Making Sense of Need

Anur is a Muslim man from Bangladesh. I didn’t know much about Bangladesh until I met Anur. His friendship gave me the desire to try to see life from his point of view. Except for a number of city-states, it is the most densely populated country in the world. With a geographic size almost identical to Wisconsin, it holds more people than all of Russia . Anur is Bangladeshi, but works in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia driving a compound bus for about $400 a month. He works this job from 7:30am until 9:30pm, 6 days a week. He’s been doing it for 6 years now, trying to save up money to “change his future.” The first 5 years he wasn’t able to save a dime, as it took all of his income to live and to help support his father and brother back home in Bangladesh. A year ago he took on a night job to try and build some sort of savings. This night job is another driving job taking people from eastern Saudi Arabia across the border to the international airport in Manama, Bahrain. Many international flights out of Bahrain depart around 2:00 am, so Mustufah takes people the hour and a half journey to the airport, sleeps a few hours, and then brings arriving passengers back into Saudi Arabia. He does this four nights a week, on top of his regular job. Slowly, he’s been able to save.

Anur longs to break away from a social structure in Saudi Arabia that places his nationality at the bottom of the list. Saudi Arabia relies on about 7 million migrant workers from southern Asia (about 12% of Saudi Arabia’s total population) to make up most of its unskilled and semiskilled labor force. Bangladesh represents 1 million of these, and its people seem mostly involved in menial grounds-keeping and waste management jobs. In a fortunate series of circumstances, Anur was able to find himself in a driving school that placed him in one of the highest paying jobs a Bangladeshi can enjoy in Saudi Arabia. His future has a glimmer of hope, unlike most other migrant workers, but he has to work extremely hard to keep this hope alive.

I live on the compound that he serves and have enjoyed his friendship and the conversations we often have as he gets me around. This is a compound of about 11,000 Western expatriates just like me; a compound that rests comfortably on the backs of South Asian laborers. Anur feels much more fortunate than the average citizen in Bangladesh. He was fighting a fever the night he told me that the average worker in Bangladesh makes about $2 a day. Most school teachers are lucky to make $100 a month. Yet he still wants to go back. It’s his home, the place he wants to get married, have kids, and raise a family. He has his eye on a fish and dairy farm that he’d like to buy one day. Maybe one day his kids might get the education he wasn’t able to. Maybe some day his child might stand a chance of having a better life.

I want to give him money. Maybe trim a bit of the fat off of my life, or solicit some support from others to get this man on his feet. But charity is complicated. What do we do with the other drivers (Anjun, Golan and Eron)? What about the other million Bangladeshis in the Kingdom? What about the rest of the 6 million migrant workers from other South Asian countries that struggle to make a living? My mind quickly forms a grid lock, and I feel powerless. I think about the fish farmer in Bangladesh that might someday find himself in an unfair competition with Anur , whose own fish farm would be backed by American support. I can’t just hand this guy a bunch of money.

But then I think about the injustice of paying a man a little over a dollar an hour, in a place where the cost of living is the same as the U.S., only because his company was the lowest bidder. Do I help him start a union? Do I arrange a strike? Do I create my own militia and usher in a coup? Or how about I call a bunch of celebrities to come together to hold hands, sway and sing to the music of cheesy song?

These questions bring up even more: what about my own personal values? At what cost do I insist on protecting the environment? Does biodiesel really raise the cost of food? What about organic foods? Must I choose between the environment and the poor? I value them both.

And what about personal spending? The U.S. government is insisting I spend more to help the global economy. But this will only cause me to go more in debt. Isn’t it bad to be in debt?

These questions remind me that there was plenty of need during the time of Jesus. People found out he could help and so came to him and asked for it. As I read through the gospels, it becomes obvious to me that needs were very important to Jesus. He spent a lot of time helping people, and he did so one person at a time. He also loved them, listened to them and forgave their sins. But what is interesting is that he never started a charity or social program. There continued to be need after he left, and there still is. In fact, God has allowed need, and it could be argued, is the source of it. He is fully capable of taking it all away, but he has allowed tremendous need. People who give of themselves to others in need, in the name of God, find themselves in a web of absurdity. What they do for God, wouldn’t even need to be done if it weren’t for God. Why does he allow so much need?

Although from a global perspective my needs are minimal, I have to admit their affect on me is often positive. Need creates a void that puts me in a place of dependence. If it weren’t for need, love would be shallow, trust would be meaningless, and miracles would just be for my entertainment. But when I have no alternative, I find myself asking for help and trusting in God to bring it about. If I am able to trust God and let go of my anxiety despite my circumstances, I am able to taste the kind of real peace I would have otherwise never had. Suddenly the love of God and others has some real substance, miracles become the stories I cherish forever, and my connection to the creator and his creation develops into something deep and vibrant.

In my fog of uncertainty, I’m not really sure how to respond to Anur’s need. His hand goes to his heart after he shakes mine, which I have found out is a way to say “I greet you warmly from my heart.” He smiles thankfully when I share an apple with him. I notice his shoulders drop a bit when I look into his eyes as he vents his frustrations. He knows I’m listening and I feel a bit of his pain with him. He feels my love and I feel his, and I feel the hand of God on us both in that moment.