Modesty & Simplicity

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective
Neto
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by Neto »

Adam wrote:
TeleBodyofChrist wrote:I am not trying to be smart but I am curious... how is it justified for you not to live like the locals because you do not feel like you can but someone else can not own a particular car because to you it is extravagant?

You said yourself your house is extravagant or more than what they are used to. Why not live like they do? You have just proven what Ernie said people judge because of what the see or think you have not really what your heart is doing.
Those are fair questions, and I am happy to respond to them. On two occasions we lived for five weeks in a bush house without electricity or running water. Even then, we weren't living as the people here live because we didn't grow all of our own food, but rather we purchased it from the store. We came to the realization that, because we didn't grow up living that way, we weren't very good at it. And what took local people a few minutes to do (chopping firewood for example) would take me hours (I am not exaggerating). So if we were to live as the local people live, we would literally spend all of our time just trying to live, and I wouldn't have any time to do the Bible translation work that God called me to do. A second consideration was the fact that living as the locals live would indeed burn us out. I just can't eat sweet potato cooked in fire ash every day as my main staple. My daughter won't even touch sweet potato. My wife would burn out if she had to hike to the river multiple times a week and wash our clothes by hand. So we decided that if we were to fulfill the call God had on our lives, we needed to live in a way that was sustainable for us and would allow us to, in fact, do that work. For us, that means a western style house with power and a water tank.

I see this as a very different circumstance from the rich man who says to himself, "I've given a lot of money to charity already, so now I am going to reward myself and buy a Lamborghini." I just cannot imagine a scenario in which the purchase of a Lamborghini is necessary for someone to fulfill God's calling on their life. If a person really cares about the poor, and truly takes the words of Jesus seriously, I don't see how he can purchase a Lamborghini. I can, however, see the necessity of buying a Land Cruiser or something like that if a person is working in a remote area with bad roads and needs reliable transportation. A Land Cruiser is expensive, but I think it can be justified as a needed expense to accomplish God's work. There are many parts of the world that are quite inaccessible if someone doesn't have a durable vehicle like a Land Cruiser. However, I don't see how a Lamborghini could be justified as a needed expense to accomplish God's work.

I hope that clarifies my position for you.
When we went to live with the tribal people we went through the same process - wanting to live as much like the people as possible, but realizing that doing so would mean that that would be all that we would manage to do - live there. The first several times in the village we lived in an Indian house, with the "kitchen" on the ground underneath the raised split-palm floor. We did have a small two-burner gas stove, but did some cooking on an open fire. We washed our clothes in the river when we went there to bathe, just like the people. After the first year we built a small house, 16 x 24. It was a board shack, but had an aluminum roof, so we could catch some rain water in a large plastic waste can. Five years later, after several failed attempts, we managed to hand-drill a well, on which we mounted a hand pump. Before that we had bathed & washed clothes in the river, and sometimes I spent an hour or more every day looking for a place where I could dip up some reasonably clean water for drinking. (During the transition between rainy season & dry season, and back, the best streams are either flooded or stagnant.) We purposely chose a hand pump, because one of the major needs of the people was clean drinking water. Before we got the well, we did get a larger water tank to collect water off of the roof, but I couldn't drink it w/o getting sick. The roof was not high enough to feed it into a shower, so I had rigged a shower bucket on a pulley system, and in the rainy season we could shower in the house, rather than go to the river. A 16 x 24 house is 384 square feet. We lived in that space with a family of five, and 1/4 of that space was a public room where the people could come in, and we also did all of our language work in that room. But just shortly before our youngest was born, we added a 12 x 16 section onto the front, which then became all public room, and school house, both for our children and the people. We showed the Luke film in that room, with people crowded in wall to wall, very much unlike their culture, which demands a LOT of "personal space". I later installed a toilet in the house, but we never had running water - we did bucket flush.

At the same time that we added onto the house, we also built a small (2 x 3 meter) 'translation house' just into the jungle, where we could work away from the noise of the village.

I'm not saying all of this to brag, although some might think so. I'm not saying it to compare us with Adam & his family. Each situation is different, and each person comes to the work from a different experience set. (During my early years I grew up in a house w/o a bathroom, and until I was 11 or so we had to haul all of our water from town. We kids hauled water for the garden from the pond -about 1/8 mile away - on a coaster wagon in two 10 gallon milk cans.)

