Here's the
link to my sermon on Sunday.
...
I met a young woman named LaKisha Harris last week. LaKisha has one child of her own and she is also raising her sister's four children since her sister passed away a year ago. Here's a 27 year old, single woman, with no family, no husband, no education, trying to hold her family of 6 together. That's a tall order.
She is working about 20 hours a week at Taco Bell. Her monthly income from that job is about $350 a month. Dead End.
She gets about $60 a month from the state of MS for each of her four neices and nephews that she is raising. Another $240 a month. Dead End.
She receives about $300 a month in food stamps. I can't feed my family of 5 on that and she has 3 teenagers in the house. Dead End.
I spoke with HUD on her bahalf but the waiting list for Section 8 housing is long and is closed. They won't even add names to the waiting list until more funding is promised from Washington D.C. Dead End.
That's all her monthly income.
Has she made some poor choices in life? Probably. So have I. Although I must say everyone I spoke to about her (employer, landlord, Good Samaritan case worker, HUD representative, etc.) has said she is a good person and I haven't been able to uncover a single untruth about her.
And frankly her desire to give her and her sister's kids a good family home surely mitigates any bad choices she may have made in life.
So what do we do with this family as a society? Moreover what do we do with her as Christians?
I think the church is going to be able to help her with her rent this month, and I'm fully expecting to be able to provide some Christmas presents for the kids next month, but that doesn't really improve her long term outlook. She'll still be caught in the cycle of poverty.
I consider myself to be a fairly smart guy, but I don't know the answer to this problem. One suggestion to this problem haunts me: "Sell all you have and give it to the poor." I walk away from that theory sad because I have great wealth.
But in reality even if I had the faith to do that (which I don't) then I would be in her shoes, looking for answers on how I would supply the next meal to my kids (read: waiting patiently for God to provide).
I can't help but notice countries like Australia, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, etc. who pay much higher taxes and don't have extreme poverty. I can't seem to let go of my capitalistic tendencies, but maybe moving more towards socialism in matters of basic needs (i.e., food, shelter, health care) is more Christ-like than perpetuating a system where you make your own fortune, no matter how efficient it may be.
All I know is that LaKisha has no where to turn. Churches, government agencies, charitable organizations, employers, and individuals have all told her, "Sorry, you're at a dead end."
