Overrated

Are We More in Love with the Idea of Changing the World Than Actually Changing the World?

Eugene Cho

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780781412360
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Many people today talk about justice but are they living justly? They want to change the world but are they being changed themselves? Eugene Cho has a confession: "I like to talk about changing the world but I don't really like to do what it takes." If this is true of the man who founded the One Day's Wages global antipoverty movement, then what must it take to act on one's ideals? Cho does not doubt the sincerity of those who want to change the world. But he fears that today's wealth of resources and opportunities could be creating "the most overrated generation in history. We have access to so much but end up doing so little." He came to see that he, too, was overrated. As Christians, Cho writes, "our calling is not simply to change the world but to be changed ourselves." In Overrated, Cho shows that it is possible to move from talk to action.

Chapter 1

COUCH SURFING: OUR STORY

Family meetings are common in the Cho household. I playfully have to remind the kids who their daddy is.

However, I knew one particular family meeting on a summer evening in 2009 would be difficult and emotional. There would not be a lot of joking around. I had more lowlights to share than highlights. Actually, I had only lowlights to share. (Maybe the heat wave had something to do with it. Yes, it actually does happen in Seattle. When temperatures hit the nineties, the entire city freaks out. Some even stop recycling when a heat wave strikes. Trust me—that’s serious for my city.)

The events that led up to this family meeting transpired quickly. It was almost as if my wife, Minhee, and I were just coming to terms with the news ourselves as we announced it to our children.

Minhee and I ushered our three children into our bedroom that Wednesday evening. The kids knew Mom and Dad had been under some stress—despite our best efforts to play it cool and composed—and I could tell they were apprehensive.

I didn’t quite know how to articulate it, so I told them, plain and simple:

Kids … first, we want you to know that Mom and Dad love you all very much. So very much. As you know, our family made a commitment, to God and to people, to donate one year of our wages to help people who are extremely poor around the world, by starting a new organization called One Day’s Wages. Unfortunately, we’re struggling a bit and have fallen short of our goal. We need to come up with some money. So, we really need your understanding. We need to leave our home for about ten weeks. We need to clean the house because … we’re leaving in two days. Everyone gets to take one bag, so go to your rooms tonight and start packing. We’re not sure exactly where we’ll be staying, but we’ll figure it out.

Our eldest daughter, Jubilee, just eleven years old at the time, burst into tears. She was convinced we were going bankrupt (even though she was clueless to the meaning of the word). She bluntly asked, “Are we becoming homeless?”

Our middle child, Trinity, age nine, was very anxious and nervous about the idea. Not knowing exactly what all this meant, tears welled in her eyes.

Our seven-year-old son, Jedi, on the other hand, thought it might be fun because he could only equate this to a very long sleepover. He simply asked if we could take our Nintendo Wii console. God bless Jedi. (The force is strong with this little one.)

As for Minhee … you could say that she was not pleased.

Yes, you can say that.

Just the day before, I listed our family home as a short-term rental without conferring with my wife. Yes, that was not a typo.

I was both bored and desperate, and in that perfect convergence of boredom, desperation, “what if” thinking, and crazy faith, I crafted an ad on Craigslist to sublet our home for $10,000—thinking, Who would pay $10,000 for two months?

Did I mention that I did this without first consulting my wife, because seriously, Who would pay that much?

(Note: Don’t put an ad on Craigslist to sublet your home without first consulting your spouse. And if you do, do not mention my name or this book.)

And guess what? Lo and behold, a businessman from the United Kingdom replied to the ad within an hour. (Kudos to Craigslist!) He was excited and asked to see the house as soon as possible.

Gulp. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“I love the house,” he said after a brief tour the day after I posted the ad. “And I’m ready to sign the lease and give you a check. But I have one request: My wife and I and our young child need to move in by this Friday.”

“Wait. This Friday? As in two days?”

“Yes, this Friday. If you can’t make it happen, we’ll have to look at other options.”

Double gulp. Breathe in. Breathe out.

