MISSIONS

BY J HILL MINISTER FOR MISSIONS

I’m a little luckier. I’ve been at my job for three years now and just got promoted to supervisor. I make $12 per hour. It’s full time, and I get health insurance, but that only covers me. If I add our daughter and my spouse that would be over $700 per month. I feel bad about that, but for now we’ll just rely on public health care. Sometimes I also pick up extra work on weekends, but that’s very inconsistent and has to be scheduled around my spouse’s hours, which we know only a week in advance.

Let’s start with one basic fact: math is hard, y’all. I don’t mean algebra, trig, or calculus. I mean the kind of math a family does around the kitchen table each month.

Let’s pretend I’m part of a three-person family. Husband, wife, and a three-year-old child. We adopted our daughter recently when my younger sister passed away. We both work. My spouse has a new job and most weeks works about 30 hours, sometimes less, but it averages to about 100 hours per month. It’s a new job for her, so it is minimum wage and there is no seniority, which means not the best schedule and no extra hours. We feel blessed, though, because at least the boss of the new job is not abusive like the last one— but that’s a different story.

So, I work 120 hours per month at $12 per hour before taxes and occasionally earn money from side jobs. My spouse works 100 hours at minimum wage—$7.25 per hour before taxes—and also works extra jobs every now and then. We live in the least expensive place where we still feel safe. Rent is $1,050 per month, but there’s no lease so we never know when that might change. Right now we don’t have a car—the cost of buying one is out of reach, and I’m not sure we’d be able to afford gas and maintenance anyway. We rely on friends or public transit, which adds an extra hour each way to work. Our daughter is in childcare, and we can manage that only because we get some assistance. Still, the best option for us costs about $380.

We save our pennies, try to buy groceries at the bargain grocery stores (by the way, there’s not a grocery within three miles of our apartment). We get most of our clothes as family hand-me-downs or from thrift stores. All totaled, our kitchen table math looks a little like this:

Monthly Budget

My income: $1300 After taxes

Extra work: $350

My spouse’s income: $675 After taxes

Spouses extra work: $150

Our total take-home pay is about $2475 in a good month.

Our basic expenses are:

Rent: $1050 per month

Food: $325

Transportation: $150

Utilities: $350

Childcare: $380

Misc. expenses: $250

Average monthly expenses: $2505

We can cut some things for sure. I’m going to get some extra work and hopefully my spouse will start to get more hours. When our daughter reaches school age at least we won’t have childcare. On the other hand, there’ll be school supplies and such.

See what I mean. Math is hard, y’all. This family is lucky in a few senses. Recent statistics show that at best in Houston, there are five units of affordable housing for every ten low-income families. 2022 saw rent increase from between 15-22% and many low-income units are month-to-month rentals, which means you don’t actually know what next month’s rent will be—or if your landlord wants to rent to you at all. The current poverty rate in Harris County is about 17%— in real terms that means we all know or work with someone in these circumstances. Furthermore, recent studies show that, for a range of reasons, the cognitive development of a child in poverty may be about 60% of those who are not (again that is another story for another day).

This is why South Main Baptist Church’s mission partners like Emergency Aid Coalition are so critical. The EAC focuses most of its energy on aid for the working poor. Their services include counseling and a clothes pantry. The nonperishable food South Main collects monthly goes into a grocery distribution program to help supplement families like the one described. Recently, the EAC began a partnership with Second Serving, which channels overstocked groceries from grocery chains and restaurants to folks who need it.

The work of organizations like The EAC help families maintain life in hard times. It lifts some of the worry and burden. Simply put, it is a real necessity.

More simply put, it is Kingdom-building work.