After we returned from the orphanage last summer, one of our pilgrims asked, “This trip cost me close to $600. Why didn’t I just send the money? They could have used it more than my time here.” The question as come up again as we are getting ready to head down to Louisiana to help in a few of the shelters. This is the best I can explain:
1) The power of presents: There is great power in showing up and spending time with people. By giving someone your time, you are telling him or her they have dignity by your actions. You are showing they have value.
2) Providing witness: When you come home, you have stories to tell those who have not seen what you have seen. You are able to provide faces to a nameless/faceless struggle somewhere else.
3) Transformation: This is by far the most important in my mind. When we are able to put a personal face on a struggle, we end up with a small amount of ownership. This ownership is going to transform the way you continue to deal with this struggle and other struggles you witness.
If I just sent a check to Santa Maria del Mexicano, more than likely that would be the end of that. I would feel like I have done my duty. (Don’t get me wrong sending money isn’t bad. They, and many places like them, need it.) But after spending a week with the kids. Playing with them. Seeing their world. I now understand the many other ways I can help. I have not made one donation, but many donations. (A chunk of the books sales are going their way.) I have encouraged others to donate, and I am trying to bring others see the struggle first hand, thus adding to the awareness.
Also, by being there, it has transformed the way I look at my own life. I understand more clearly the many blessings (and sometimes ridicules decadence) of my life. At least in the short term (and hopefully in the long term) I make more appropriate choices.
Why Go
For $10 I will…
Over the weekend two of my old roommates married each other. When we lived together, it was in an “exciting urban neighborhood”. At the reception a group of us were reminiscing about the old neighborhood. Aaron told this story:
I left my backpack in the front seat of my car, because there was nothing of value in it, when I went in to the store. I came back to find the window smashed out and the bag gone. As I was sweeping the glass up a man approached and said, “I saw who took your bag. If you give me $10 I will track him down and bring the bag back.”
It was obvious he was the man who took the bag. I said, “All of my money is in the bag. If you bring the bag back to me I will give you the money.”
The man ran off to get the bag. When he returned with it, I opened it to reveal there was nothing inside. “I guess the guy who took the bag already took all the money. Sorry.”
3D Chalk Art
I have never seen anything quite like this. At first I thought these where just photoshoped images to look like they were drawn in chalk. If you look at the four row of images you will see two pictures of what they look like from a different angle.
After you hit the link for Julian Beever’s Pavement Drawings scroll down to the 3D Image section.
[via Christi in FL]
You Might Be a Youth Minister
If you office is broken in to, things are stolen, and gang signs are written on the wall and you don’t realize it for over two hours, you might be a youth minister.
[A true story via AMC]
Very cool “You might be a youth minister” t-shirts available in the APeX on-line store.