About food - we brought nearly everything in from the city (by plane), because there are no stores within a couple days walk. I planted pineapple & bananas, and we did buy some things from the people when they had extra, but to move in & "live off of the land" is an imposition on the people, depleting already limited supplies of meat & wild fruit. We brought in manga & jambo (English: mango & "Malay apple") trees and gave away most of them, to provide more fruit for the people right in the village area. But it all comes down to what Adam said above, If you want to live on a subsistence level like most tribal groups, that's pretty much all you will get accomplished, if you do not just burn out or die from it.
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Adam
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Location: Papua New Guinea
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by Adam »

Neto wrote:
Adam wrote:
TeleBodyofChrist wrote:I am not trying to be smart but I am curious... how is it justified for you not to live like the locals because you do not feel like you can but someone else can not own a particular car because to you it is extravagant?

You said yourself your house is extravagant or more than what they are used to. Why not live like they do? You have just proven what Ernie said people judge because of what the see or think you have not really what your heart is doing.
Those are fair questions, and I am happy to respond to them. On two occasions we lived for five weeks in a bush house without electricity or running water. Even then, we weren't living as the people here live because we didn't grow all of our own food, but rather we purchased it from the store. We came to the realization that, because we didn't grow up living that way, we weren't very good at it. And what took local people a few minutes to do (chopping firewood for example) would take me hours (I am not exaggerating). So if we were to live as the local people live, we would literally spend all of our time just trying to live, and I wouldn't have any time to do the Bible translation work that God called me to do. A second consideration was the fact that living as the locals live would indeed burn us out. I just can't eat sweet potato cooked in fire ash every day as my main staple. My daughter won't even touch sweet potato. My wife would burn out if she had to hike to the river multiple times a week and wash our clothes by hand. So we decided that if we were to fulfill the call God had on our lives, we needed to live in a way that was sustainable for us and would allow us to, in fact, do that work. For us, that means a western style house with power and a water tank.

I see this as a very different circumstance from the rich man who says to himself, "I've given a lot of money to charity already, so now I am going to reward myself and buy a Lamborghini." I just cannot imagine a scenario in which the purchase of a Lamborghini is necessary for someone to fulfill God's calling on their life. If a person really cares about the poor, and truly takes the words of Jesus seriously, I don't see how he can purchase a Lamborghini. I can, however, see the necessity of buying a Land Cruiser or something like that if a person is working in a remote area with bad roads and needs reliable transportation. A Land Cruiser is expensive, but I think it can be justified as a needed expense to accomplish God's work. There are many parts of the world that are quite inaccessible if someone doesn't have a durable vehicle like a Land Cruiser. However, I don't see how a Lamborghini could be justified as a needed expense to accomplish God's work.

I hope that clarifies my position for you.
When we went to live with the tribal people we went through the same process - wanting to live as much like the people as possible, but realizing that doing so would mean that that would be all that we would manage to do - live there. The first several times in the village we lived in an Indian house, with the "kitchen" on the ground underneath the raised split-palm floor. We did have a small two-burner gas stove, but did some cooking on an open fire. We washed our clothes in the river when we went there to bathe, just like the people. After the first year we built a small house, 16 x 24. It was a board shack, but had an aluminum roof, so we could catch some rain water in a large plastic waste can. Five years later, after several failed attempts, we managed to hand-drill a well, on which we mounted a hand pump. Before that we had bathed & washed clothes in the river, and sometimes I spent an hour or more every day looking for a place where I could dip up some reasonably clean water for drinking. (During the transition between rainy season & dry season, and back, the best streams are either flooded or stagnant.) We purposely chose a hand pump, because one of the major needs of the people was clean drinking water. Before we got the well, we did get a larger water tank to collect water off of the roof, but I couldn't drink it w/o getting sick. The roof was not high enough to feed it into a shower, so I had rigged a shower bucket on a pulley system, and in the rainy season we could shower in the house, rather than go to the river. A 16 x 24 house is 384 square feet. We lived in that space with a family of five, and 1/4 of that space was a public room where the people could come in, and we also did all of our language work in that room. But just shortly before our youngest was born, we added a 12 x 16 section onto the front, which then became all public room, and school house, both for our children and the people. We showed the Luke film in that room, with people crowded in wall to wall, very much unlike their culture, which demands a LOT of "personal space". I later installed a toilet in the house, but we never had running water - we did bucket flush.

