Impertinent Youthful Ratiocinations on the Falling American Economy

One of the greatest pleasures of being young is impertinence. As youths we can throw around opinions without experience, talk about things we really don’t know about, and live in an imaginary world where everything conforms to the way we understand it to be. Some might call it idealism, others smug self-assurance, but it’s a state of being in which I find myself particularly caught up recently. Being in a rather isolated Paraguayan evangelical community where my closest friend is nearly identical to me in many aspects of worldview and identity, the temptation to understand things from a very limited perspective is even stronger.

Today I saw that the stock market crashed. The US economy is in terrible shape, and my mind immediately goes to several impertinent thoughts:

1. The US is reaping what it’s sown.
2. I’m glad I don’t have any stocks or a 401K plan to worry about.
3. I’m kind of thankful I don’t have any money at all.
4. My family knows how to grow and can tomatoes. If there’s another Great Depression, we’ll at least survive on stewed tomatoes all year long.
5. I know how to work, and I also know that no work is below me. I’m ready to wash dishes or do yard work if the economy fails and there are no jobs for me when I return
6. Manual work is a large part of spiritual formation and practice in many Christian communities, from Catholic Trappist monks working on egg farms in Tennessee to Anabaptist Mennonite believers toiling away in dairy production on the Paraguayan frontier. These say that calluses are good for Christians and moral development, and I kind of agree with them.
7. Another Depression could serve the US well. We have, after all, become proud consumerist fat cats. My family has four televisions and only three people are living at home. I have an entire household of appliances in storage waiting for me when I come home, and I’m only 23. Where does all this wealth come from? Most Paraguayans live on a couple dollars a day.
8. I have some friends who lived in Argentina when their economy crashed a few years ago. Without any money, they grew and ate fried manioc (a big tuber) all year long. I kind of envy their frugality, and think fried manioc with stewed tomatoes alongside it would be a good combination.
9. A crashed American economy would show American Christians that the blessings of the Gospel are spiritual, not material. We need to hear and know that. “every spiritual blessing in Christ” does not mean a chicken in every Christian pot or a Mercedes in every Christian driveway.
10. I think I may invest in Paraguayan cattle. Cows can have babies every year, reproducing the investment annually, and I have contacts that, for the price of milk they sell, would manage and breed my herd well.


Yes, I am an impertinent youth. I have a particularly Christian view on everything, too, which makes my impertinence even more dangerous and self-justifying. I have a wild and rebellious streak in my ratiocinations on the economy, a strange mixture of workers rights, just desserts, and flippant disregard for the mammon of this world that I’ve inherited from both Joe Steidl and Jesus Christ and the gist of which goes against established financial wisdom, the power of the wealthy, and most of the economic policies of the Republican Party. I really don’t know what’s going on in the financial markets, but I do like to imagine that I could survive well in mind, spirit, and body with calluses on my hands and stewed tomatoes in my belly. I am, after all, an impertinent youth.

Stay on the Sunny Side

It’s amazing how much a difference of perspective can make. As people, I’m convinced we have an amazing capacity to adapt to whatever situation or way of life where we find ourselves; as Christians, I trust we can stay steady and unshaken in soul and spirit like the Apostle Paul who, despite all the tough confusing times of his life, was able to be content in all things. Often times the thing that matters is the attitude we take and the choices we make when confronting life situations.

I take as two examples circumstances from my life here in Paraguay. Last October, when I was only here a month, a vertical blue line appeared on my laptop screen. I did some research and found the line was a factory defect that came along with my computer when I bought it, replaceable with an extended warranty that ended last March. Since the first line appeared, several dozen more have appeared, making my computer screen into a rainbow of Easter-egg colors with new shades added every week. Thankfully, I can still write and do what I need to do, but the messed-up screen is still a pain.

