Birthing, Thoughts on Poverty

A perfectly normal evening, a perfectly healthy newborn baby boy. Not breathing. No life. Dying, though he lived just moments ago. And for no reason, but the enemy comes to take him. To feel the actual fight for life over death, almost tangible in a room like that. Mother calls to her baby “Christopher! Wake up! Come back to me, baby!” No response. Christopher lays in the arms of the desperate midwives, flaccid, closed eyes, as they pump his tiny little chest and force breaths into his brand new lungs.
More than I can describe, the blood, the tearing, the hemorrhage afterward. Not enough to eat, this mom, and as a result, a near death experience just to bring life. She lays in a pool of her own blood, waning into unconsciousness, as midwives, as I myself, massage her abdomen with my bloody hands, willing the blood to stop flowing. More pitocin. One stick. And then another. There. Her life is saved, her uterus contracted, the blood finally stops. Give her fluids, start an IV. She’s ok. But what of the others? What of the hundreds of other Buntas, expectant moms, ready to give birth? What about their malnutrition, what about their hemorrhage? What about their poverty, and their ignorance that a massage at the right moment and a $2 shot will keep her from dying when she gives birth in a few days? What about her life, that of her children, and her brand new baby? What of them when they are orphaned, because she doesn’t know, and there is no one to tell her? 2 Million women die in childbirth a year—for what? For this? For a fundal massage and a shot of pitocin? Are you kidding? My mind wills not to believe it, as life is so simply saved, and yet so continuously taken.
Then the women- 16, 17, some so obviously young you know they are lying about their age and wonder who, exactly, it was that got them pregnant. The ones who come in laboring, eyes filled with fear, swearing that they have a husband, he’s just…away. The ones who’s fathers stand over them, watching their daughter give birth to his baby. The ones who tell you, because they’re scared, or feel guilty, that they went to the Catholic church and bought some horrible abortificient from a street vendor out front, and it didn’t work, and now they’re worried about deformities. They felt too young to be a mom (they are). They are too poor to afford a baby (they are). How will their family survive? Saying things like “God will provide” seems a little inappropriate, at this moment, wherein I can afford pretty much everything I need and want, and if I for some crazy reason I’m not rich enough for that, I can get money from a variety of sources. And this teenage mom who lives in a cement and cardboard house—what about her life? And her baby? It is not that I don’t believe God can (and will) provide—I agree with Heidi Baker when she says “Because He died, there is always enough” – it is that I am wondering by what source the “enough” will come. We are His hands and feet. It is through us, and yet, there are a thousand complications and negative ramifications of just going ahead and “providing” for this one—one of the dozens of girls, in this clinic, one of millions of girls worldwide-- in the same situation. Not only that, but we’re also not allowed to hand out money, which would be a very bad practice to start, I wholeheartedly agree that enslaving a people group to dependency is NO good at all.
….. So, dear one, God will provide. I know not how, but He will. I am just the midwife, and the scope of your problems extend beyond the realm of my work, which is prenatal care and births. So run along, sweetheart, go back to your cold little shack, and make sure you eat a lot of protein that you can’t afford for that baby growing inside of you that you can’t afford….God bless you, and I will pray that He will provide.

“Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him ‘Go, I wish you well, keep warm and well fed,’ and yet does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?”

This little story was simply an illustration of my frustration in trying to rectify my comparative wealth with the poverty all around me, and trying to understand the scope and depth of poverty. There is no pat answer; and there is so much more to be considered than I ever understood. There is the culture of poverty, the culture of the country, the shame and oppression, the materialism of the impoverished as well as the wealthy, the government policies (don’t get me started on this one) that are fashioned to keep the marginalized oppressed, there is industry and finance and Wal-Mart, a HUGE proponent of slave labor and oppression and EXTREME corruption (we have worked directly with those at the bottom of the Wal-Mart chain here in the Philippines, who are paid approximately 20 cents per day turning out some product that unwitting Americans will purchase and throw away with no knowledge of the family that starved to bring them their little trinket.)
There are issues on how and why and which way to go about feeding the poor and helping the hungry so that they become empowered to help themselves rather than enslaved to dependency upon “white people.”
And there are some amazing organizations doing it right. Micro-financing is probably one of the most ingenious things ever created to empower the poor. Not only that, but organizations like BRAC, who hire and train women in India and all over the world in basic health care, and then employ the women oversee their villages training and equipping the people with healthcare knowledge and saving lives. Things like 10,000 Villages are empowering the people and encouraging national artistry by paying a fair price for amazing handcrafts, and then selling them in the States. Another example—our good friend Kristen Hertzog went to Haiti and built a relationship with an honest, intelligent, hardworking, deeply impoverished young man, and sent him to school. She sponsored him through computer training school, and when he graduated, she went to Haiti and personally saw him to a number of job interviews that she helped him set up. As a result, he is now working for a bank, and has been able to purchase a home for his (formerly homeless) family. He is also teaching his sister everything he knows about computers, and is planning on not only helping her get a job, but working on a project that does for other impoverished kids what Kristen did for him. I am so impressed by this; it just takes a small investment of time and money to really, really change the world.

-jes