Walk a Mile in My Shoes

I wish some of you could walk a mile in our shoes. I do not say this to infer we are holy or special. Quite the contrary, this has nothing to do with why we are even here. This week I have felt a pressing need to earnestly pray for America, more so even than the people of CR or the next country we will be going to serve in. Before I tell those of you in the states why I wish you could walk a mile in my shoes, let me first place this disclaimer: I am not trying to offend anyone or get anyone upset, I am merely stating the facts of what change seems iminent, and what this change will mean for my fellow Americans.

We currently are living in a country that is a socialist country. I believe that in less than one week the American people will probably vote for a change in our government. With this said change I believe we will go from a representative democracy to a socialist type government. I would like to tell you what it is like to live under a socialist government.

1. Free healthcare for every citizen. Now to obtain this free healthcare all you have to do is go downtown to the one hospital offered to said residents at around 5am. You wait in line with your number until around 9am when one by one you are allowed to see the receptionist. The receptionist will then help you make an appointment with the appropriate health professional. Your appointment will be sometime later that afternoon, so you need to go ahead and pack a lunch and plan on staying the day. When you have your appointment with your doctor you will probably have to get some form of tests, x-rays, etc. performed. To schedule these tests you will need to return the next morning to make the appointment with the appropriate department. You can call to make this appointment, but chances are slim that you will actually reach one of the people that can help you. When you make the appointment you will be seen for your test sometime in the next 3-6 months. If your results require further treatment or surgery, you can add yourself to the appropriate list for this and then wait your additional 3-6 months for your procedure. My empleada told me how she had to schedule her EKG 5 months in advance and her annual physical 6 months in advance.

If none of this sounds appealing to you, you can go ahead and pay out of pocket and go to one of the private facilities where the foreigners (like us) go for treatment, that is if you can afford to...

2. Redistribution of wealth. There are price controls on certain products here in efforts to make life easier for the poor people. For example, rice, beans and flour are very cheap here. When they tried this with other products as well in the country where we will be serving, it caused many farmers to lose their farms because they could not afford to grow the crops due to price controls. This then trickled down to the fact that no one could now purchase: chickens, flour, eggs, milk....you get the picture.

Here they have a yearly aguinaldo (bonus) for every worker. It is required by law that all employees who are legal residents receive this bonus every Christmas. Great, we all would love a bonus right before Christmas, right? Problem is, it amounts to one month's salary for each person, so the small business owner is now strapped down with end of the year expenditures and now they cannot even purchase Christmas gifts for their own families. We are even feeling the squeeze from this one with our empleada.

3. Monopolies run amuck. Just take a look at this article written just a few months ago. We continue to have blackouts on a semi-regular basis here that often appear city-wide.

Just about two weeks ago, Costa Rica suffered a historical blackout that darkened the entire nation for about three hours... Just a few days later, the Electricity and Telephony Monopoly (ICE), asked the Costa Rican Government to allow them an average of 23% in rate hikes, citing the increased cost in petrol to power thermal energy plants. According to La Nacion, the countries biggest newspaper, the Utility had already used 80% of it's operating budget for the year for Thermal Electric generation. When the government refused, the Utility commenced with rolling blackouts over the entire nation for the last nearly two weeks. Every day for 3-4 hours, communities have their power shut down. Those companies with backup generators are forced to bear the cost of paying for the generation of their power. Smaller businesses and individual families, simply suffer. The imagery is amazing.... Meat markets forced to lock up all their meat in freezers and unable to take the meat out for fear of losing the cool in the freezer, are losing money every day.
Other small businesses, including offices of various types, are basically without productivity for 1/3 to 1/2 day. And to make matters worse, they change the time of the outages per area, seemingly AT RANDOM! Last week our power was out every day from 2-5pm. Yesterday it was 7am-11:30 am, and today 11:00am-2:00pm, making it impossible to plan...

4. The powerful get richer and the poor get poorer. Costa Rica on a regular basis devalues their currency by 8 to 18% a year. If you are making $450 a month (this is more than the average college graduate salary) anything you save will be lost through inflation. You will never accumulate the savings needed to escape poverty level. The government that claims to be working on your behalf is really working to keep you poor and dependent. The money made from the productive economy will never be reinvested in the factory or machinery that could provide you with a safer, more productive job. It will be spent in so called “administrative costs” or used to buy votes. You can really appreciate this when you see the average Costa Rican house and neighborhood...think Bronx circa 1970.

5. Public transportation, the only way to get there. We found out shortly after arriving here that people with drivers license plates ending in odd or even numbers are only allowed to drive certain days of the week. This apparently is also in effect in our upcoming country of service as well. We have seen the police spend much time at the local intersections checking to make sure this law is inforced. I am told however that you can "pay the officer" to make sure it is not counted against your driver's license...which brings us to number 6...

6. Bribery, the new game in town. What else is the average rich person supposed to do? So while you are hoofing it or taking public transportation on those days you are not allowed to drive, you may be mugged. Why? Because that officer is following his mandate to be at the intersection and make sure that only cars allowed on the roadway are there, and also making sure he has his extra money for a little extra retirement thanks to those with the extra cash. This also holds true for certain government services, etc...

7. Changing separation of church and state to a national religion. Something that is commonly found in socialist countries is a national religion. For Costa Rica it is Catholicism. For other socialist countries it can even be agnostic or atheistic in nature. Does this mean a difference for America? Well let me ask you this, how many people would stop paying tithes if they knew that they could no longer deduct it from their taxes (tithes that incidently fund our work here). What then happens to most of America's churches if they too have to start paying taxes on any revenue? It doesn't take long to figure out what will probably happen...one religion for one nation...Anyone remember why those Pilgrims came in the first place?

I know this is lengthy and that most of you are aware of the gravity of the situation. All I ask of each of you is to seriously consider praying earnestly and even fasting with me next week as our nation reaches a precipice. To ignore this situation or to say that it is merely a change that is necessary for the good of the whole is to ignore the very foundations that our great country was built upon. The Bible says we are to be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves. To me this means we keep informed (and I mean by more than just one source), keep praying (for all of our leaders!), and keep exercising our right to make a difference in the government that will affect us and our neighbors. Remember that Jesus' second-most important commandment was to "Love thy neighbor like thyself" What better way than to make sure the people placed in charge of us and our neighbor has our best interest at heart? I can think of two wonderful examples of this in the Bible; Esther and Daniel. Both of these wise people changed the course of history in their countries when they chose to engage in the political process. We have that privilege ourselves in our great nation, so remember, " if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. " 2 Chronicles 7:14