Sometimes we need to give thanks for what we have. We have the highest standard of living in the world and yet our measures of life satisfaction keep dropping. Here are some snippets from a US News and World Report article from 2019:
Residents in the United States are becoming unhappier. The U.S. ranks at No. 19 in the 2019 [Happiness] report, dropping one position from 2018 and five from 2017… Happiness and life satisfaction among United States adolescents, which increased between 1991 and 2011, suddenly declined after 2012…Thus, by 2016-17, both adults and adolescents were reporting significantly less happiness than they had in the 2000s. In addition, depression, suicidal ideation, and self-harm reported levels have increased sharply among adolescents since 2010 and it affected girls and young women in particular. -US News and World Report, March 19, 2019
I was motivated to look up the happiness data, knowing that Americans are consistently dropping in their satisfaction measures because I received an update from my friend Eva DeHart who runs a humanitarian ministry in Haiti, For Haiti with Love. This is how she opens the web site:
Do you want to know what it is like to live in Haiti? I mean really, do they have it THAT bad there? Picture your house, mentally remove EVERYTHING that uses either electricity or running water. Now, remove all carpeting and stuffed furniture, including the bed. Replace this with a straw mat. No floors, no slab, just bare earth and a thatched roof. Take out all the screens in your house. While you’re at it remove the windows and the doors. No grass around the house. Got a good picture? Good. Now picture yourself with no car, or bike, or shoes for that matter. No job, no unemployment or welfare checks. You have no money, no bank accounts, no credit cards, no refrigerator, no ice and no food. You are hungry, and to make matters worse, your children are hungry. On top of that they are sick, full of worms and usually naked. This is the AVERAGE Haitian!! God’s people, just like you and me, just born farther south and east.
Here is part of her current description of daily life today:
Nothing in Haiti is closed except Churches, schools, and airports (cargo yes, people no). Since everything is so expensive parents simply cannot provide for their children and without school—they are on the streets. Some will try to get money by washing vehicles or at least your windshield if you are stopped. If this doesn’t work then looting and stealing. There has been no rain, they get no power and there has been no trash pickup so streets are near impassible. Not only makes driving difficult, but that standing water isn’t rain water. With all that is going on with corona just getting started… this is bad.
I’ve been there. It’s unimaginable. But as I’ve written before, my friends Vilmer Paul and Lucner love God and serve people in this environment… with joy.
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4.11 – 13, ESV)
Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night. (Philippians 2.14, 15, MSG)