Late one evening we came home and found ourselves locked out! We were staying briefly in an older mobile home, in which only the sliding patio door worked. At night we locked that door with a security rod. Now the rod was lying firmly in its track on the inside, and we were outside! Half an hour later, we got in by boosting our slim teen-age son through a small bathroom window.

But how had the rod gotten into the track? Could I have left it standing so nearly straight up and down next to the door that it had fallen in?

The next day we were in the living room, and the rod was lying nearby on the carpet. Suddenly our son’s fluffy black-and-white cat, Pepper, picked the rod up in his mouth, trotted over to the door, and dropped it neatly into the track! I could just hear him thinking, "These messy people! I always have to clean up after them!"

Pepper’s ingenuity lent fresh meaning to the term "copycat!"

But during our six homeless years we and other friends found ourselves "locked out" from work. How? Many ways. Age. Sex. Race. And more.

My own career showed age’s effects.

My first two professional jobs came in my 20’s and early 30’s. Both times, employers contacted me to ask if I’d work for them.

My next two positions (in my late 30’s and early 40’s) took one application each.

By my mid-40’s, getting a new job took a dozen tries.

In my 50’s, after layoffs hit three-fourths of my plant’s workers, I applied in person to some 500 firms. The results? Three interviews. One letter saying "if we win the contract." No job!

Even "automatic" interviews didn’t always happen. One ad called for a degree (which I had) but no experience (I had 8 years). But the employer replied I didn’t meet minimum requirements! Age was the only visible reason.

I needed work. We had bills to pay and food to buy. But few companies would consider anyone over 40.

Finally I got "temporary" self-employment as a traveling vendor in a major discount chain. Each week my whole family and I drove to an assigned city in any of eight Western states, worked 50 to 70 hours, packed up, drove to the next scheduled town, and did it all over again. (Once, upon arriving in Riverton, Wyoming, we learned that a one-digit computer error had officially scheduled us for Charlotte, North Carolina.) We earned enough to slow the growth of our debt, but not enough to reduce it or to afford a home or apartment.

So we worked "harder, smarter, and longer." We created new products, and spent 5 to 6 days in most stores instead of 4. Our income increased. One year we won our company’s "national sales team of the year" award. But we could only earn that money by traveling, and all our traveling expenses had to come out of it. That made living very difficult.

We managed the money we had well. But, without a regular job, our debts mushroomed.

Many of my laid-off co-workers will never own homes again. Few will ever return to the middle class, though nearly all now have some sort of work or are retired. Fifteen years later, one engineer I knew cuts grass at an Orlando theme park. Another got a job teaching archery. After our traveling ended, I worked as an on-call hospital guard and in a fast-food outlet.

Biblically, work began when God asked man to "tend and care for" the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15). It grew much more difficult after the Fall (Genesis 3:17-19).

"You ... must always obey your earthly masters, not only trying to please them when they are watching you but all the time; obey them willingly because of your love for the Lord and because you want to please him. Work hard and cheerfully at all you do, just as though you were working for the Lord and not merely for your masters, remembering that it is the Lord Christ who is going to pay you, giving you your full portion of all he owns. He is the one you are really working for. And if you don’t do your best for him, he will pay you in a way that you won’t like - for he has no special favorites who can get away with shirking." (Colossians 3: 22-25.)

1 Peter 2:18 tells us to respect our bosses "even if they are tough and cruel." What kind of advice is that? I’ll say this. Three of my toughest bosses – two at Vandenberg AFB and one in Orlando - were also among my best. All three routinely demanded the impossible, and castigated us severely (and publicly) when we fell short. Many people couldn’t work for them. Yet they were as lavish (and as open) with their praise as with their criticism. They made us grow. They toughened us. And they gave of themselves. They wanted loyalty, but gave it in return. They arranged new jobs for us after their own projects ended. We became proud to work for them.

Respect your company’s methods, too, even if you know they’re imperfect.

In the early 1900’s, my grandfather toured a Chicago meat-packing plant. The guide stopped the group at a window facing an empty room where mincemeat was mixed. Soon a door on one side opened. A man entered with a wheelbarrow-full of one ingredient, and dumped it directly on the concrete floor. More men and more wheelbarrows followed, until all the ingredients were heaped together in one huge pile.

Then several men entered wearing hip boots and carrying shovels. They waded into the pile, stirring it thoroughly. Next they shovelled the mixed mincemeat back into the wheelbarrows and paraded out a second door, to the bottling room.