At the same time that we added onto the house, we also built a small (2 x 3 meter) 'translation house' just into the jungle, where we could work away from the noise of the village.

I'm not saying all of this to brag, although some might think so. I'm not saying it to compare us with Adam & his family. Each situation is different, and each person comes to the work from a different experience set. (During my early years I grew up in a house w/o a bathroom, and until I was 11 or so we had to haul all of our water from town. We kids hauled water for the garden from the pond -about 1/8 mile away - on a coaster wagon in two 10 gallon milk cans.)

About food - we brought nearly everything in from the city (by plane), because there are no stores within a couple days walk. I planted pineapple & bananas, and we did buy some things from the people when they had extra, but to move in & "live off of the land" is an imposition on the people, depleting already limited supplies of meat & wild fruit. We brought in manga & jambo (English: mango & "Malay apple") trees and gave away most of them, to provide more fruit for the people right in the village area. But it all comes down to what Adam said above, If you want to live on a subsistence level like most tribal groups, that's pretty much all you will get accomplished, if you do not just burn out or die from it.
Thanks for sharing, Neto. I greatly admire what many Bible translators have endured as far as living conditions in order to accomplish their work. When I consider the first missionaries to various remote places back in the 1940s and 1950s here in PNG, I am amazed that they were able to do any translation work at all. Not only because of the living conditions but also because the people they were working with were completely monolingual with no formal education or understanding of the Bible. Our situation is not nearly as difficult as yours was. Yet, if we lived the way the local people do, we still would not have the time or energy to do much translation work at all.
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Judas Maccabeus
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by Judas Maccabeus »

Josh wrote:
Sunbeam wrote:I am not sure whether this parking a half mile away is a serious suggestion or not, but I think it is really sad that the (realistic!) fear of being harshly judged for the vehicle he is driving is causing Josh this sort of angst.

Shame, double shame. These things ought not so to be!
I have tried to take my feelings to the Lord and listen to him what I should learn.

I think my take-away is that I should better understand how hard it could be for someone else to try to come to church, change their culture, and fit in to new and strange ways. So I will try to do as much as I can to help the next seeker I encounter with those things. And I will also see how I can make sure my own behaviour is as welcoming and hospitable as possible, and dial back my own judgment of how worldly worldly people are.
You can not expect sheep with no shepherd to behave like sheep with a shepherd. We can never pay back the people who have helped us so, we can only pay forward.

J.M.
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Judas Maccabeus
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by Judas Maccabeus »

Sunbeam wrote:I am not sure whether this parking a half mile away is a serious suggestion or not, but I think it is really sad that the (realistic!) fear of being harshly judged for the vehicle he is driving is causing Josh this sort of angst.

Shame, double shame. These things ought not so to be!
If you are just visiting and not planning on joining the explanation that it is a renter should work. HOWEVER I have not yet had the experience of showing up at a Horning church in my all white small SUV.

I suspect that sooner or later this will happen. But than again, the way we dress telegraphs "moderate conservative " to all who are in the know. I suspect that the folks will figure this out also, and fairly quick. Blessings on your visit.

BTW you should have seen the stares when we visited my friends C&MA church. Like they had never seen a couple of Mennonites before!

J.M.
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Hats Off
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by Hats Off »

Josh, when my daughter was in Colorado, she ordered an economy rental car - when she went to pick it up they had a mustang convertible and a red Volkswagon Beetle. She took a couple of old order Amish women up Pike's Peak in the red Beetle; she took pictures of the car, and everyone thought it was a big joke. We envisioned her driving up Pikes peak with the Mustang convertible with the top down and her covering blowing in the wind behind her, secured by the strings.

When guests come to church, we pay little attention to what they are driving, unless they are from some other plain church.

