Welcome to the blog carnival. This is actually the fourth time we’ve done it and it never ceases to amaze me how diverse and deep the different entries to the carnival always are. This week’s topic is “Community” and you can see all of the other entries over on our host, Bridget’s, site.
We’d love for you to join us. All you need to do is write a post about community and then link to it using the cool little widget that Bridget has up and running.
Here’s my contribution:
Community
This week is Child Sponsorship week here on my blog. We just got a new sponsored child and so I decided to celebrate by encouraging more people to become sponsors.
You may be wondering how ‘community’ and ‘child sponsorship’ can possibly be linked, but I have to ask how they can possibly NOT be linked.
Whether we like it or not, we are one race of people, the human race.
We seem to love to segregate ourselves. Whether it is on national lines, or by the color of our skin, or the amount of money we have in the bank, or the type of music we like or any of the hundreds of different lines of segregation we manage to create, we just don’t seem able to stop ourselves.
We segregate ourselves and then spend our time trying to join or create a community, to be a part of something, all the time completely forgetting that we ARE a part of something, part of a community, a big, six billion strong community.
You are in a community with all of the other people on the planet. What you choose to do with being a part of that community is up to you though.
- You can reject that community as being too big
- You can try to deny that it even is a community
- Or you can embrace it and start acting the way people in a community should act.
Community is about friendship, about shared goals and about supporting each other.
At a very basic level, the people in our community (that’s everyone on the planet) share the goals of having:
- Food to eat
- Clean, safe water to drink
- Clothes to wear
- Shelter
We also probably all share the common desires of:
- Hope for the future
- Happiness
- Love and companionship
Being part of a community gives us a responsibility to help those in need in that community. Whether they live right next door or on the other side of the planet there are many people in our community who need help.
You can help someone in this world-wide community today by becoming a child sponsor. Your sponsorship will help that child reach those very basic goals which we all share and will help transform not only their life but the lives of their family members too.
Open your eyes to see how people in our community, the human race, are suffering and act now to help.
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Matthew 25:37-40
Here are just some of the agencies you can sponsor through:
We are a tiny part of that 6 billion. Like that mustard seed. Just a tiny part that God can use to do great and might things — like give hope and a batter life to one child.
Great work you're doing here this week, Peter.
And that should be "better," not "batter." Sigh.
"A batter life" is amusing 🙂
Thanks, Glynn. I appreciate your encouragement.
This post reminds me of Mother Teresa's quote
"There are no great things, only small things with great love."
Ok, well two……she also said…..
"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."
Great post, Peter! We also sponsor a little girl from Rwanda who is exactly the same age as my daughter. I cannot imagine the life this little girl leads, but find hope that the little we are doing on our part with our financial offering is making a huge difference in her life.
Thanks, Michelle.
I can guarantee that your small financial offering (and the letters you send) are making a difference as big as night and day in her life!
Glynn, Great post! Thank you. We are all part of this community of the human race — so true. And we are all connected. Blessings, Louise
Thanks Louise… and I'll take it as a compliment that you called me Glynn, since he's a pretty awesome writer 🙂
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Peter. When Jesus was asked "who is my neighbor?", He didn't answer the person who is in closest proximity, agrees with you the most, or is in the same station in life. He told the story of a man who probably could not have seemed more different to person he rescued.
EXACTLY!
A Rwandan in the video I posted on my blog today describes her dream future for her children as being able to go to bed without struggling. Without struggling against war, poverty, too little food, the most basic of "conveniences" we take for granted. The comment is so striking it can only take one's breath away because it is such a contrast to what our children experience every day of their enriched lives.
Our children. . . but certainly not all children in America. Our children. . . but not all the children in such places as Mexico, Nicaragua, India, Vietnam, China, Rwanda, Mozambique, El Salvador, Malawi, Honduras, the Congo, Peru, Afghanistan. . . a list that we can try to shorten even as it continues to lengthen.
My husband and I support a number of children and their families through the Episcopal Relief & Development Fund. The ERDF calls what we give "Gifts for Life".
When 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes every day, when every 8 seconds a child dies from drinking dirty water, when more than 2 billion people in developing countries depend on wood for basic heating and cooking (figures are from the ERDF), we cannot as a community accept doing nothing.
Our posts on Community and your posts on child sponsorship come at a just-right time of year. The $500 someone spends for the latest gadgets for Christmas could buy at least 34 $12 mosquito nets to help prevent malaria. It could buy 10 infants the postnatal care they need, or several smokeless stoves that eliminate indoor air pollution causing respiratory illnesses. If everyone who spent $5 at Starbucks every day instead used the money to sponsor a child or bring food, water, clothing, and shelter to a family in need, we not only could, we would change the world.
A community of givers is a wonderful community to join. It receives back what it gives many times over.
You're so right, Maureen!
Thanks for adding your voice!
Peter, I always get encouraged to see you pastoring through your blog. And today, you've done it again by calling us to love as a community. You were one of my first communities here in the blogosphere church and have been & continue to be blessed by you. Thankful for you, brother.
Peter, this is terrific!
Like I mentioned previously, we send our money each month and have for many years… what I need to do now is reach out in other, more personal ways, to our 'children'. I'm thankful for another 'gentle' reminder.
Peter, yes that is a broader way to see community , but true. I sponsored a little girl from India until she was no longer in the progam. And yes, she was no different than any child in USA. By doing ths we are evangelizing,
You've given me a great idea for a post later in the week! Thank you!!!!
Thank you Peter- you are doing such an excellent job presenting this.
Aww, thanks Pastor J!
Am I my brother's keeper? Yes I am.
Interesting. I've never heard it stated like that before.
I love reading about child sponsorship. A couple months ago I started to sponsor a little girl from Peru and I encourage everyone to think about sponsoring as well!
It is so true that our common desires of "Hope for the future, Happiness, and Love and companionship" are exactly what makes us all in the same community. It behooves us to go a step beyond the "Golden Rule" and apply the "Titanium Rule" – "Do unto others as Christ has done unto you.." Thank you, Peter.