Instrução para $50
Escrito por Marca Camionete Steenwyk: Dezembro 21, 2004
Este será meu último borne por aproximadamente uma semana. Minha esposa (Amy) e é sair da cidade por alguns dias comemorar o Christmas com seus pais. Desde ele meu último borne para um pouco quando, eu quiser lhe fazer aqui a contagem… vai…
Frequentemente, quando eu estou falando a alguém sobre o materialism ou o consumerism ou porque nosso celebration atual do Christmas deve mudar, eu começo uma sorte do olhar fixo frustrado e confundido na resposta. Os povos “não o começam”. Pensam que eu estou sendo ingénuo ou extremo. Eu asseguro-o que, eu não sou algum filhote de cachorro idealistic spunky que gosta de rage de encontro à máquina. Eu sou um chubby, entertainment-addicted, o americano que deseja profundamente se transformar mais como Jesus Christ.
Uma semana há, meus esposa e eu estávamos falando sobre como nós ought fazer o Christmas este ano. Nós concordamos que seria demasiado abrupto e inábil para não comprar apenas presentes para povos. Instead, nós estamos tentando limitar nossa despesa e começar a preparar povos para um Christmas do non-consumerist ano seguinte. Mas eu senti que este não era bastante-nós deve fazer mais. Assim, embora nós não podemos o ter recursos para, nós decidimo-nos que para cada dólar que nós gastamos em presentes, nós daríamos aos pobres globais. Não muito, mas um começo bom.
Eu fui ao Web site da visão do mundo (que é uma organização altamente respeitável). Têm a catálogo do donation em seu local. O catálogo em linha apresenta alguns dos mais melhores argumentos para porque nós ought reconsider nosso relacionamento com dinheiro.
Nós fazemos exame de nosso dinheiro para concedido. We spend thousands of dollars a year on entertainment, travel, recreational eating, and technological gagetry. And when someone comes along and challenges us to give more to the poor or to spend less money on ourselves, we get upset. Part of us feels guilty, the other feels angry. We want to say "bless you for challenging me in this area" while at the same time shouting "damn you for making me feel bad." But the simple reality seen on World Vision’s Catalog leaves us without a defense.
For $75–what many people pay for a week’s worth of groceries–you can buy a family a goat, which can provide them with a good supply of milk, or more goats.
For $50–what you might expect to pay for a text book or a handful of mainstream books at Barnes and Noble–you can send a child to school for a year.
For $1850–what you might pay for new laptop–you can provide drinking water by paying for a shallow well.
For $25–the price I pay for a new pair of jeans–you can buy clothing for 5 homeless American kids.
You get the picture. I don’t want you to feel bad. I want you to give. Start giving out of what you can give, even if it is a pathetic amount…and start giving more and more as you re-orient yourlife to maximize the amount of love you share, rather than the amount of fun you can experience. Merry Christmas.
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Mark - Thank you for sharing that. I think it is a great challenge and a great place to start. It certainly makes me think. God bless, and merry Christmas.
Mark-
My wife and I decided several years ago to make (rather than purchase) the majority of our Christmas gifts. Each year we have tackled another handicraft from paper-making to knitting to mosaics. This years was pottery. We like this for several reasons: 1)we spend much less money than we would buying gifts, 2)we learn a skill, 3) we work on them togither, 3) because it is so time consuming, we are limited to giving people one gift, 4) we never set foot in a mall, but rather invest our Christmas $ in things that we want to support, e.g., this year all our $ was invested in a local Christian-run, inner-city art studio where we took our pottery class.
Our families continue to buy us gifts, but no one has ever expressed offense or disappointment at our modus operandi.
We also support World Vision and receive the catalogue you mention here. We have considered buying things from this catalogue “in the name of” folks as a gift to them, but think this might come off as pretentious or self-righteous. What do you think?
Jeremy
I don’t feel bad. I think your challenge is a good one. We all need to be challenged to examine our lives to make sure we are being faithful to God’s commands. I think that we need to be careful though that we don’t replace spiritual motives with political ones.
Fair enough, Brett. You seem to be working with the assumption that I have a polical axe to grind. I do not. I am not involved in politics. I am not a liberal. In fact, up until I started abstaining from voting, I mostly voted republican.