They tell the story of an older, well to do man who was using an older harness on his horses. Someone told him that he could surely afford something better. Yes, he said, but there are others who can't. I like the idea of not being able to tell who is wealthy in a brotherhood - it is good if we all live within our brother's means. Living within our means is not necessarily a good thing.

We are told that one of our biggest problems today is our prosperity - and I struggled for years with that thought. If we are so prosperous, why is there no one to help me with my financial struggles. I came to realize that there is more than one problem with prosperity; those who can't afford to live like the others do, still try to live that way and those who are prosperous often have little understanding or empathy for the struggling brothers.
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Dan Z
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by Dan Z »

Hats Off wrote:We are told that one of our biggest problems today is our prosperity - and I struggled for years with that thought. If we are so prosperous, why is there no one to help me with my financial struggles. I came to realize that there is more than one problem with prosperity; those who can't afford to live like the others do, still try to live that way and those who are prosperous often have little understanding or empathy for the struggling brothers.
Sounds like the biggest problem is individualism then - and the self-sufficiency/self-aggrandizement that is the real danger behind wealth. When I read Christ's warnings about wealth - it's not the things or even the attachment to things that is the prime danger (although idolatry certainly enters in here), but rather the way wealth tends to degrade our faith in God's provision, and at the same time puffs up our pride self-importance. There are far too many "self-made men" among us.
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Neto
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by Neto »

Hats Off wrote: They tell the story of an older, well to do man who was using an older harness on his horses. Someone told him that he could surely afford something better. Yes, he said, but there are others who can't. I like the idea of not being able to tell who is wealthy in a brotherhood - it is good if we all live within our brother's means. Living within our means is not necessarily a good thing.
This reminds me of something I read about the early Dutch Mennonites in regards to the question about prescribed dress. It was stated (sorry, I don't remember where I read this) that the well-to-do members were either expected, or chose on their own volition, to wear clothing characteristic of the poorer class. (This is the only evidence I've ever seen of any type of 'dress standards" among the early anabaptists in the Dutch areas.
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TeleBodyofChrist
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by TeleBodyofChrist »

Adam wrote:
TeleBodyofChrist wrote:I am not trying to be smart but I am curious... how is it justified for you not to live like the locals because you do not feel like you can but someone else can not own a particular car because to you it is extravagant?

You said yourself your house is extravagant or more than what they are used to. Why not live like they do? You have just proven what Ernie said people judge because of what the see or think you have not really what your heart is doing.
Those are fair questions, and I am happy to respond to them. On two occasions we lived for five weeks in a bush house without electricity or running water. Even then, we weren't living as the people here live because we didn't grow all of our own food, but rather we purchased it from the store. We came to the realization that, because we didn't grow up living that way, we weren't very good at it. And what took local people a few minutes to do (chopping firewood for example) would take me hours (I am not exaggerating). So if we were to live as the local people live, we would literally spend all of our time just trying to live, and I wouldn't have any time to do the Bible translation work that God called me to do. A second consideration was the fact that living as the locals live would indeed burn us out. I just can't eat sweet potato cooked in fire ash every day as my main staple. My daughter won't even touch sweet potato. My wife would burn out if she had to hike to the river multiple times a week and wash our clothes by hand. So we decided that if we were to fulfill the call God had on our lives, we needed to live in a way that was sustainable for us and would allow us to, in fact, do that work. For us, that means a western style house with power and a water tank.

I see this as a very different circumstance from the rich man who says to himself, "I've given a lot of money to charity already, so now I am going to reward myself and buy a Lamborghini." I just cannot imagine a scenario in which the purchase of a Lamborghini is necessary for someone to fulfill God's calling on their life. If a person really cares about the poor, and truly takes the words of Jesus seriously, I don't see how he can purchase a Lamborghini. I can, however, see the necessity of buying a Land Cruiser or something like that if a person is working in a remote area with bad roads and needs reliable transportation. A Land Cruiser is expensive, but I think it can be justified as a needed expense to accomplish God's work. There are many parts of the world that are quite inaccessible if someone doesn't have a durable vehicle like a Land Cruiser. However, I don't see how a Lamborghini could be justified as a needed expense to accomplish God's work.

