The $400 Pair of Shoes

When it comes to poverty, it is easy to focus on the obvious. We are moved to compassion when we see people lack food, clean water, shelter, have no shoes on their feet, and have dirt floors. We can see the homeless on the street and know they are hungry and cold. Working at the orphanage in Peru I saw poverty first hand. Then, my two years at Compassion International I worked hard to serve the poor. Recently, God has softened my heart to a whole other kind of poverty. Let me explain.

Moving to Eastern Europe, I did not experience 'culture shock' in Ukraine itself, but rather in the students at the school I teach. Kiev International School is an elite private school. The student body is comprised of families with money and status. One year tuition for a student of any age K-12 costs $15,000. Some families have five children attending year after year. Students and their families are consumed with wealth, status, and materialism. When school started in August one of my students told me he could not run because he was wearing his $400 pair of shoes! Coming from an organization that works to provide basic needs for children who have nothing, I wanted to tell him his shoes could feed a village!

Within my first week as a physical education teacher it became obvious that I would have to work hard to gain the respect of some of my students. Believing that this would come as a result of building relationships, I made it a point to attend all soccer games and focus on how each player I had in class performed. The following day I would congratulate them on the goal they kicked, or comment on their effort and team work. Eventually the challenging and withdrawn students in my class took on a new attitude and started to do their best in class and show respect.

I found the bleachers on the field very lonely. Where were all the parents? A few staff, students, and about three parents would be there to support the KIS soccer team, even during the very important games.

During a parent teacher conference one of my students approached my desk to say hi. He was accompanied by a man who I assumed was his father. When asked if he was the boy's father my student replied he didn't have a dad.

Students are dropped off and picked up from school, not by their parents or families, but by their body guards or drivers. Drivers will accompany them to their teacher conferences and report back to the parents. Some students live here in Kiev by themselves while their parents are in a totally different region far from Kiev, totally detached from the precious childhood years of their sons and daughters.

This is a different kind of poverty. These children are not growing up without shoes on their feet, wondering if they are getting a meal tonight, and looking longingly into a school house window wishing their family could afford basic public school fees. The children at KIS have everything they could possibly want. Six year olds have iPhones, students have name brand clothing, $400 pair of shoes, even penthouse apartments waiting vacant for them until they graduate high school. They have everything and they are rich in materialism, but poor in spirit. They are poor in relationships. They are poor in love and belonging and family. It's a new kind of poverty I have never seen. God has opened my eyes and softened my heart to the poverty of this world. All of it, for richer or for the poorer.