Reply to a Friend's Cry for Help

Three years ago, at the height of the LAUSD payroll debacle, when salary payments for thousands of teachers got all screwed up, one member of my former egroup wrote with this title of Cry for Help. Since I didn't get to read the first part of the thread, I thought she was asking for help (in the form of donations or loans)  in behalf of a friend in financial crisis as her house was supposed to be repossessed due to some kind of fraud their loan agent committed against her family. (It turned out she was actually the one asking for help in behalf of her own self.) That email exchange had gone on for some weeks and though I was not in a position to help financially, I thought I would offer my two-cents worth suggestions. So, I wrote:

 Dear Friend,

Our internet and phone cable have been down for some weeks and I have now gain access to the internet only by using my visiting son’s computer.  As I read your Cry for Help, I commiserate deeply.  A few questions come to mind, though. Do you know this teacher personally? If she’s a teacher, can’t she get a loan from the Teachers’ Loan Association?  She can get SSI assistance, though she might not qualify because teachers have salaries higher than entry level employees. Doesn’t she have relatives who could help her? What’s the work of the husband? Does she have other children who can already be of help? And the musician daughter of hers who was "forced to stop her usic lessons," can’t she try for scholarship if she’s talented as the mother says?  This teenage turning into drugs might not have been caused solely by the threat of their losing their house; there might be something deeper than that.  

I ask those questions because asking donations from others may take a toll on her self-esteem as an educated person and as a teacher) assumed to be capable of coping with this kind of eventuality or unforeseen circumstance.  (I have a daughter having as much financial, marital and health problems but refuses to accept money from her family though the abundant moral support she welcomes.) Many others are either in the same boat as your friend, or even worst.  I am in the latter category: I have not been receiving my monthly salary as a teacher because of this LAUSD payroll debacle you must have read about or heard on TV. The origin of my problem is worst—it’s not even because of the new messed-up payroll system; it was caused by my former school location’s incompetence which they wouldn’t even take responsibility for. I’m at my wit’s end trying to fight the principal, assistant principal and timekeeper to accept accountability in reversing their errors (which they refuse to do, perhaps for fear their incompetence will be exposed). In the meantime that I’m seeking a higher-up authority to direct the changes, I’m suffering financially and morally. My bill (especially mortgage) payments are delayed and naturally, that means compounded interest payment, overdrafts, etc., and you can just imagine the moral damage these have on me: I am a widow shouldering all these financial obligations.  I have heard of even worst scenarios from other affected teachers: mortgage foreclosure, repossessed cars, stopped schooling of children in college, you name it.

Fighting for justice and eking a living at the same time can sap your energy, especially if you're a small fry. You have to give priority time to your present work. The principal belongs to the powers-that-be (and was even promoted despite anomalies he had allegedly committed in the past in another school). I go on teaching, just because it is my commitment to serve. Though sometimes one can waver in faith, one must keep on praying to maintain sanity in this chaotic world.. I turn to my faith for better or for worse, and remind myself that my faith in God is all that matters in the long run.  Someone once put this so nicely into words: “We must realize that it is in order to stimulate and sustain this faith that God allows the soul to be buffeted and swept away by the raging torrent of so much distress, so many troubles, so much embarrassment and weakness, and so many setbacks. For it is essential to have faith to find God behind all this.”  You might want to share this quote with your friend.

The unbelievers may have their own say again against turning our trials into trials of faith and rising against all vicissitudes in life, or about why God is allowing all this to happen. Let them. Let’s stop putting blame in God for the blunders and injustice of people. For in the long run, we, who fight for justice, will overcome, maybe not here but in the life after. I hope your friend will be inspired by the words above.
-alma viajero