The group moved on to watch workers fill mincemeat bottles and apply labels - which read "Just Like Grandma Used to Make!"

"A faithful employee is as refreshing as a cool day in the hot summertime." (Proverbs 25:13.)

What are managers’ nightmares? Workers who talk on cell-phones, send text messages at work, steal, call in sick to attend parties, come to work drunk, high, or hung over; sleep on duty or don’t show up at all.

Employee theft is a common problem in businesses like fast food. We had times when money was missing regularly. There often was little doubt who was responsible, because most shortages happened on the same employees’ shifts. Yet, until we got security cameras, it wasn’t provable.

One night a "closer" took several hundred dollars and left a window open to make it look as if the money was stolen after she left. Under police questioning, she confessed.

Another worker raised suspicions by always bringing pastries for the crew on mornings after money had been short – but never when it balanced!

But our prize for audacity went to a worker who openly boasted she’d stolen well over $1000 before being fired - then applied to be rehired at another branch!

"Never falsely accuse a man to his employer, lest he curse you for your sin." (Prov. 30:10)

More Scriptures on work: Prov. 10:26, Eph. 6:5-8, Titus 2:9-10.

Both of my two youngest children, Bill and Yvette, have managed fast-food outlets. Yvette was assigned a "problem" store. It was dirty and smelly. Staff had a reputation for rudeness. Customers avoided it.

Within a year she’d turned the location around. It was clean and smelled inviting. Staff was friendly. Employee turnover was half the chain’s average. Sales rose over 40%.

How did she do it? She explains, "For my owners, I had a duty to be honest; and to make sure the store ran smoothly. I took care of day to day problems; handled scheduling, ordering, and personnel.

"As a manager I was a "boss." But as a Christian, I believed I should be a "shepherd" as well. I cared about my crew. I was a teacher; a nurse when injuries needed patching; an ear to listen; a shoulder to cry on; happy for them when things went well; proud of them when they succeeded."

It worked.

"Never oppress a poor hired man, whether a fellow Israelite or a foreigner living in your town." (Deut. 24:14)

"Oppress" meant not paying workers; treating them unfairly; cheating them; or even selling a family or its children into slavery.

Do some employers "oppress" workers today? Unfortunately, yes. One employer never paid my family for three months’ work. A friend of ours was never paid several thousand dollars. One owner tried to avoid time-and-a-half overtime by scheduling employees to work at two stores, but only paying overtime if they worked more than 40 hours at one.

And that’s just the beginning. The US State Department estimated that in 2009 12.3 million adults and children were in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution worldwide.

Though, in 2000, the United Nations vowed to fight all such trafficking, the United States was unwilling to rank its own performance until 2010. That year, the Department of State’s annual report on Trafficking in Persons acknowledged "too few resources, too little vision, and as a result, too few outcomes."

"Men comprise a significant number of trafficking victims. And traffickers often use sexual violence as a weapon against women to keep them in compelled service, whether in a field, a factory, a brothel, a home, or a war zone."

"It is not enough to prosecute traffickers if we do not also provide assistance to the survivors."

4,166 successful trafficking prosecutions in 2009.

335 successful prosecutions related to forced labor.

49,105 victims identified: (out of 12.3 million).

Ratio of victims identified to estimated victims, as a percentage: 0.4

Countries that have never convicted a trafficker: 62

More Scriptures: Lev. 19:13, Job 31:13-23, Mal. 3:5,Eph. 5:9, Col. 4:1. See Jeremiah 34:8-22 for the results of disobeying laws on the treatment of slaves (Deuteronomy 15:12-18).

"Pay him his wage each day before sunset, for since he is poor he needs it right away; otherwise he may cry out to the Lord against you and it would be counted as a sin against you." (Deut. 24:14-15)

One of our employers often let his Friday payroll slip till Saturday, when no one could deposit their checks till Monday (sometimes Tuesday). No groceries those weekends! Two others, both with low wages, paid once a month. Our money always seemed to run out about the 10^th. Those last 20 days were long!

In 2004 my company named me its national "employee of the year" for my work in our local hospital. With over 80,000 employees in 15 states and Canada, that was a most unexpected honor.

But then the award fell through the cracks.

I was told of the choice in August. The public announcement was to be made in September. It wasn’t. October went by with no word. November came; still nothing.

