Greater Need

Each night, I give my children a blessing, we pray to their guardian angels, we say an Our Father, a Hail Mary, the prayer of St. Michael, and then we petition the saints for their prayers.

We have many saints that have become dear to our family. Each of our children has two patron saints, as do the Ogre and I, but we also have saints who are special to us in some other way. We always ask for the prayers of St. Joan of Arc on behalf of Sienna, since our eldest has such a warrior’s spirit. We ask for the prayers of Saints Scholastica, Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas More for the Ogre. We ask for the prayers of Blessed Zelie Martin and St. Maximillian Kolbe for me. And we always ask for the prayers of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare.

Last night, Sienna asked me what St. Clare did. I told her that she gave away all of her possessions and spent her life helping the poor. Sienna asked, “she helped the people who are poor like we are?”

I said yes, the people who are poor like we are.

Being an American in these days can warp your perception of reality, if you let it. I’ve let it. By the standards of our country, we are poor. We have no disposable income. We have trouble affording basic necessities, like health insurance. The Ogre has gone for nearly a year with a cracked tooth which needs to be taken care of, but dental isn’t offered with his insurance, and we simply can’t afford it.

Our families help us make ends meet while the Ogre plows away at his doctorate and we hope for better times. The kids and I live with my parents, but we spend our days in air conditioning. We never want for food. We swim in the gorgeous pool outside every day. The Ogre has had to undertake more hardships than we have recently, buying only essential food, learning to live without a car, figuring out bus schedules so he doesn’t have to walk in the desert heat, and generally going without any luxury.

And yet…and yet, we are not poor. Not by the standards of the world outside this decadent culture.

“The babies are running straight through the filth, their hands and fingernails, hair and toenails are caked with layer upon layer of grime.

I don’t know what do with that.

The flies buzz around me and I do my best not to swat them away. Eight children. A one room hut made of plank boards and corrugated tin roof. No electricity. No running water. No plumbing. The laundry hangs on a line.

The baby raises her head from her mother’s breast and smiles at us, laughs even.

What is there to smile about here? And yet, they smile.”

This post by Elizabeth Esther brought me to tears last week. She has spent the last week in Bolivia, meeting children and their families whom she sponsored through World Vision. This is a woman who has five children of her own, the youngest twins barely out of diapers, and who writes professionally in addition to maintaining her personal blog. She has every excuse in the book to not spend too much time worried about the world beyond her front door…and yet, she did.

Not only did she worry about it, she sacrificed for it. For these children, the true poor. She gave money, time, and tears for the children of Bolivia, and left resolved to give even more.

“I will never be happy again unless I know I am helping these children. I will NEVER be happy again knowing there is so much suffering in this world—unless I am doing something to relieve it.

And I’m just going to say it: did you know that my pageviews and stats are the LOWEST they’ve been in at least 6 months? Did you know that only TWO people have sponsored a child through my page?

That breaks my heart again.

Father, forgive us, for even when we KNOW, we do nothing.”

Those lines have been haunting me all weekend. There’s nothing that I can do to help, financially; but I have a blog. I have readers. Some of you have more financial freedom than I do. Some of you have blogs with more followers than I do. Some of you are in the same situation that I am, or worse, but you say prayers at night. Some of you don’t pray, but you love.

St. Francis of Assisi said, It would be considered a theft on our part if we didn’t give to someone in greater need than we are.

I can give this post for those children, and my prayers. If you can give more, perhaps even by sponsoring a child, go visit Elizabeth Esther’s site. And if you do sponsor a child, don’t forget to send her an email letting her know. I think it would help her, knowing that she’s reaching people. Knowing that we are not looking away, but reaching out as well.