For me, I have a choice to make about how I think of the lines on my computer. I can complain about how technology is worthless and Dell is a terrible brand and woe is me because I’m a poor missionary with a decomposing computer. Or, I can look at the lines and remember and be thankful. I can look at the lines and see one blue one that appeared right after I was robbed at gunpoint and thank God I still have my life. Or, I can look at a red one that popped up during my cousin’s visit, and thank God I had family and visitors with me for a Christmas away from home. Or I can glance at a green one that showed itself in the days after the first grading period ended, and remember too God’s faithfulness to me as a teacher. The choice, really, is up to me as to how I look at my now-defuncting computer screen. I can complain or use it as reminder of God’s faithfulness to me.

A second illustration comes from my experience in the AC church here. Whenever one lives in community, small things start to bother and quirky eccentricities to chafe. Living in a community with a culture far different than one’s own makes the temptation to complain and be grumpy about the way things are done even much more strong. Customs, even church customs, appear sometimes strange, unbiblical, and perhaps even unchristian. For me and the AC church here, this difference in spiritual practice and opinion has made itself clear many times, but perhaps one of the clearest is in the giving of the tithe.

I was raised, as any good North American ACer, in a church with the donation box at the back of the sanctuary. There was never any passing of the plate or possibility for public demonstration of tithing. We discreetly put our money in the back box at the beginning or end of the service, almost embarrassed by the fact that anyone might see us doing so. Scripturally, Christ’s call to not let our right hand know what our left hand was giving made itself manifest in stealthy donations by way of quick, James Bond style handmaneuvers.

The church here, however, makes the tithe giving a big show. There’s a special worship song when it’s announced that everyone can offer their gift, and then everyone goes up front in a big processional line to deposit their money in an open white box. There is a big and public to-do about giving, undoubtedly cultural but entirely foreign to me.

For me, the temptation is to judge. I can look around at everyone who has their money in hand and think that they must be so prideful to make such a public display of their gift-giving. I want to tell the pastors that the way they donate tithe money is wrong and against what Jesus taught, making people more concerned with what other people think as they go up to the offering box and less concerned with what God thinks as they pridefully do so or stay seated in their shame.

Thankfully, though, there’s a way out for me of this temptation to judge. While Christ speaks of giving alms in secret, the scriptures also speak of celebrations after harvest time and during festivals when the people of God joyfully presented their offerings and sacrifices to God, the first fruits of everything with which He had blessed them. Seen is this light, the communal tithe giving becomes a festive occasion to remember God’s many mercies in providing for basic necessities, a sort of public demonstration and testimony of God’s faithfulness in providing for finances. With this view of things, the people lose their pride and the offering becomes an act of worship towards a good God. The pastors are no longer manipulative and wanting to shame people into giving, but leaders themselves of a congregation joyfully giving back to God what is already His.

I pray that everyday we might look for the best in life: to count the little inconveniences as little blessings and the little differences in the practices and opinions of other people, especially among other Christians, as little manifestations of God’s goodness to all differently displayed. Then, as Christians, we may truly be content in all things and live out the love of God that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

A prayer

A beautiful prayer by Thomas Merton, and one I can really call my own:

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following

your will does not mean that I am

actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope to have that desire

in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart
from that desire.
And I know that if I do this,
you will lead me by the right road though I

may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I

may seem lost and in the shadow

of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my

perils alone.

Angry Papa Bear

Don´t mess with my kid

(Warning- Contains a new bad word I learned in Spanish)

I had a “papa bear” moment with Christian the other day. He came home from school very upset, and when I asked him what it was about, he didn’t really want to talk. Upon further investigation, though, he opened up and told me what had happened. In school that day the art teacher wrote him up for calling a girl “pelotuda,” even the he had no idea what “pelotuda” meant.

From what I gathered, the story was this: Christian’s schoolmate, who talks too much and rarely leaves him alone, called him “pelotudo,” so logically Christian returned the remark in reply, even though he had no idea what it meant. The girl got offended in her uncomprehensible-little-high-school-girl-gets-offended-sort-of-way and went and told the art teacher, who is a very cold and unfeeling person that never greets me or any of the other teachers anyways. The art teacher asked Christian if the accusation was true, and he truthfully responded that it was, even though the girl had called him the name first and he didn’t know what it meant.

