Indisposable

One night last month, I was casually reading the news before bed (so I thought). In one article, I came across the phrase ‘disposable people’ just stuck in the middle of a sentence. I stopped reading; I couldn’t move on. To see the adjective ‘disposable’ put in front of, not gloves, not camera, not razor, not product or good, but people. Human beings. The only creature created with the potential to image the Creator. Disposable? I cried myself to sleep that night.

Kevin Bales wrote ‘Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy” in 1999. David Simon (American author and journalist) said in 2007, “Every single moment on this planet from here on out human beings are worth less, not more, less.” Today’s economy has no need to value every single person. The apostle Paul said, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another” (Gal 5:13-15). Some, thinking they’re ‘indisposable,’ continue biting and devouring, not taking care, and find themselves consumed by others more indisposable. That’s how society at large runs. How (disposable) products and goods keep moving. By valuing human beings less and less every day.

As soon as coronavirus began hitting daily headlines, I asked myself, “What stories aren’t being told?” What people are suffering, have been suffering, will suffer, while the world at large deals with this virus? Everything else didn’t stop when this started, rather situations that were already bad have gotten worse. According to The New Humanitarian, violence in Cameroon since November 2019 (when the first person was infected with COVID-19) has left 1.3 million people in need and out of reach of aid. In the Congo, over 6,000 people, three-fourths of whom are children, have been killed by a measles epidemic (Al Jazeera). The Times of India reported that the homeless have nowhere to ‘stay at home,’ and having food to eat remains their biggest worry. Check out the news of any non-English-speaking country and you’ll find there’s more going on than the pandemic. There’s more at stake than what you’re feeling right now. What’s at stake? Real human, indisposable lives.

Psalm 8 reads,

“O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants, you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Brynn Buchanan (assisting Mika Berry) teaches these four women vocabulary surrounding everyday household objects, a topic they asked for. Each of them are mothers, some even grandmothers, and have been living in the US for a year or less, after living as refugees for a decade or more. John Nyago (pictured speaking in header) and Alyssa Kurtz have been organizing these efforts to see that this group of invaluable people experiences the hospitality of God in this land.

Just days after I read that initial article, we were at the home of a Congolese refugee, celebrating the successful end to our fifth cycle of English-language learning (ELL) with the community there. I sat once again with tears in my eyes, though not the same tears I went to bed with days prior. John Nyago (G.O.D. Intl’s immigrant and refugee program manager for the East African community in Nashville) shared this passage with the participants. He told them, “God is mindful of you. It doesn’t matter what job you have, or what the world says about you, you are valuable to him. And if you’re valuable to him, then you're valuable to us.” When he finished, Alyssa Kurtz (ELL program lead) got up, herself holding back tears as she was compelled to testify, sharing from the Exodus how God hears them and is close to them who suffer. I choked back more tears. The refugees are never hesitant to remind us how challenging their lives have been and continue to be. And still they never hesitate to proclaim God’s goodness; in fact they say it more than anything. They are valuable to him. Human beings are valuable to him. People are valuable. People are not disposable.