Them

I often hear people say:

“Let’s take care of our own.  We need to worry about us, not them”.

I feel sad when I hear this because the people who wish this must not have met “them”.

And for a long time I have though about what I would like to say to people who wish this.  And I guess it is this:

I realize that you have not met people who have no resources.  People with no food pantry to humbly approach, and whose educated doctors have no tools to treat sick children who are in pain- whose diarrhea might kill them.

Because, if you had met “them”, you would see that love for a child is cross-cultural.  And the desire to provide nourishment and good health for ones children is without borders.

That when “their” child has an infection and is crying in pain, and they have no pharmacy, or treatment options, they cry and scream with despair, and beg God and the sky for a miracle to happen so that they can alleviate their child’s hurt.

And make them better.

If you had met them, you would see that they are human, and that the only thing that makes them less audible and visible is their lack of money and resources.

And that because they are less visible we can pretend; that they are not hungry, that they are not sick, that they have boots from which to pull up their bootstraps.

And because they are less audible we cannot hear their cries or their torment, or their moans of pain.

Which never stop.

Because they do not have medicine and food and water, and there is no hope.  There is no way to make the pain or hunger stop.  For “them” there are no scraps to eat from a dumpster and no grocery store from which to steal food.

Their eyes beg for someone to help them, to recognize that they are working hard to cultivate their land in spite of no rain, to stock the shelves of their village “market” with grain and tomatoes, though they will not grow.

I have met them.

And I think about “them” every night before I go to sleep in my cozy bed snuggling my two healthy and cared for children.  I rest with the knowledge that even if my bank account is empty, I will always have a way to feed and meet the health needs of my children, because of my good luck to be born in this country.

This is not a right or left vantage point.  This is human life.

And when I hear you say; “let’s take care of our own” it makes me think that you do not care about “them”.  That it is okay with you that children are left sick and hungry.

When you proudly repost that you agree with caring for those who are “native” to our country, what I see displayed is a lack of compassion.

And really, I know that if they stood in front of you holding their child who was burning with fever and crying in pain from the open wound on her leg, you would put them in your car and speed to the nearest hospital.  You would demand that the child be seen immediately and by the most qualified doctor.  The one who could stop her pain the quickest.

And though undeniably every trained physician would disregard payment arrangements and insurance carriers to care for the child, if they did not, you would scream in the streets for everybody to come in and use their voice to make sure the child was healed.

And they would.

I know that you would not stop until that child was well again.  And her mother cried with pure gratefulness and joy, that her child would live.

So the next time you start to talk about “only caring for our own” I encourage you to stop and think, just for a minute, about whether or not you really mean it.

Because really, I bet you don’t.

Our Muddy Boots proudly supports IMEC.  

There is no other organization that so efficiently, directly and respectfully serves those most in need and also  provides the ultimate in recycling options.  

IMEC transforms communities in the poorest parts of the world by appropriately providing equipment for hospitals, schools and farms.  

Plus, if you support IMEC you get to sleep better knowing that you have  let a child, a mother, a father, live.

IMEC is the very definition of “reuse” and respect, and I encourage you to support “them” too.  

Click the banner above or below to learn more about this incredible organization.