Helping the church spend its money

[Reuben]

Had an interesting conversation with my wife.

She's in the RS presidency. A sister in the ward is divorced, an abuse survivor, and has 5 autistic kids (!!!). The RS presidency would love to help, but doesn't know how.

I said, "I see this as a resourcing issue. What assets do you have? Not personnel - you're short-staffed everywhere. [She agreed.] Not time - the people you do have are already giving what time they can. [She agreed.] What you have is money. A lot of it, and the bishop has discretion on spending it. I would figure out how to use it to outsource service to meet this sister's needs."

I didn't bring up the church's obscene wealth, but it was on my mind. I didn't want to poke the church right in its insecurities, as numerous as they are, especially given that I would have been poking it via my wife.

She accepted that reasoning. We talked about outsourcing options (cleaning services, child care on Sundays, etc.). She plans to bring it up with the RS presidency.

A possible small win, helping a family in need, and helping an arrogant organization live up to its grandiose claims about itself.

[Reuben]

To be clear, here in England, her basic physical needs are already being taken care of. My suggestion was to creatively outsource services to meet her basic spiritual needs.

Apparently, my apostate suggestion to consider some of the Lord's filthy lucre as available resources for meeting spiritual needs injected some clarity. They're going to do it.

[hmb]

How does money help the spiritual need? I thought all one had to do was read scriptures and pray harder, until he/she gets it right. Do her autistic kids already get services? Sounds like they have food, clothing, and shelter. Does she need transportation help? Luckily she's not in the US or she may be screwed with healthcare, depending on her income level.

I'm just wondering when you say they are going to do it, what is it they are going to do...for spiritual needs? I may have read it wrong. I'm pretty talented at misunderstanding.

[Reuben]

That's where they have to get creative.

Imagine a mother wrangling 5 autistic kids at church. Even if greatly reduced trust in other people arising from abuse doesn't make it hard to get to church - see people, connect, have a social life (what I think of as spiritual needs), and learn doctrine (which I don't) - imposing your rigid and highly sensitive army of young children on everyone does make it hard to get there. My suggestion here was to pay for child care on Sundays to get her there, get her socially integrated and more stable, and then worry about integrating the rest of the family. (TBH that might never happen for some of the kids.)

Cleaning services. Have you ever had a smelly house and smelly clothes, and known it? It's hard to make friends with people who are clean when you're not. This is something the RS usually helps with, but they just can't handle it right now, especially on an ongoing basis.

Technically, she qualifies for all kinds of help with her kids from the school system and the National Health Service. There are tutors for kids who need one, parent-child CBT, family autism education - lots of helpful stuff. In reality, getting that help is always a fight, and can take years. In the meantime, each kid's unique needs are an extra burden. Getting private help while waiting could make a huge difference.

[hmb]

Wonderful ideas. Cleaning service and child care would go along way to help revitalize any mom, let alone a single mom with 5 special needs kids. This last year must have been hell with covid too. I hope she'll get some long term help. Hoping for a good bishop. Sounds like you already have a great RS President.

[alas]

Child care so she can attend Sunday meetings. I have a friend with three autistic kids and when they were small she begged the church to giver her some assistance on Sundays so she could get something out of meetings. As it was, she went and fought with three kids and went home and then had to deal with three tired stressed autistic kids. She was getting zero out of church services she couldn’t even hear and just upsetting those near her family because they couldn’t hear either. She begged for them to just go to primary, and just got! “You DO know your children are difficult, don’t you?” as an excuse as to why they couldn’t go to primary, and as if she never had to deal with her children herself. She begged for a teacher to take then one on one, but no, the ward was not going to waste one person for each child to try to teach them the gospel. Yet, my ward at the time had one person assigned to translate for a deaf child so she could attend primary, and even called a special teacher willing to go slow enough for the lesson to be translated into American Sign. I knew because my husband was the child’s primary teacher and each week, they had 1/2 the lesson time dedicated to teaching her class ASL and the other half to going slowly through the lesson. My husband felt that learning ASL would help the kids in her class make her feel included and give them a way to communicate with her. So, one adult to translate for sacrament meeting so the parents could relax and hear the lesson, and one person to translate in primary, and help the lesson given to her specific needs. But no, my friends ward wasn’t willing to spare one adult to even help during Sac meeting. So my friend decided that the church didn’t want her family and raised her children without church. Now, the oldest has earned a scholarship to an Ivy League university, because they may be autistic, but they are also brilliant.

[stealthbishop]

Nice! Well said. I really like this. Hopefully, it helps. I'd be very interested in updates.