You can probably imagine the difficult conversation I had with my wife that evening. She was on board with living a life of obedience to Christ and pursuing our convictions, but to allow strangers to move into our home, to move out with our kids and go “couch surfing” for ten weeks, and to make this decision in two days?

Yes, there were some glares, elevated voices, and there may or may not have been a tear or two, or several. Even then, we both prayed about it and agreed to move forward.

At that moment, I came to a deeper and more painful realization of something that was becoming evident. I was more enamored with the idea of changing the world and less enamored with actually doing it. I didn’t want to leave my comfort for the sake of my commitments.

God, this is not what I signed up for. In my mind, I questioned God and I questioned myself: How did it ever come to this?

A Conviction

Two years prior to this family meeting, I found myself in a village in a remote area of the jungle in Myanmar (otherwise known as Burma). United Nations officials had deemed the genocide in certain parts of Burma as equal to if not worse than that of the crisis in Darfur in the 1990s—but it had been widely forgotten in the global media.

On that trip I visited a makeshift school that sat in the middle of the jungle. It was obviously unlike any of the schools my children attend.

Imagine a shack, with old wooden desks and chairs, overused by a couple of decades, and a deeply scratched-up chalkboard. When I walked into the classroom—meant for about fifteen first through fifth graders—the desks, chairs, and chalkboard weren’t really what caught my attention. Rather, it was a poster taped on the chalkboard that captured me, because, to put it bluntly, it was disgusting—unlike anything I have ever seen.

The poster featured a collage of photos of numerous men, women, and children with missing limbs. A few photos showed, in graphic detail, oozing, bloody body parts. I’m not a teacher and have no experience with what should or should not be placed on the walls of a typical classroom, but this was clearly inappropriate.

I tried to remain unfazed, but when my hosts from this village sensed my horror, they invited me to step up to the chalkboard and have a closer look at the poster. With reluctance, I took a couple of steps closer, and it was then that my host pointed to the bottom of the poster.

“Pastor Cho. These”—he pointed to a row of greenish contraptions—“are land mines. We must teach our children how to avoid land mines.”

My mind blown.

My heart wrecked.

Take a moment and let this story sink in …

Forty Dollars?

Later, in conversation with one of the village elders, I learned of their many challenges as a result of living in constant fear of their oppressive military government. This government has been known by many in the global community for its reputation of suppressing dissent and perpetuating human-rights abuses, and its persecution of minority ethnic groups in Burma, including the Karen people.

This village—comprising mostly Karen internally displaced refugees, or IDPs—like many others, didn’t even have a name because its residents often had to pack up quickly to flee when they heard news of an imminent government attack; the village was simply designated by a number. Despite the hardships and challenges the villagers faced, I was genuinely compelled by their sense of hope and courage.

I asked, “What are your biggest challenges?”

“Schools. Teachers. Paying teachers hard,” replied one of the village elders in broken English, knowing that I had visited one of their makeshift schools earlier in the day.

The school couldn’t hold on to its teachers because they kept leaving to take jobs across the border in Thailand, where schools offered higher salaries. Out of curiosity, I asked this village elder about the salary of their teachers.

“About forty dollars,” he responded.

Without even thinking, I replied, “Forty dollars a day?”

He laughed and then shook his head.

Embarrassed, I said, “I’m sorry. Forty dollars a week?”

There wa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword by Donald Miller
• Introduction
• Chapter 1—Couch Surfing: Our Story
• Chapter 2—Why We Do Justice
• Chapter 3—The Tension of Upward Mobility: We Are Blessed
• Chapter 4—Shut Up, Listen, and Pray
• Chapter 5—Be Tenacious!
• Chapter 6—Asking The Hard Questions: Self-Examination
• Chapter 7—Having More Depth Than 140 Characters: Be an Expert
• Chapter 8—Don’t Ask Others to Do What You’re Not Willing to Do Yourself
• Chapter 9—The Irony of Doing Justice … Unjustly
• Chapter 10—The Best Part of Wanting to Change the World
• Extras