Long story shirt, Christian got written up and a point or two added to his record towards a one-day suspension (the only kind of punishment the Paraguayan school system knows how to hand out) because an annoying classmate spit out a tattle tale and the conniving art teacher licked it up. The girl walked away scott-free. I was disgusted and upset at the girl for her hypocrisy and the teacher for her man-hating tendencies and unintelligible punishment towards high schoolers who, after all, can do much worse things than call names.

About a week later, Christian and I both found out that “pelotudo” literally means big-balled, and is a some-what crude word used to insult people. When I got his weekly bulletin, which complained that he used the word in art class, I wrote a curt little response that went something like this: “Neither Christian nor I knew what “pelotudo” meant until his classmate called him the name first. Since neither Christian or his classmate are “pelotudos,” however, there really is nothing for us to be worried about. ---Prof. Jason” Christian was a little embarrassed by the note, as I would have been by my mom or dad sticking up for me like that in high school, but he accepted it and took it to school anyways, facing up to the reality of the situation in a pretty good realistic way.

On a Chest of Gold Bars at the Bottom of the Sea

The sneaking premonition that nothing in this world lasts forever came up and nipped me quite unexpectedly when I was just four years old. I remember the day clearly, and the thought that came upon me without any warning at all: a chest full of gold if thrown to the bottom of the sea will eventually be dissolved by the water. Even the biggest and best bars, with enough time, disappear with the current as if they had never existed.

Startled by the prospect that even the best things might not last forever, I asked my mom if the dissolving of so much gold at the bottom of the sea could really be so. Perhaps she wasn’t listening to my childish question or really was and instead wanted to instill in me the values of security and eternity, but she answered me wrongly in saying that even if the gold was worn away bit by bit it would last forever. Either way, I was too smart for her answer and reasoned my philosophy through to its logical conclusion that everything on Earth has its time and then dissolves away.

They say that when one reaches about my age they start to realize the reality of worldly impermanence and physical death. Parents start getting sick and the cycle of birth and death can be seen as clear as an unmuddied stream as we start to have kids of our own. I don’t know how I’d come to grips with it all if I didn’t have the assurance of faith that there is a place where gold, even streets made entirely of gold, is never dissolved away and where water represents not the wear and tear of time but instead an eternal life-giving fount of beauty and love.

Ready for the Revolution

A man in the supermarket parking lot this evening told me there was a military coup beginning and that every person should quickly go to his own home because tanks were rolling in from the Chaco to take over. Given the current and tumultuous political environment in Paraguay, his claim was not unbelievable to a generally disconnected and ignorant North American. And so, in good preparation for the revolution, I impetuously purchased

1. 5 pounds of bread

2. 2 pounds of sugar

3. 2 pounds of flour

4. Crackers

5. Toilet Paper

6. Suave hair conditioner

7. 3 cucumbers

8. 4 onions

9. Bananas

10. 4 and a half pounds of rice

11. 2 packages of noodles

12. 2 pounds of yerba for terreré and maté

13. A gallon of milk, in boxes

14. A lot of ricotta cheese

When the revolution gets here, you can bet I’ll be ready. After the prices of commodities fly through the roof because of the political instability, people will want to pay me in gold for my food, but I’ll give it to them for free because I’m nice like that.