The local office kept asking. Finally, they reached a key headquarters employee, who admitted frankly "I forgot."

But the company did an excellent job of making it right. In December two highly placed officials drove 200 miles to our home, and, together with local staff members, presented the award to my whole family. I liked and respected both men. Meeting them persuaded me they did value me and my family. The memory lapse, which wasn’t theirs, became a humorous sidelight.

I want to thank the aerospace/defense industry for helping me learn how much I could do.

In 1980, when the pianist at our small San Diego church told me her company (Computer Sciences Corporation) had a job opening requiring a library degree, I applied.

The interviewer, my prospective boss, asked me what I knew about configuration management. I thought for a moment, then replied truthfully "I think I’ve heard of it." Not an answer calculated to impress him! He paused, looked me up and down thoroughly, and finally said: "You can learn it."

That simply, I was hired to manage a library of confidential and secret documents for a submarine electronic warfare program.

A year later CSC transferred me to Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where I spent two unforgettable years working with the engineers, technicians, managers, and astronauts who tested, fixed, and flew the earliest Space Shuttles.

Again, I learned an entirely new field. I helped schedule Firing Room computers and software for tests and launches; went to varied meetings at most of KSC’s far-flung facilities; and supervised the tape and documentation library that supported the Firing Rooms.

In the course of that job I stood atop Launch Pad 39A’s tower; visited the electronics rooms buried beneath it; worked inside a Mobile Launch Platform; stood beneath the orbiter Columbia in its servicing bay; watched Challenger and Discovery arrive at KSC; and sat in the "flow" meetings that prepared Challenger for its first launch (a successful one). I heard the "call to stations" that began each countdown, and chatted with astronauts in cafeteria lines, hallways, and mens’ rooms. I watched Shuttles being mated with their solid rocket boosters and external tanks, transported to Pad 39A, and launched.

In 1983, Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin) hired me to help build a West Coast Space Shuttle launch and landing site, nicknamed "Slick 6" (for SLC-6, Space Launch Complex 6), at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. After my interview, the personnel manager told me "We’re going to make you a software planner." I didn’t argue: CSC’s contract at Kennedy was ending, and I needed a new job. But there were two small problems. First, I knew nothing about software. Second, I had no idea what a planner did! Could I learn quickly enough? I had nightmares for weeks.

But my new boss had decided to develop new people. To help manage our launch site activation contract with the Air Force Space Command, he hired as mixed a group as I’ve ever seen. Our college degrees were in history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religion, and libraries; not space science. One of us came from a brewery! Yet, together, we learned to plan, build, and test a site capable of launching Space Shuttles.

We took classes to learn space technology. Yes, I discovered what a planner does! I learned software development, cost account planning, and critical path networks well enough to earn two written commendations.

In January 1986 Martin transferred me to Orlando, Florida to help plan advanced radar, night vision, and missile systems. Two weeks after arriving, I stood in the parking lot on

a bright, clear, cold morning watching the shuttle Challenger climb toward space. Suddenly, the vapor trail ended in an unexpected puff of white smoke. Then the two Solid Rocket Boosters emerged, separated, both still burning intensely, performing an agonizing slow-motion ballet across the sky. That wasn’t supposed to happen! Shaking and nauseated, I watched the diverging smoke trails that told me none of those six astronauts and a teacher would return safely.

In Orlando, we worked on new systems no one had ever built before. My co-workers taught me to create planning tools like action item lists, first-unit flows, hardware requirements lists, and make/buy lists. We set up master plans and detailed schedules. For one night vision system, four of us created a 9,000-activity critical path network (used to help keep the program on schedule and within budget). We succeeded well enough to earn the best on-time record of any defense contractor in the Southeast.

Time after time, we were placed on advanced programs about whose technology we knew nothing. It was a welcome contrast with companies who judged me only by past experience. Martin wanted planners who could learn; who could do new things. We did! We found that, given the chance, we could rise to almost any challenge.

God applied that same principle with leaders like Joseph, Moses, and David, who all stepped up from menial roles to high responsibilities

Could some of our employees respond the same way?

Why not?

Bill and Yvette have managed several "special needs" individuals. They discovered that

those employees were often capable of learning far more than most people thought they could – and were anxious to be given a chance to prove it! When provided with patient teaching and an opportunity to learn new tasks, they often excelled. They were dependable, hard-working, and honest – and returned Bill and Yvette’s love by nominating them both for Mayor’s Leadership Awards.

