Greetings from the Bridge and welcome to Term 3!
Earlier this year I attended a dinner held to raise much needed funds for work that Will and Anne Downie do in Cambodia.
“Despite the fact that these children have next to nothing, for the most part they are content and happy.”
Many of you know Will and Anne and will be aware of the amazing work they do with the Raise Cambodia project. Raise Cambodia was started by the couple to boost awareness and support for people living in extreme poverty in Cambodia: a country that is still considered—despite significant progress in recent years—to be the second poorest nation in Southeast Asia.
During the fundraising dinner, Will made a comment that really resonated with me. He said of his years of involvement in the Raise project that has encountered some of the world’s poorest children—children living in abject poverty, some living dangerously in rubbish dumps. However, despite the fact that they have next to nothing, for the most part these children are content and happy. They are certainly more consistently content and happy than are the majority of the Western world’s ‘privileged’ children.
I believe (and I’m sure Will would agree), that one of the reasons for this contrast in outlook is that disadvantaged Cambodian children are not aware of a difference. They do not have the material comparisons from which to draw. You see, one of the reasons discontentment persists in Western society is that we so easily make these comparisons. And we make them each and every day. But more often than not, these comparisons are not with people who have less than us—those who are less fortunate than us—but rather with those who have more.
We have a 50-inch TV, but we know someone with an 85-inch. We have an iPhone 7, but everyone around us has an iPhone 8. The children living in rubbish dumps in Cambodia, however, may not have heard of, let alone seen, a television, PlayStation, or an iPhone. How can they be discontent not having these things when they don’t know they exist? For them, life is about waking up each day and living in the ‘now’. They don’t stress over the things that we stress about—whether we’ll get the promotion we’re hoping for, or if we can afford the next car, the next house or go on the next holiday. These children are content with what they have, and have no option but to trust in God for His daily provision.
“But the problem is that... the comparisons we make are not with those who are less fortunate than we are— but rather those who have more.”
In Philippians 4:11-13, Paul writes “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Paul says he has learned to be content in the good and the bad, in the times of abundance and in times of want, because he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. The key word here is that Paul learned, and it’s possible for us to learn as well.
The prayer I am praying earnestly right now is that God will teach me to be content, in every season. Whether it is a season of lack or a season of plenty, because I know how easily and often these seasons come and go. My prayer is also that that God will teach me to live in the here and now, and that I will embrace what He has for me in this season that I am in at this moment in time. And I believe that, as Christian educators, one of our goals should be to teach our students we have at our schools what true contentment looks like—the very contentment that Paul wrote about.
Amen!
David Gillman — CEO Christian Schools Tasmania