Each year, churches across America send adults and teenagers on mission trips. These dedicated people head off to Africa, S. America and Asia, building and working in orphanages, providing medical and dental care and supplying huge doses of Christian love along with their services.
My husband and I have some wonderful friends who have gone on these missions; we have supported them as they do so. The force of thousands of volunteers is powerful and life-changing for the participants and for those to whom they minister.
Anyone with a charitable eye knows that there are endless opportunities for giving. Ancient Jewish wisdom provides advice on how to prioritize your dollars and personal investment. There is a Godly hierarchy of charitable giving. “The poor of your city take priority over the poor of another city.”
What would happen if, this summer, churches across America dedicated their efforts to mission trips in America? Cities like Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD, desperately need Christianity – not the self-serving, hate-filled religion of men like Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton, but the joyful and transformational Christianity that my husband and I are privileged to see.
This country has wasted thousands of billions of dollars in its so-called war on poverty. Money is certainly useful, but the War on Poverty marched arm in arm with the War Against Values. While the war on poverty failed, the war against values won. Remember the attacks on Dan Quayle for questioning whether promoting single motherhood was wise? The media and Democrat Party (which receives overwhelming support from residents of failing cities) threw their clout behind that offensive. Welcome to Baltimore. Sadly, our government is escalating the fight against traditional religion, finding new ways to stigmatize and brand time-proven ways. No amount of money can do good while social pressure is promoting wrong.
After inner-city kids spend ten months in government schools that might as well declare their goals to be illiteracy, lack of moral reasoning and social engineering, a phalanx of Christian volunteers could change the world in two summer months. I urge them to try.
Thank you, Lora for both your comments. I do sometimes question the time I put into writing my Musings (though I am almost always glad I wrote them once they are done) so validation is much appreciated. And I get strength from the comments I get knowing that others think like I do.
And by the way, reminders like your post go a long way in helping us come together to serve God by serving others. I find strength in your posts, so I hope you know that you do great good.
I can’t save the world.But I can change things in my little corner. Do you remember the feeling of coming together that developed after 9/11? I try to remind myself to have that feeling in an actively engaged way.
In our church, this month, people came together and assembled food into back pack meals that were then donated to local students in local urban schools where the kids go hungry. The postal system had their food drive this month, and I donated to that. I call the disabled kids at church by their name and try to get a smile. I talk to the elderly who live alone. Often, these actions lead to other opportunities. I’m not blowing my own horn here, I just want to show how simple it can be. And yet sometimes I fall into despair. I have to fight that, and try again with each new day given to me.
Political correctness is a shabby trick by leftist mountebanks who want to level all our values by razing them to the ground. When all our values are neutralized, they like Nimrod will remold us all as faceless bricks, automatons to rebuild their Socialist Utopia in the hands of a corrupt Mega-Government. The Judaeo-Christian Ethic is the most threatening and is the therefore most despised target on their list. Well, where does that leave us? As Emerson once said, the devil can have his way if enough good men do nothing.
Jean, I was unaware of this re Habitat for Humanity. How sad. My husband spoke for Day of Prayer yesterday in D.C. and praying is obviously something we must do. The question I keep asking myself is what else I can do.
Thanks, Karen. We were actually on our way back from taping TV shows for TCT last week and in the middle of getting ready to release the third volume of the TV shows as DVDs (which we did two days ago) and I just didn’t manage to write and post. It was poor organization, not a vacation. I’m sorry I missed.
Sad to say, many of these places that worship the secular left have thrown G_d out. Habitat for Humanity started as a Christian ministry. The founder set guidelines – the recipients of homes had to work, they had to participate in the homebuilding process (add some sweat equity) and they had to have a clean criminal record. Leftists complained that those criteria were “discriminatory.” Secularists took over the organization, threw the founder out and changed the rules so that now the charity is nothing more than another giveaway to whomever or whatever applies for help. Drug dealer? Prostitute? Shacking up with baby daddy and working for cash? No problem – you are “equal” to that pair of working parents who don’t qualify for government help because they had the audacity to get and stay married. While a dose of spiritual guidance is sorely needed throughout the US, it would undoubtedly be rejected as “offensive” to those who need it the most.
Welcome back – missed your insights last week – hope you are refreshed!