Ready for the revolution

Visit to Bañado

On Saturday I took up the invitation offered me many, many months ago to spend a day in Bañado, home to the smaller and poorer sister congregation of the Lambaré church and perhaps the poorest neighborhood in Asunción. The pseudo-municipality of about 52,000 inhabitants stretches along the uneven coast of the Rio Paraguayo outside all the comfortable edges of mainstream society. Although so many people call Bañado home, it is formally unrecognized by the government and municipal maps (although they also receive formally unrecognized government water and electricity free of charge). The land here, frequently flooded by rains and soggy through and through, is free and up for the grabs. 70 percent of its inhabitants work as trash collectors, rummishing through wealthier neighborhoods searching for anything that can be recycled for money: plastic bags, pop bottles, newspapers, metal scraps. A mere glance at the neighborhood betrays the profession. Trash carts take the place of family automobiles in front of homes while piles of recyclables take the place of swingsets and sandboxes out back.

I was invited by Alberto, a young man my age, Bañado native, and extraordinary servant of Christ with the Apostolic Christian Church in the neighborhood. Although gifted with so many spiritual and intellectual talents, Alberto has been without steady work for nearly a year now. He started university a while back, but left to pursue a work opportunity and lost out on all his credits. Recognized as an honest and trustworthy leader among neighborhood youth, he helped found and organize several community programs with a former American Peace Corp member. Now that she has left and abandoned the work, however, Alberto remains fully invested in the work of the Bañado church.

The congregation is very poor, and most everything they have has been donated by North American brothers and sisters in Christ. The Canadian AC churches sent work teams and money to build the church building, and my family’s own Vesper Lake Bible Fellowship recently donated the fans, lights, and curtains that the building still lacked several years after its construction.

Although the community is very poor, however, it is a community that is committed to and dependent on living a life of faith. Several members meet every evening of the week to spend time in prayer, and several members rely on this prayer for their basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. Somehow and with much sharing and charity, the people survive. When someone lacks food, a collection is taken up and God provides. When someone lacks a place to stay, someone opens up their house and God provides. Theirs is a life completely dependent on trust in divine providence.

The congregation also ministers to the neighborhood, sending out groups every Sunday to meet, greet, and pray with new families in the area. There is a weekly Sunday school along with a women’s ministry, and a youth group that often plays sports together on Saturday. Church life isn’t always rosy, but each one I spoke to had a great love for the Lord and a deep commitment to service and evangelism. In Bañado, there are only three evangelical churches and a couple more Catholic churches. The spiritual need, like the economic need, is great.

For all the poverty among the people of Bañado, however, there are signs of hope in community organization and international aid efforts. Alberto showed me a cooperative of women bakers, most deserted by their husbands, who have banded together for the work and profit of making bread. We also passed by the Catholic Church, where a donation from the government of Spain has permitted the building of a vibrant community center where reading and writing classes and public health campaigns are offered free of charge. There was also a community grocery store where the church offers food at bargain prices, a neighborhood pharmacy where the poor can buy medicine at discounted rates, and a library where the luxuries of books and internet are offered to those who would never have the access to knowledge elsewhere. There was even a small radio station, giving public service announcements and keeping the community informed of important news and events. I also got to meet a Catholic missionary from Chicago, an older gentleman with big spectacles and an even bigger heart, fighting drug addiction with the hope of the Gospel. He is a dear friend of Alberto’s, whose oldest sister is a drug addict and who often receives much help by way of the Catholic lay minister.

It was an amazing privilege to see the work of development going on in Bañado, first in the church and then in the community. Often times I wonder if North American aid and volunteer associations actually do their jobs and really accomplish anything at all, but after visiting Bañado I have no doubts. Community development in the poorest places is working. The American Peace Corp is good and effective, as are the donations of churches, civic groups, and governments. A most practical example of this was a school where boxes of school supplies, bought by North America families for those in poorer places, are distributed through an organization called Kids for Kids.

Overall, the day was a refreshing visit to a poor place where the work of God often partners with the development of man in bettering the lives of so many poor. I got to see so many organizations at work, so many projects put to good use, and churches using spiritual and economic resources for the good of their fellow man and the greater glory of their transcendent God. Although Bañado is a place of extreme poverty, it is also a place of extreme grace where the work of spiritual and economic redemption is plainly in sight.