When you enter a new culture, you do not enter it without affecting it. I think of water, in its placid form with a flurry of marine life underneath the waterline. As you plunge in, the fish scuttle away, ripples form, and you are not seeing it as it really is, without your presence. And so it is as we enter Malawi. We are white, we are westerners, and with that comes certain understandings or perceptions wherever we go. We are the ones who drive cars, and hire guards, and lock ourselves away in walled compounds. We are the ones who pay $3 for an ice cream because to us, that is a good deal, and it helps our kids feel not so far from home, whereas most Malawians makes less than that in a full day’s work. This is an uncomfortable reality. Uncomfortable for us who are used to buying and doing without actually seeing, first hand, how our little consumer choices affect the poor around the world.
We drive past vendors daily selling bananas and mops, phone minutes, and tomatoes and for them, this is their livelihood. This is their means to provide for their families. They work all day, everyday, and make sometimes minimal profit: $10 net perhaps a week. So here we are, missionaries, but white westerners, and we can affect community economies. We’ve read the books, I’ve studied international development, but in this place, where we are making our home, real questions remain: who do we help and how? Where we decide to tithe, where we decide to buy, directly affects people in significant ways. Do we build relationships with certain vendors and become their biggest buyer, but what if we are away? Do we give jobs ad nauseum wherever we can, even though we can do the work ourselves, so that we are providing for others? How do we live more meagrely to give more generously, while also helping our children transition from fishy crackers to local produce and products?
I’ve been impacted reading today in John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
In this setting, this speaks to me. Am I willing to lay down our comforts, so that we can be more generous here? That box of crackers, that cost me $3, what if that means someone else’s family eats meals for the week? Am I willing to go without?
This is not simple, nor is it easy, nor is it clear how to go about how to help those around us. But never have I seen so first hand how our consumer choices affect the lives of the poor. Lord give us wisdom!
These are all questions that are not new, and many an expat or missionary has wrestled with it. We come with fresh eyes which are valuable, but they are also dangerous because we are bound to repeat the same mistakes as always and fumble our way through whilst hurting people and not realizing it.
Pray with us, and for us, as we consider how to choose discomfort, in order to be relatable to Malawians, and how in the world to help those around us, without hurting them.
Thank you for sharing your journey. We are praying for you!