Money...

I am not yet qualified to say much about wealth, poverty and contentment. Let's say I am still working on it... I would say it has been a testing point for me, for ever. Probably one day I'll be able to write a book about it.

When I decided back in 1992 to go to Africa for the long term, I didn't worry about money, or think about it, or the lack of it. It was not part of my decision. I think money became a worrying thing for me when we had children, and when we were living in Zimbabwe with incredible inflation - so that prices went up and up and up. So did the amount of Zim dollars we got for our pounds as well, though, and in fact we got richer as far as spending power went. But, for the last year or so, we could only get money there by exchanging our pounds for people's Zim cash, in huge bricks and chunks. Or at the tills of supermarkets, at the end of the day, by arrangement with the shop manager. At first when inflation got bad, we would buy ten one hundred dollar notes clipped together into a 1000 dollar wad called "one pin" (because of the way it was pinned together). But the pins soon clumped together into three inch bricks, and you needed a ruck sack or cardboard box to cart them around. We actually bought one friend's entire Zimbabwe savings from him over the course of a few months, with our pounds. Within another year or so if he had kept those savings in Zim dollars they would have been worth virtually nothing, so he kept assuring us we were saving him from certain penury. But it all felt very skewed, and more than a bit shady, although I am not sure it actually was - and we rationalised how we were managing, along with everyone else.

When we moved to Uganda, it was a great relief being able to use an ATM - although when we first arrived in Uganda there were only two ATMs in the country! Hard to believe now when they are found at every filling station. The two were in the very middle of Kampala, in places impossible to park near. So we still went mostly for our money to Downtown Forex. Even the hassle of getting to Downtown Forex felt simple and do-able after all the uncertainties and arrangement-making of getting money in Zimbabwe.

But we found the cost of living in Uganda almost double what it was in Zim, and we had to ask our churches for more support and add on more churches as well. We did get the extra support we needed, but I hated getting the emails frmo Crosslinks saying we were under-supported, and being featured on the website as one of several mission partners who needed more support. I began to ignore emails from Crosslinks and refuse to open bank statements! Ignorance is definitely preferable... And then we had money stolen from our bank account through paypal. And then our house in England flooded badly, meaning a big loss of rent as well as huge bills for renovation - in the end all covered by insurance but it was such a worry to me.

I have often wished that I had tons of money, so that I could fly off on holidays to amazing faraway places, and eat out in amazing restaurants, dress all in pure linen clothes with long leather boots and wear gold jewellery. That is who I feel I am inside... as well as tall and slim with long sleek hair... Seriously, I am usually put to shame when we have those "If I won the Lottery" conversations - would you all really give it all away?! I am sure I would give some of it away... even most of it, but I would definitely have plans for quite a bit of it...   However, I have been living on missionary allowance for twenty years, and I have not won the lottery (I haven't entered it in fact), so, I am not that linen-clad person... Ah well. And you know what, I wouldn't go back and change a thing. Not one thing.

You would think that after living in rural Zambia, downward-spiralling Zimbabwe, and poverty-stricken Uganda for all these years, I would have a better attitude towards money, and a better perspective on it.

In fact, I have learned some basic truths about money. I  just have not learned to spurn it yet. I still have a way to go...

But this is what I have learned. Much as I could have compared myself to our better-off expat friends (and did) I know all too well that wealth is relative, and that I was incredibly rich in Uganda. Unpacking my weekly grocery shopping in front of Florence or Naomi certainly drummed that one home effectively. It was usually quite embarrassing. Bagfuls of food, for one week? Having a vehicle to swan around in at my leisure was another indicator of our wealth in Uganda. Eating meat almost every day, ditto. Having a home with a separate bedroom for each child, a good roof with no holes in it, a cement floor not a mud one, running water, electricity, ditto. Our own computers, ditto. Many changes of clothes in the wardrobe, ditto. A cupboard full of children's toys. Books, dvds!

I also learned that wherever one comes on the economic scale, almost everyone feels they do not have enough. I am sure that almost every Ugandan I knew thought I was very rich. Yet I worried about money and would tell people I couldn't afford to help them send their child to school. Meanwhile my better off friends worried about how to afford boarding school fees for their children when back in England. Other friends who were living back in England earning competitive salaries worried about paying their mortgages. I would love to get to the point where I am conscious of how rich I am in so many ways, where I learn that I do have enough, that God has provided and will provide for us. I would love to get to the point where I am simply content with what we have and what we can do.

Money symbolises security to me, more than luxuries, in spite of what I have been saying. But this recession has surely served to show us all in the West that our savings, pensions, and incomes are not ever secure. Aren't we actually foolish to put our complete trust in them, when banks go bust, and jobs get cut? This year while we live on two part-time jobs and wait for Dan's full-time job to start, we are experiencing how God is taking care of us, and it is humbling, and faith-building. Maybe I am learning at long last that our only security is in God, after all. And he has been faithful to us the whole way.