburbs. Our Jesus warns that we can fear those things which can hurt our bodies or we can fear those things which can destroy our souls, and we should be far more fearful of the latter. Those are the subtle demons of suburbia.

As my mother once told me, “Perhaps there is no more dangerous place for a Christian to be than in safety and comfort, detached from the suffering of others.” I’m scared of apathy and complacency, of detaching myself from the suffering. It’s hard to see until our 20/20 hindsight hits us—but every time we lock someone out, we lock ourselves further in.” [via]

As I am trying to follow, I think the first question in deciding where to live is to ask, “What does Christ call me to?” I think a quick reading of Scripture would make it quite clear we are not first called to physical safety. Christ himself spends time with the poor and the oppressed, the ‘desperate and dangerous’ people of his day. He lives amongst the unsafe and ‘unclean’ and he speaks out to his followers to do the same, addressing injustices along the way.

Finally, as it relates to children, there is a strong lead in the Bible to teach your children to follow the faith. The goal is not to keep your child ’safe’ above all else, but rather to lead your child to truth. Having children does not mean you forsake your values in an effort to preserve their physical longevity, it means you hold that much more strongly to the truths and convictions that you know to be true, that you might properly serve to point them toward the truth.

It’s a difficult balance, receiving the love and kindness friends and family show you through baby showers and gifts, and expressing to them and yourself your values and convictions, and doing your best to keep those values intact.  It’s tough, but we are making an honest effort at it, and as cute as those babyGap outfits might look, here’s three reasons why my child won’t be wearing their clothes.

1. It’s way too expensive.  Did you know a cute little dress and matching hat cost $50 at babyGap?! First of all, baby’s grow a ton in the first year so the $50 dress is going to last about a month at best. Second, there are a lot better uses for $50 then on one outfit for your child. I’d rather buy 20 outfits at the Goodwill and use the rest of the money to provide another girl in the world the opportunity to get an education.
2. Gap continues to abuse Human Rights. Yes, they’ve done a great job marketing their benevolence with the (RED) campaign (Instead, Buy Less Crap, pg-13 link), but they continue to be implicated in sweatshop labor and human rights abuse. I will applaud steps Gap takes to clean up their act, but until I’m confident other children aren’t slaving away making my children’s clothes, they won’t be wearing Gap.
3. Gap does not own me or my children. When I used to be into brand name clothing and I’d wear a shirt with a swoosh or other logo on it my dad would ask, “Are they paying you to wear that around?” I thought it was a stupid question at the time, now I see the light. The level of intense consumerism in this country is disgusting. My kids going to be cute, I guarantee it, and she doesn’t need a name brand outfit to look it. I’m shocked by how many little ones I’ve seen recently waddling around wearing designer clothing and dressed to walk a runway, rather then play in mud and stink up their diapers. I’m scared about what we are doing to the next generation of children. The corporate gods do not own me or my children, and we refuse to lay our credit cards and cash at their alter.

Below is the women and the academy that we helped provide a loan for, from your comments!
The donation for this month is up to you as well! I’m planning on donating to an organization that work’s with children, as I’ll have one of my own soon, and it’s important to remember there are those who might not have the same opportunities if we don’t spread our resources. Read about Margaret and feel free to subscribe to updates from her! Then don’t forget to vote on were this month’s donation should go.

Margaret Juma is a 55-year-old entrepreneur who lives with her husband and six children in Rongo, Kenya. She trained as a community health worker to provide home-based care to people living with HIV/AIDS in her area.

Margaret (pictured with the children) is a proprietor of Westland Academy, initially started in 1998 as a nursery school with 40 children. Since then, the school has grown to 156 children. The school takes children from nursery level to primary level (now in class 6). Out of the 156 children, 63 are orphans, some of whom Margaret has taken into her home.

Owing to increased enrollment in her school, Margaret requires US $ 1200 to renovate classrooms that are in poor shape.

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I found this article, about a town not to far from the town I went to college in, a place where there are supposedly a lot of practicing Christians…

From Daily Southtown: Residents oppose shelter for immigrant children

The children rarely leave the federal immigrant shelter, a former nursing home near the city’s lakefront that houses undocumented children found alone in the United States.

Teachers and doctors are brought to them. And aside from occasional field trips or visits to a nearby park, the children spend almost all their time indoors — although it may be months before they know whether they will be deported or allowed to stay.

But plans to provide more room by converting a 2.5-acre estate near Naperville — with an 11,000-square-foot house, tennis court and swimming pool — into a first-of-its-kind shelter for undocumented Indian and Chinese children hit a snag:

Neighbors in wealthy Lisle Township don’t want them.

They say the shelter, which would house as many as 30 children, could create traffic problems, lower property values and strain water and sewer services.

But some also worry that the children could escape and pose a threat to their own children. A flier circulated throughout the neighborhood said the shelter would be “WORSE than a halfway house!”

(ht. Virgil)