Can You Drive Me There?

Missions Week at Lee this year (coming up next week) is sponsoring Cambodia and namely the People For Care And Learning Build A City project.  In the on-campus daycare they have put out little globes for collecting change to help raise money.  Each class has their own globe and the class that raises the most money wins a pajama, cereal, popcorn and movie day at school.  So Matty has been really excited about all the change they have been collecting.  I don’t think he understands that his class is getting killed…I need to rustle up some change…he’s just pumped that all this money is being put in the piggy banks. 

So the other day Michelle takes Matty to the grocery store and has a coupon for $10 off our groceries.  Matty asks her, "What is a coupon."  Michelle tells him that it saves them money, $10 to be specific.  Matty, without hesitation, responds by saying, “$10 for my friends in Cambodia?!”  Michelle looked a little taken aback with surprise and stumbled over a response of, “Yeah, sure Matty…what?”  (Seriously, who is this kid?!! J)

When they got to the check-out counter and the clerk gave Michelle the $10 bill, Matty snatched it out of the clerk's hand, held it up with pride, and announced, “This is for my friends in Cambodia.”  Then turning to Michelle, with all the seriousness in the world, asked, “Can you drive me there?”

It’s enough to make you laugh and cry at the same time.  The innocence of a child!!  Such a wonderful reminder to us all that we need to care about our neighbors…because everyone is just a car-ride away!

 

I can’t remember when I lost that type of innocence. 

 

It was probably sometime in middle school when I started to realize that the clothes you wear determined your social status.  I’ll never forget going to the first day of middle school (5^th grade where I came from).  My mom got me matching purple sweatpants and sweatshirt.  It was comfy, it was cozy, I could go to recess and dominate, and I was a fan of purple (the Minnesota Vikings are purple…so back off with the jokes).  As soon as I walked down the hallway and got to my locker, Anika Steffl was there waiting for me.  (We went to the same elementary school and had been in the same class since first grade.  I thought she was my friend.)  She looked at me and said, “What are you wearing?!”  For the first time I looked at what everyone else in the hallway was wearing and noticed that I was probably the only kid wearing toe-to-toe purple!

 

I went home that day and told my mom that I was not ever wearing that outfit again.  (Calling it an outfit just makes this story even more perfect…right?!)  I demanded that we get jeans and some real shirts…ASAP.

 

My mom told me that they would buy a couple pairs of jeans, but if I wanted anything more I would have to save my money and buy my own clothes.  (My parents weren’t cruel.  They just wanted to teach me about money and being responsible with material possessions.)  So I started doing the dishes and mowing the lawn for a small allowance that would be divided between my church tithe, clothing allowance, and baseball cards. 

 

As important as it was to learn to be responsible with money and to learn how a budget works…this was probably the end of my truly innocent days.  Ever since that day, money was no longer the thing that solved everyone else’s needs; it was the vehicle for providing me with stuff that made me socially acceptable. 

 

Money quickly becomes a solution to problems that only relationship can truly fulfill.

 

And this is the beauty of what Matty was saying when he took the $10 bill and asked to be driven to Cambodia.  He didn’t think that $10 was getting him anything.  He thought that $10 was a way to connect with a new friend that happened to need that $10 more than him.  He asked Michelle if he could give the money to his friends in Cambodia.

 

This is the innocence that we need to have.  The realization that relationship and community brings more life than all the material possessions in the world. 

 

A child has the luxury of innocence because mom and dad are supposed to meet their needs.  As adults who are learning how the world works and how much food costs, we can’t be naïve about our money.  But we also can’t rely upon it for our comfort and happiness.

 

Having money isn’t the sin.  The love of money (dependence on it for our identity) is the sin.  So as much as I thought buying jeans was buying me social status, the people I was friends with, especially the ones who cared about the real me, didn’t see a pair of jeans.  They saw a friend.  It’s that simple.

 

So let’s all get in our cars and drive to Cambodia!