When I heard about the $2,000 tortilla chip, I wanted to share this story on my blog about the intersection of our perspective on our resources when life happens to us. This is part of an occasional feature I will do called “Share the Love.”
On “Share the Love” days, I’ll provide a guest post from one of my readers or friends. In return, I’ll guest post for them on their blog. Like this post I did for Steps of Justice.
This story comes to us from Matt Monberg, my friend and HopeChest colleague. He heads up the HopeChest office in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and will lead the HopeChest Mission Trip to Ethiopia this September. (Interested in the trip, click here.)
Fun fact about Matt and his wife Melodie: They have three kids, including a daughter, Desta, from Ethiopia. Melodie was born in Africa and lived in four different countries there. You can read a little of their story in Fields of the Fatherless.
The $2,000 Tortilla Chip
It was a pretty regular day in the early springtime of Colorado. New growth was waiting to burst forth, even as the heavy spring snows were trying to prolong the last days of winter.
My phone buzzed. It was my wife, Melodie.
“Hello?”
“I just broke off half my tooth.” She’s talking as though her tongue is glued to the roof of her mouth.
While I probably should have said something comforting, instead I said:
“Do you know how much that is going to cost us? What were you doing to break your tooth?”
I hoped to hear of an extraordinary act of Melodie saving a child from certain death and cracking a tooth in the process.
Waiting in silence, she answered, “I was just eating a tortilla chip.”
In my head I quickly added up the cost of the root canal and crown, subtracted the nonexistent insurance benefits, and came up with $2,000.
A $2,000 tortilla chip. Really?
Over the next two months, Melodie went through 3 temporary crowns. Each one continued to break apart at the slightest touch. The last time Melodie had a crown put on it was similarly difficult. By the time they finally got to the point of putting it on, the dental technician dropped it.
Dropped it down her throat, that is.
Melodie lurched forward, trying not to inhale the little gold tooth. She coughed and sputtered till finally it flew from her mouth and came to rest beside the heating vent. It was millimeters from going down into the duct.
Needless to say, our track record here is not good. But fortunately, the tooth is now fixed.
I thought about this experience again when we received the last bill in Friday’s mail.
Melodie’s cracked and broken tooth was an emergency that demanded our family’s attention, time, and money. It wasn’t going to get better on it’s own, and we had to do something. Not having $2,000, we had to come up with a plan, negotiate a payment schedule, coordinate the insurance benefits. We kicked into action.
Although the mechanics of fixing the emergency were fairly straightforward, it was not without obstacles, delays, and other inconveniences. But half a tooth is not acceptable. It had to be fixed, and we had to press on.
Then, I started to see some uncomfortable parallels.
I thought of the kinds of emergencies faced by families in other areas of the world. Here’s a little of what I came up with…
- Spending all day, every day looking for water and food–and having no job or meaningful way to earn money.
- Having a child kidnapped to become a child soldier, a sex slave, or a domestic servant–and never to see them again.
- Contracting malaria from a mosquito bite and not having the means to get to or pay for treatment–and knowing that a simple net over my bed could’ve made the difference.
- Watching my child slowly die of diarrhea because of the contaminated water I gave her as a parent
An emergency without resources is a disaster. And millions of moms and dads are facing these disasters today. But unlike our family, there is no plan. There’s no way to “kick into action” and get it fixed. You don’t negotiate with dirty water or malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
Largely unable to address the disaster unfolding in their families, it depends upon us. Those with resources–and those with Christ–to respond in ways that will fix their emergency.
If you told me that for the same $2,000 I could buy 200 malaria nets and protect each of the users from malaria. I’d politely decline. I don’t have $2,000 to give you. Yet, I can miraculously produce the same $2,000 to fix my wife’s tooth when the emergency is in my own family.
I realized I cannot play both sides of the fence when it comes to money. It is my own hypocrisy to speak of my lack of resources to help the poor, when I know how resourceful I can be to help myself.
What is lacking is motivation, organization, and coordination in my response to those families who live in the grip of poverty’s hand.
The next time I am confronted with a mission or ministry opportunity that I think is too far out of my reach, I am going to ask myself these questions:
- Is the Holy Spirit motivating and convicting me to respond?
- I am using my lack of resources as an excuse not to get involved?
- How would I respond if this money was needed for an immediate family member?
- Am I willing to obey God and do that now?
That is a scary set of questions for me. But one I pray that my family, and yours, will use when making decisions that involve how we share our resources with those who truly have no resources to provide for their children.
Matthew is the Regional Marketing and Development Director for Children’s HopeChest. He has served with HopeChest in multiple roles since 2003, and in September 2010 will lead a mission trip to Ethiopia. He and his wife Melodie live with their three children in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
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