Let’s become imaginative for a moment. Lets pretend that you and a group of 20 friends got to go eat in this house but before entering the house you have to pick a number and whichever number you get is the table number you will sit at. Here is the catch there are only 3 tables and each table represents a different wealth in the world. There is the rich table (table 1), the middle class table (table 2) and the low class table (table 3). Table one has so much food it’s overwhelming to look at as you can have anything you want at it! There are 17 éclairs, a bowl heaping of fruit like: bananas, grapes, apples, watermelon, a plate filled with whole grain bread, a bowl of mashed potatoes, a whole chicken, a bowl filled with salad and two types of dressing you could pick to put on the salad, 3 containers of pringles, a plate of 10 sandwiches, a plate of mixed peanuts: almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, yogurt covered nuts, cranberries, raisins, you have coffee, tea, 3 types of juice, 3 types of pop, and water. This table of food is all for one person and lets just say for this activity it is YOU! Then table 2 has 10 sandwiches, pringles, coffee, tea, juice and water. Five of your friends get put at this table. Lastly, table 3 has 15 people around it and all that is at the table is one loaf of bread that isn’t cut. So if they all share they will get maybe half a palm size of food. So since you are the lucky drawer you picked up a piece of paper and it says table 1! You won the draw and you get all this food to yourself! You even have 2 servants who are willing to put the food on your plate, and give you a beverage of whichever you wish for. You get a fancy table with candles on it, a glass cup with a glass plate and a serviette on your plate. While your friends at table two have a kids sized table with plastic cups and plates. Then you can’t forget your friends at table 3… they get to eat on the floor with no cutlery or cups. What would you do in that moment? I want you to sit back and think about what your instincts would be? Would you want to eat all the food to yourself and let your friends suffer? I mean they are the ones who picked the unlucky number. Would you take the food then give the leftovers to your friends? I am going to let you think about it for a moment, and then we will come back to it!
This exact exercise was preformed on my squad and I at a Poverty Workshop. This workshop was located in the slums of Mongolia in a Ger district. This village is suffering of lack of money to support their families. They live off of $110 a month for their family and themselves. The cost of a Ger is $40 dollars a month, in the winter they need to survive the extreme cold temperatures of -40 to -70 degree Celsius weather so they need wood and charcoal which is $75 dollars a month. On top of that they need water, food, a water boiler ($20) so they don’t get worms from the water. This right now equals $135, which is over budget, and they haven’t even bought food or water! Not to mention that a lot of the families have medical issues that need to be taken care of or they will die but the cost to go to the hospital is about $20 also a month! They are suffering for simple and required materials to survive! It completely broke my heart to know that the majority of people in Mongolia can barely get by.
Did you know that there are about 7 billion people in this world and about 5% of those people are in North America (which is a very wealthy area) while about 60% live in Asia. There is a big chunk of the world that is living in poverty. Now I am not writing this blog to make you feel bad, those aren’t my intentions. But I do want to make awareness, as poverty is a big deal. Children are dying of starvation daily (3.1 million annually) and it breaks my heart.
But my squad and I got to meet this amazing couple who moved from America to Mongolia to start up a poverty workshop to make awareness of poverty in Mongolia, so we are able to go back home and make a change whether it’s us going to a country and making a difference or it’s us getting involved with an organization to help make a difference by supporting them. They dropped everything! They sold their house, took their 4 kids and moved to Mongolia to live in the slums. They were getting out of the comfortable and into what God called them to do. They got down to the level where the suffering was. They lived in the same village, they bathed at the same place, they went to the bathroom in an outhouse with a simple whole in the ground aka a squatty, and they even walk with an empty jug about 500m to go get water to bring back to there house to use. They literally dropped all they had to live a life that they felt they were lead to do. The best part is they have been doing it for 7 years and are continuing to do it until God tells them to go elsewhere. They are seriously an inspiration to many!
Alright, you are probably all wondering if I am going to go back to the exercise I got you all to do at the beginning of this blog. Well did you think of your answer? A lot of people in todays society would eat as much as they could at table one then give the rest to there friends at table 2 and 3. But God calls us to serve to those who are less fortunate.
In Matthew 25: 34-45 says, “Then the king will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed you, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘ Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’”
He wants us to go down to the lowest class (table 3) and to serve them. To take table 2 and get them to get on the floor with table 3 and feed those who have next to nothing. We need to get down to the level we are serving. We can’t expect them to come to our level and then serve them. Jesus never made people go to Him so He could serve them. He went out to the streets and got into the dirty work to serve them! So the right answer to the exercise is take the food from table one and before you even touch the food take it to those who are at table 3, invite table 2 to come with you.
This goes for life in general! When we are serving people don’t expect them to come to your level or where you are at, that can be super uncomfortable for them. Instead make yourself uncomfortable and go to them. Serve them were they are at! Whether it’s going to a homeless person and giving him food to eat where he is at, or maybe just maybe it looks like eating with him. This exercise really spoke to me. It is a simple concept but can be super uncomfortable to people. But that’s what growth is all about, that’s what Jesus is all about!
