I’ve written before about charity that may make the giver “feel good” but actually does harm.

I’m afraid I’ve been offered an opportunity to participate in just such a “ministry” in the last 24 hours.

I received an email yesterday afternoon:

Dear John,

I wanted to let you know about a new ministry opportunity to bless families and babies in Juarez, Mexico.

B_______ Q______ will be collecting baby formula and 0-12 month disposable
diapers for the babies of Juarez, Mexico this week. A friend of hers is
sending shipments down every six weeks to this very poor area in Mexico where parents often don’t name their babies until they are six months old because so many of them die of malnutrition and infection. (Only 10 hours away from us!) Often babies will wear one diaper for an entire week.

We can be a part of providing longer and healthier lives for these babies by donating supplies. B________ will be collecting the items in the Flex Room, across from the library in the lower level, THIS SUNDAY the 15th. New packages as well as diapers your child has outgrown along with new or even expired formula you might have will be gift to these struggling people.

God bless you today!

J______

I wrote back–and sent copies to our daughters:

J______:

Very weird. Two thoughts immediately jumped into my mind when I read your
email:

1) Why are we being asked to provide DISPOSABLE diapers?

I don’t know B_______, but . . . I don’t understand why she would ask us to provide DISPOSABLE diapers when CLOTH diapers COST a whole lot less and are so much more . . . environmentally friendly and so much less expensive to MAINTAIN . . . for the months or, even, years that a child might need to learn to go to the bathroom like an adult. (By the way: I have been blown away by what our daughter, Amy, has learned about potty training. Her 7-month-old son is just about perfectly potty-trained already. TOTALLY beyond Sarita’s and my experience or, almost, even our ability to comprehend. But the method she has learned REALLY WORKS.)

2) Why is B_______ asking us to provide baby formula? Why wouldn’t she want us to help cover the costs of sending a qualified breastfeeding instructor to teach these women how to breastfeed . . . a practice which is so much healthier for the babies (a practice which, by itself, would probably reduce infant mortality by an order of magnitude), less expensive for the moms, and in virtually every other way super-beneficial to everyone concerned . . . ????

This request just seems . . . kinda crazy, . . . so technologically “inappropriate” (as opposed to the buzzword in mission circles of “appropriate technology”–i.e., technology that the indigenous population is able to afford and maintain). . . .

Sorry. Just thought I should register my “protest” somehow.

Thanks for passing along this kind of information.

John

I wondered if I’d hear anything back. Would I cause too much offense?

I was so grateful when my correspondent replied:

Hi John–

Thank you for your email. These are great questions . . . ones I didn’t think of addressing in the email.

I asked the same question concerning the cloth diapers and learned that there is simply not enough water, clean or otherwise, to wash them on a regular basis.

Because the cloth diapers soak through and the families can’t afford the rubber/plastic covers we use (is that what they are called?), they simply are not practical. A disposable diaper will certainly leak, but not quite as badly as the cloth diapers do without covers.

As far as the formula goes, the women are so malnourished themselves that their milk dries out, leaving them with no other option than the formula.
It’s not that they don’t know how to breastfeed but rather that there is no milk with which to breastfeed.

Long term, breastfeeding would be ideal. I guess it would be a matter of addressing the greater issue, or “gateway” issue of providing the mothers with the nourishment that would allow them to provide it for their babies.

I believe C_______ still has the flyer that details all these issues.
Unfortunately she is gone for the day and I couldn’t reach her when I called. I will have her forward that to you if you like.

B______’s friend and neighbor is the one who created this ministry to Juarez families. B______ offered to help gather supplies for this next shipment.

I hope that addresses your questions. Feel free to email if you have any others!

Thanks,

J_______

I didn’t really have anything else to say at the moment. So I simply replied (and, once more, sent a copy of the full interchange to our daughters):

Wowzie!

Thank you for that detailed and thoughtful response!

NOW I/we have to consider what we will (or won’t) do in response to the original request.

Again, thank you for “opening the door” to my “even” being able to “hear”
the request.

Me

Meanwhile (before receiving my follow-up email), our eldest daughter replied:

This is really insidious when you think about how the new system works: Have a postpartum mom bottle feed.

Rather than the natural birth control that God gave to nursing women, now she needs the Pill or some other system of birth control. Most of these lead to cancer. . . . Or, if she doesn’t get on birth control, she’ll give birth again in about a year, to another child who will need formula, which leads to decreased immunity, increased weight gain, further allergies, emotional trauma. . . .

Weird. Reminds me of the Eskimos I read about, who did just fine. Then Western society gave them formula. Rather than three years between pregnancies, the women had three months. Then Western society gave them the Pill. And Western food.

Argh!

Okay. A little bit of a rant.

But then, this morning, our daughter wrote again . . . and suddenly, to an even bigger degree than I had before, I realized what a “sucker” deal this offer really is.

I got done reading J____’s email and was so depressed.

I think that the only ones coming out ahead are the diaper and formula companies.

The diapers, which are really a much smaller concern, just disgust me on a personal level. Since the women cannot, apparently, afford either plastic pants or disposables, it seems like plastic pants would be a better solution long term. As to the water, maybe they need a well in the community. Obviously, that would be a bigger (but maybe better for all?), more expensive solution. Either way, to have a baby sit in their own excrement for a week is a bit extreme.

The formula is, as I said before, much more insidious.

My understanding is that it costs between $2,000 and $4,000 a year to buy formula for a single baby. And since doctors in America tell women here that they aren’t producing enough milk, perhaps I’m just skeptical.

But $2,000 to $4,000 is a LOT of money. A person could buy a LOT of good quality food (even brown rice, black beans) or nutritional supplements (good quality vitamins, kelp powder) or milk stimulants (there’s an herbal product on this page and similar ones at the health food store) for $2K. That’s about a quarter of what we paid for our high quality [lots of range-fed beef and organic vegetables from specialty stores--JAH] food for our [six-member] family last year.

It seems to me that to really help, a bottle of sugar/corn syrup-filled formula isn’t real nutrition anyway. Yes, we could feed our babies candy bars to keep them alive another day, but to do that for years is not a good idea. And after the melamine scare in China last year, the FDA declared melamine to be unsafe at any level . . . until they found out that 90% of the formula in the US has melamine in it. Then they cleared it for human consumption. (See 90 Percent of U.S. Infant Formula May Be Contaminated with Melamine; FDA Abruptly Declares Chemical Safe for Babies for more.)

But it would take more time and effort. It would take education, and maybe the know-how to share how to grow good vegetables in a window box (assuming they are all in the inner city/slums, and have no space to have even a small garden). And that would require seeds and soil and, well, effort.

Hmmmm.

So what do you think? Would you participate in such a charitable effort?

I don’t think I have any interest.

I think it’s time to look for real answers, not feel-good patches.

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