Should we wine and dine the poor?

Last week some of us from church took a group of orphans from Pranburi for Pizza after worship. The Pizza for 12 kids, 3 adult chaperones and 5 adults from church cost almost 4000 baht. The monthly budget for the orphanage is 20,000 baht. This raised the question: should we have spent that much money on one meal with those kids?

Or to frame the question more broadly - is it appropriate (occasionally) to wine and dine the poor?

For me this is a question of degrees, but let me suggest that poor people deserve (and sometimes need) to be able to splurge a little.

This does not mean going to the Oriental and blowing the entire month's budget on one meal. But Pizza Company at one of Bangkok's trendier malls where kids from the small town got to ride "big city" escalators might be a good compromise.

One summer while in seminary I worked in a New York City slum. We rehabiliated abandoned buildings in a drug infested, poor, violent neighborhood in the Bronx. The founder and head of the ministry used to spend hours and money making a 4 foot by 10 foot stained glass window that he insisted be included at the back of every apartment. He would literally spend days working on this window. Days that could have been spent framing walls, hanging dry wall, painting or doing any number of other things.

"Why?" I asked. "Isn't your time better spent doing these other things?"

Bill replied, "The poor will be here tomorrow. They need the shelter and warmth of this apartment and they need it as soon as we can provide it. But they also need a little beauty in their lives. A little luxury. These windows will provide that."

I should mention that I asked my question after working with Bill for about two weeks. Another two weeks past before I accepted his answer. One month later, I gave his answer to a visiting youth group who asked the same question I'd asked after two weeks working in the slum. A month after that (and with only two weeks left in my internship) I joined Bill for 1 hour everyday working on the stained glass windows.

It's funny how your perspective changes over time.

A friend of mine (Rod) lives in the middle of Klong Toey Slum. He lives in a tin shack alongside 90,000 other people. There is a little lake in front of his house. It's really more like a cesspool. Rod's neighbors came a few months ago and build a little dock into the pool. And put plants around it. If it weren't for the dog poop and the general stinch in the slum, it would make for a nice place to sit and have dinner. Seems like even the poor in Klong Toey have figured out that even THEY need a little beauty in their lives, a little luxury.

It's a little bit like Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you." He's not saying it's okay to ignore their needs or to mock them or to not care. But the occasional act of generosity or celebration is life-giving. We should remember that, especially we who are rich.