I hope that clarifies my position for you.
It does clarify your position. However, this is subjective. Some people would still have a problem with the Land Cruiser and suggest you find something more to their liking. These are extreme examples though.
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TeleBodyofChrist
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by TeleBodyofChrist »

Hats Off wrote:Josh, when my daughter was in Colorado, she ordered an economy rental car - when she went to pick it up they had a mustang convertible and a red Volkswagon Beetle. She took a couple of old order Amish women up Pike's Peak in the red Beetle; she took pictures of the car, and everyone thought it was a big joke. We envisioned her driving up Pikes peak with the Mustang convertible with the top down and her covering blowing in the wind behind her, secured by the strings.

When guests come to church, we pay little attention to what they are driving, unless they are from some other plain church.

They tell the story of an older, well to do man who was using an older harness on his horses. Someone told him that he could surely afford something better. Yes, he said, but there are others who can't. I like the idea of not being able to tell who is wealthy in a brotherhood - it is good if we all live within our brother's means. Living within our means is not necessarily a good thing.

We are told that one of our biggest problems today is our prosperity - and I struggled for years with that thought. If we are so prosperous, why is there no one to help me with my financial struggles. I came to realize that there is more than one problem with prosperity; those who can't afford to live like the others do, still try to live that way and those who are prosperous often have little understanding or empathy for the struggling brothers.
I think there are some differences between communities. The community we were with there was a obvious difference in wealth and people did get into debt to accomplish things. There was also not any understanding when others could not participate is every function because they had to work to provide and pay obligations. Then there was another community that you could not tell who had what. They all struggled together. Brothers often helped other brothers get on their feet by lending funds to start businesses.

The community that struggled seemed to be closer.
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Adam
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Re: Modesty & Simplicity

Post by Adam »

TeleBodyofChrist wrote:
Adam wrote:
TeleBodyofChrist wrote:I am not trying to be smart but I am curious... how is it justified for you not to live like the locals because you do not feel like you can but someone else can not own a particular car because to you it is extravagant?

You said yourself your house is extravagant or more than what they are used to. Why not live like they do? You have just proven what Ernie said people judge because of what the see or think you have not really what your heart is doing.
Those are fair questions, and I am happy to respond to them. On two occasions we lived for five weeks in a bush house without electricity or running water. Even then, we weren't living as the people here live because we didn't grow all of our own food, but rather we purchased it from the store. We came to the realization that, because we didn't grow up living that way, we weren't very good at it. And what took local people a few minutes to do (chopping firewood for example) would take me hours (I am not exaggerating). So if we were to live as the local people live, we would literally spend all of our time just trying to live, and I wouldn't have any time to do the Bible translation work that God called me to do. A second consideration was the fact that living as the locals live would indeed burn us out. I just can't eat sweet potato cooked in fire ash every day as my main staple. My daughter won't even touch sweet potato. My wife would burn out if she had to hike to the river multiple times a week and wash our clothes by hand. So we decided that if we were to fulfill the call God had on our lives, we needed to live in a way that was sustainable for us and would allow us to, in fact, do that work. For us, that means a western style house with power and a water tank.

I see this as a very different circumstance from the rich man who says to himself, "I've given a lot of money to charity already, so now I am going to reward myself and buy a Lamborghini." I just cannot imagine a scenario in which the purchase of a Lamborghini is necessary for someone to fulfill God's calling on their life. If a person really cares about the poor, and truly takes the words of Jesus seriously, I don't see how he can purchase a Lamborghini. I can, however, see the necessity of buying a Land Cruiser or something like that if a person is working in a remote area with bad roads and needs reliable transportation. A Land Cruiser is expensive, but I think it can be justified as a needed expense to accomplish God's work. There are many parts of the world that are quite inaccessible if someone doesn't have a durable vehicle like a Land Cruiser. However, I don't see how a Lamborghini could be justified as a needed expense to accomplish God's work.

I hope that clarifies my position for you.
It does clarify your position. However, this is subjective. Some people would still have a problem with the Land Cruiser and suggest you find something more to their liking. These are extreme examples though.
If they have a problem with it, tell them to come to Papua New Guinea and try driving to a remote village in a two-wheel drive economy car, and I bet they would change their mind!
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