I’m asking for your help.

I first got involved with direct giving to the poor because of the New Futures Orphanage. I was scouring the net, looking for just, real, and direct ways to impact the lives of the poor, with small funds. I came across a [ blog ] kept by an English teacher backpacking through Cambodia.

She’d come upon an orphanage there that needed volunteers to teach some English to the children. Teachers would come through, and some would stay a while and do this, and she was captivated and decided to stay for much longer. I was captivated too, and I looked, and they needed $900 in small gifts – that’s all they were asking for last year, and it was being given in small gifts ($25, $35, $45 at a time) through [ givemeaning.org ] a site that serves as the vehicle for giving directly to such small charities.

They finally met their fundraising goal, which was used to provide some basic things to the orphanage, like cinder block walls and a roof to enclose the toilet. I read the updates from Claire, who was giving her time there. She reported on how the children were doing, their improving skills, what this means for their future. I read what the children thought about their situation, and their hopes for their futures; each one is an individual. I knew I had to help.

The poor are Christ to us. They are the icon, the image. They are the means by which we are saved, by being filled with love. Apart from them, I know I at least cannot be saved. They are the ones of whom Christ said, “inasmuch as you have done with your riches to the least of these, who are my brothers, you have so done to me in my impoverishment”.

Recently, the landlord sold the orphanage and the children had to be taken to a facility that doesn’t have electricity. So they need to raise money to get 12volt battery-powered lighting installed and survive with the soaring food costs. The project has established a funding goal of $1000. I’m asking you to help me help them. Take the cost of a night out, or a new video game, or a month of cable TV, and give directly to them, for this need.

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Will you help? Please?

They are [ here ].

Direct Giving defined: Give in reality, not in theory. Give to people, not to ideas.

The Mines of Ghana are God’s Vineyards

Note: This letter was sent by way of participation in an Oxfam Campaign and borrows content from a sermon by Sociologist Anthony Campolo on corporate responsibility.

Golden Star Resources Ltd.
10901 W. Toller Drive, Suite 300
Littleton, Colorado
80127-6312 U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Tom Mair,

I read the reports from Oxfam (who is like the Mother Theresa of global care and relief agencies), and like a lot of people, I don’t know how to get through to you. We live in a time when people do not believe there will be an accounting for what we do, for how we live our lives. We live in a time when people believe that the lives of one set of families must be improved by exploiting another set of families – in short, we live according to the most primitive ethos with the most advanced technology. We’re savages with computers.

I am asking you to consider the following words, which no doubt you’ve heard before:

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He improved the land, and strengthened the land, and he gave it into the trust of some men to keep in good faith as honorable stewards of the land. When it was time to harvest the good rewards from the land, he sent his servant to the tenants to collect his share. But they seized the servant, beat him, and sent him back empty-handed. So the landowner sent another servant, and they hit this one on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent another servant and that one they killed. He sent many others, and some of them they beat and some of them they killed. Finally, he sent his own son, whom he loved, thinking “They did not respect my servants, but they will respect my son”. But the tenants had a meeting and decided, “This is the heir. If we kill him, the land will be ours to do as we please.” So they took him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to these stewards when he comes?

Don’t Forget

Please do not stop praying for Kenya. The poor, involved in microbusiness there, have been decimated. It’s easy to suggest that somehow it’s their fault, but it isn’t. It’s not your fault when armed gangs burn your tents and shacks to the ground, with everything you have, and kill people all around you. Below is a photo of Eunice Cherotich, someone I care about there, and a photo of Kenya in the aftermath.