living simply

On July 14 of last year, I went to an event that World Vision was putting on at a church in Denver. It was essentially a guided audio/visual tour of the life of a child living in AIDS affected portions of Africa. We all put on headphones and walked through a sort of labyrinth in a large tent that showed different aspects of where that child lived, what they did, what their parents did, what school is like, etc. At the end of the tour, we saw photos and profiles of World Vision kids in Africa who need sponsors.

I stood staring at that wall of children's faces wanting to help, but thinking that as a sponsor of two Compassion children already, I couldn't justify sponsoring a third child. Yet as I stood there a little longer, I felt like God was putting something on my heart and mind. I basically felt God saying to me, "Amanda, just don't buy new clothes for a year, and you can sponsor a child."

Hold up, what? I thought to myself, I can't do that, can I? No new t-shirts or gym shorts, no strolling around the clothes section at Target when I'm really there for shampoo, no replacing the clothes I decide I don't like anymore? But that call from God was undeniable. I had to do it.

My eyes browsed the hundreds of photos and quickly landed on a little girl from Uganda named Aleluya. Perfect. That night I added one more to my sponsored child family.

The reason I write about this all now is that the one year mark passed this week, right in the middle of CHIC, the incredible Covenant youth conference I just got back from with my youth group kids. Through the mass chaos that was CHIC, I was able to take a few moments here and there to reflect on the last year, and thought that I should share.

I definitely didn't go the entire year without obtaining new clothes in some way. I decided from the beginning I wouldn't be super legalistic about it, but would just trust God to do what He wanted. Shortly after making the commitment, I had to buy a few crucial items for my first backpacking trip I took last August. And a couple weeks ago I bought a sports bra. Besides that, I don't think I purchased anything. I got a couple of free shirts here and there, used a couple gift certificates, and went on the traditional Christmas shopping trip where my mom buys me a few clothing items as presents, seeing as I am super picky and she gave up on buying things for me on her own. :) Thanks Mel.

For the most part, this was not difficult at all. Sure, there were a few times when I walked through a clothing section in a store and really liked something I saw, so I tended to just avoid looking at clothes at all. And I definitely had some moments where I was really tired of wearing the same clothes, or I felt out of style, or I felt like people would notice that I kept wearing the same things and I didn't like that.

In those moments, I always remembered how grateful some people are just to have one outfit of clothes. I remembered the homeless man in Denver from two years ago who wanted this old dirty t-shirt we had found in the trash. And the story from when a group from our church went to Uganda and gave out shorts to kids, who nearly knocked each other out trying to get a pair.

But most of the past year, I realized that I still have SO MUCH STUFF. And that a lot of the rest of this country has even more stuff. So when July 14 rolled around this past week, I was far from ready to go on a celebratory shopping spree. In reality, I honestly don't think much will change for me now. I may buy a new item of clothing here or there, but I moreso want to try to get rid of stuff and give it to people who need it more than me.

I don't write all of this now because I want you to think I'm awesome or that I'm better than you or something, because I'm definitely not, and I really don't like when people have that attitude. In fact, I only told a few people this past year that I wasn't buying clothes. But I feel like the lessons I learned and the things God was showing me this past week and throughout this summer were things worth mentioning.

This has been a little scattered, but to sum up what I've learned I'll share about two things that I heard this summer that God used to show me why I gave up buying new clothes. One week at camp, our speaker, Jamie Roach, talked about how his daughter had a great experience on a mission trip and realized how much she has and how little the people she went to serve have. She started selling shirts to raise money with a slogan on it that may be familiar to you (I think it's Ghandi), but one that is now sticking with me.

Live simply so others may simply live.

I need to continually watch my spending on things that I really don't need or don't matter so that I can be more conscious and able to give money to organizations like Compassion or World Vision or the International Justice Mission or the Denver Rescue Mission. Because let's be honest, the reason we buy new clothes is to impress others, and that's really lame. So I'm going to continue to try to live more simply, even if it means not being stylish or looking cool or having to wear some of the same clothes I have now for the rest of my life.

The other thing that once again hit me this week in a seminar at CHIC was that we have to be careful about our spending anyway, because so many retail stores and coffee and chocolate companies use slave labor to produce their products at some point in the process.

They may not ship their clothes directly from a sweat shop in Asia to the mall, but maybe their cotton comes from kids forced to pick it for 18 hours a day and little to no pay. From now on if I do decide to buy something, I want to make sure first that I'm not buying from a company that uses slave labor. At this point, some companies may not actually know if they are purchasing slave-produced items, and so the next step is continually pushing companies to stop living in ignorant bliss and start truly assessing their production line. For more info on this, check out Not for Sale. They gave us a great seminar and have a great web site, including a database of companies so you can see if your favorite companies are guilty of using slave labor. And remember, our speaker told us that a really good deal on a shirt probably means someone else paid the much higher price.

God has challenged me this week to stop giving in to the typical American lifestyle in some ways, and to truly try to follow the example of Jesus in all areas of life. I am nowhere near where I wish I was in this, but I really want to stop trying to be a comfortable Christian. It's uncomfortable to have to stop and think about that shirt you're about to buy--do I really need another shirt, was someone forced against their will to help in making this shirt?--but I believe that's what God is calling us to. I know I don't have it all figured out, but we need to start taking steps to readjust our lives to the life Christ truly calls us to, and trust that He will guide us in making good decisions about our spending and living.

As easy as it is, don't just be stuck in frustration over this issue or think you have to single handedly end oppression. At the same time, don't keep living ignorantly. But do your part to deliver people from poverty and injustice. I mean I'm no Bible expert, but I'm pretty sure that's what Jesus did. So that's what I'm gonna try to do. Who's with me??