Goethe said, "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you'll help them to become what they are capable of becoming."

Some Scriptures: Gen. 37:18-28, 37:36, 39:1-6, 41:37-42, Exod. 3:10-12, 1 Sam. 16:1-13, Jer. 1:4-10.

Many Bible characters worked for themselves. They included farmers; fishermen like Peter and Andrew, cattlemen like Jabal (Genesis 4:20); sheepmen, merchants, artisans and craftsmen like Tubal-Cain (Genesis 4:22), and the men who built the Tabernacle (Exodus 35:10 to 39:43).

Even well-educated St. Paul used self-employment to support himself on his missionary journeys.

Today self-employment is a common source of extra money, though a challenging way to make a living.

Once I’d have said "none." But we encountered several that neither we nor our friends could overcome. Among them:

Pregnancy.

When Yvonne’s lawyer-boss overheard that she was "expecting," he announced he wouldn’t work with a pregnant woman, gave her two weeks’ severance pay, and sent her home. No one else would hire her while she was pregnant. Our income was cut in half. That hurt!

Age.

Many employers still practice age discrimination, even though it clearly violates federal law. One program manager told us our company’s internal policies still required that 90% of its "new hires" be new college graduates.

By the time I was in my 50’s even a hint of my age meant no interview. A job-hunting class taught us to improve our chances by omitting birth dates on our resumes, never listing more than 10 years’ experience, and saying "5 years with company X" instead of giving the dates. I even dyed my hair to remove the gray! Nothing helped.

Health.

In a San Diego-area campground, we shared an evening wiener roast with a family from Los Angeles. The father was a gifted computer expert who had contracted hepatitis via acupuncture on a business trip to Asia. Now no one would hire him because of his insurance costs. His family couldn’t live without his income. They’d looked hard for solutions. They’d found none.

In contrast, when one of my employees suffered a major heart attack we held his job open until he could return. Our local hospital did the same for me when I broke my ankle and couldn’t work for a month.

We all need work. Laws do officially guard against discrimination. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 all apply. But, in real life, those laws are often not followed.

One pastor wasn’t sympathetic. He argued "you have to understand business’ point of view." Yes, but we wondered: shouldn’t he also care about his sheep? Did he realize he was telling his over-40 parishioners to accept joblessness and let their families go hungry and/or homeless?

When we don’t hire "the least of these my brothers" for reasons like age, sex, pregnancy, race, religion, or politics, we’re refusing to hire Jesus.

In 2010, the U.S. book a major step to try to provide medical care for most citizens.

Why?

Do you remember Barry Goldwater’s claim that conservatism means keeping what works? In 2007 as many Americans were without health insurance as the population of 29 states plus the District of Columbia. We ranked 23^rd among 30 developed countries in life expectancy and 28^th in infant mortality. Between 2000 and 2008, our maternal mortality rate almost doubled! Letting that happen wasn’t loving our neighbors. Our system lowered our health and our national income, and increased our costs. By Goldwater’s measure, the "socialistic" European and Canadian systems, not ours, were "conservative."

The husband of a near neighbor and good friend of ours developed leukemia. They had insurance, under which they paid 20% and the insurance company 80%. But when her husband died, that 20% left ‘June’ owing $4,000,000, with not the slightest choice but to declare bankruptcy.

When another friend of ours developed rheumatoid arthritis, her doctor told her "you have a choice. You can let your arthritis run its course. You’ll spend most of your life in bed, in pain. But you’ll live longer. Or we can give you treatments that will make your life much, much better. But they’re very expensive, and you’ll die sooner."

‘Lorna’ said "I want a good quality life, even if it’s shorter!" In the six years since then, her new treatments have cost over $2,000,000. She has been able to afford them, but only because both she and her husband had good insurance through work, and good jobs that let them pay what the insurance wouldn’t.

It’ll take time to see how well our new plan works. One question will be how many citizens will be able to buy insurance. In the past it’s been prohibitive for most people. Should the law have been based on a less expensive group plan, instead of much more expensive private ones? We’ll find out. But I’m glad we’re trying. I’ve seen my wife go for years without a mammogram or pap smear because private plans were unaffordable. When she developed skin cancer, it took us five months to find a way to treat it.

We all need medical care. But most of us have only been able to get it if we have insurance, and many of us could only afford that insurance through work – or through government programs like Medicare.

