Happy Valentine’s Day!: Day 5: Saturday, 23/1/2010

I will never see a dozen roses in quite the same way again. (Not that I’ve received any for a number of years!) Today we joined up with the group from Trinity Lutheran Seminary on a bus ride through the Rift Valley to Naivasha Lake. In route we stopped at one of many rose farms in Kenya. The one we stopped at was actually one of the smaller ones according to the tour guide and it was 10 acres. That’s 10 acres under cover as they are all grown in greenhouses that are scientifically controlled for temperature, moisture and nutrients. Imagine roses as far as you could see! There was an elaborate computerized system that regulated water flow, chemical mixtures etc. All of the runoff water was recycled back into the system. It was a marvel to behold.

So roses are a great cash crop for Kenya, to use my friend’s terms, part of the two-thirds world. (I remember in high school debate using the terms, underdeveloped or less developed and now two-thirds world. I dislike these terms while granting the reality they try to present. But I don’t see the world in purely economic terms. I see us all as children of God and equal in God’s eyes. In some ways, perhaps we in the U.S. and the developed world are not as developed (morally or spiritually) as we think we are.

Roses are a cash crop. Jobs are provided. Many of the workers earn around Ksh 5000 or $67 per month. There seems to me to be some injustice when we will pay $20 or more for a dozen roses this Valentine’s Day and the workers responsible for growing those roses earn so little. They are earning barely $2/day.

To add insult to injury, we were each given a dozen roses as we left the tour! In U.S. terms we were given more than the workers earn in a week.

I don’t have easy answers to the questions I raise. It will take all of us, but first we have to be made aware of the problem. We can’t deal in theory; we need to be made aware of the reality of economic injustice. We need to hear people’s stories. We need to educate ourselves and open our wills and hearts to how the Holy Spirit might lead us to make a difference.

This year, you might consider the theme of economic justice for your Lenten devotion and discipline.