Yet employers eliminated insurance for 5,000,000 workers in just five years (from 2001 through 2005), and doubled the amount employees had to pay.

Only half as many workers have pensions today as 25 years ago. Social Security was created to supplement pensions, but now corporations are eliminating them. That’s a serious problem. Yet we hear little or no talk about making up the losses. Shouldn’t we care?

But wouldn’t more government involvement mean too much bureaucracy?

I’ll say this: I’ve worked directly with defense contracting’s very complex bureaucracy. I can’t imagine any health-care system matching or exceeding it. Yet I’ve never heard anyone propose we eliminate defense. We support defense because we need it. Shouldn’t we view health care the same way?

One company where I worked began with excellent health, dental, and life insurance, retirement plans, plus profit-sharing programs.

Then the company began reducing those benefits "to remain competitive." We accepted that, until they boasted their yearly profit-per-employee was $28,000. Not income – profit! The company hadn’t needed to cut benefits. It had simply created record profits out of our health-care pockets!

To us, those cuts meant that when all four of us were sick with the flu, only one could see a doctor.

At my layoff, Human Resources gave me a $300+ monthly pension, and offered us a medical insurance policy for "only" $1,100 monthly. (Several network news specials claimed the policy would actually have cost the company about $400.)

Will God reward executives who make decisions like that?

Gifts and loans were meant to help, not to profit.

"If your brother becomes poor, you are responsible to help him; invite him to live with you as a guest in your home. Fear your God and let your brother live with you; and don't charge him interest on the money you lend him. Remember--no interest, and give him what he needs, at your cost: don't try to make a profit!." (Lev. 25:35-38)

Though the Bible taught generosity and forgiveness, lenders and borrowers both suffered poor reputations. "For I am hated everywhere I go. I am neither a creditor soon to foreclose nor a debtor refusing to pay – yet they all curse me" (Jer. 15:10)

More Scriptures: Exod. 22:25, Lev. 25:39-43, Deut. 14:27, 23:19-20, Ps. 15:1-2, 15:5, Ezek. 18:5, 7-17, Matt. 5:42.

Debts were revoked every seventh year and again every 50^th year, in the year of Jubilee.

"if ... there are any who are poor, you must not shut your heart or hand against them; you must lend them as much as they need. Beware! Don’t refuse a loan because the year of debt cancellation is near at hand! If you refuse to make the loan and the needy man cries out to the Lord it will be counted against you as a sin. You must lend him what he needs, and don't moan about it either! For the Lord will prosper everything you do because of this! There will always be some among you who are poor ...You must lend to them liberally." (Deut. 15:1-11; also read Neh. 10:31.)

I grew to respect laws designed to give debtors a fresh start.

For several years after my layoff, and later when we lived on a fixed income, the only way we could buy groceries and other essentials was with credit cards. Those cards were, literally, lifesavers. But as we neared their credit limits monthly interest charges would often push us over-limit, and the company then charged us fees that were double our state’s legal limits. (We didn’t know that and paid them anyway.)

One winter we were hit hard with car repairs, computer crashes, and medical bills. We quickly fell a month behind on all our cards, and struggled not to go past two.

Some companies were helpful, and waived their late fees and over-limit fees. Others increased their interest rates, making the problem worse. One company dropped its fees, but put them right back on the same day. It did the same thing the next month. Our debts spiraled nightmarishly.

It didn’t take long to appreciate the Bible’s admonitions to not crush debtors with high interest rates. We learned how easily hard-working people who manage their money well can still be forced into bankrukptcy.

Co-signing may seem like a form of "loving your neighbors," but the Bible always warns against it:

More Scriptures: Prov. 6:1-5, 11:15, 20:16, 22:26-27, 27:13.

Personal property could be used as security for debts, but couldn’t affect the borrower’s well-being or ability to work. The lender couldn’t enter the borrower’s home.

"If you take his clothing as a pledge of his repayment, you must let him have it back at night. For it is probably his only warmth; how can he sleep without it? If you don't return it, and he cries to me for help, I will hear and be very gracious to him (at your expense), for I am very compassionate." (Exod. 22:26-27)

God gets angry.

Nehemiah 5:1-13 describes a trial of wealthy individuals who abused the poor: "About this time there was a great outcry of protest from parents ... families who ran out of money for food had to sell their children or mortgage their fields, vineyards, and homes to these rich men; and some couldn't even do that, for they already had borrowed to the limit to pay their taxes.