http://fightinghunger.walmart.com/city/Fresno-CA

Two things the pastor said on Sunday really stood out to me. First he spoke about how most everyone has something they are hiding deep in their memory. We’ve all done something horrible that we’re ashamed of. Some sin that we can’t let go. And that sin keeps us from stepping up and helping others. We ask ourselves what good can we be when we are so rotten inside? Moses was a murderer. A man on the run. Doesn’t get much worse than that.

The pastor then continued to talk about how God works. And he quoted a verse where God tells Moses: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land”. And I thought this was so exciting! God sitting in heaven about to unleash his mighty power upon the Egyptians and right the terrible wrongs that had been done! Wow, this is the making of a great movie. And then the pastor continued reading: “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” AGH!!! What??? How does this work? God in his mighty wrath is sending a cowardly murderer to walk up to the king of the most powerful country on the planet and demand that he release his entire slave workforce? That will never work!!!!

But it did.

The bottom line is that God works through us; Regular, imperfect people. If he can send a cowardly criminal to free an entire race of people, what can he do with us?

I’ve learned that He can use us to help a kid from a broken home understand his math homework so he can do better in school. He can use us to organize sports in bad neighborhoods so kids can have positive role models in their lives and maybe keep them out of gangs. He can use us to counsel drug addicts and help them get beyond their addictions. He can use us to help people keep their marriages together. He can use us in a million ways, but we gotta step up in a consistent way and let Him work through us. We have to make compassion a part of our daily lives. It’s not enough to drop few bucks in a collection plate on Sundays. It’s certainly not enough to just take care of our own and then complain about the rest of the world.

We gotta step up.

Knowing this, I’ve been forced to do some soul searching lately. When you buy into the whole Christianity thing it’s supposed to change your life, your world view, your core beliefs. I would say that it’s certainly changed my life in many ways, but the one way that I’m most aware that there’s not been significant change is in the area of compassion for others. And I don’t think I’m alone. But why is this? Are we a bunch of self absorbed, apathetic jerks? No, I think it’s simpler than that. I think we’re plain scared.

Scared? Scared of what? Heck, I get up at church a few times a month and play drums in front of several thousand people. I don’t even get a twitch of nervousness. It’s as easy as breathing to me. Yet when my wife asked me to come out and play frisbee and make crafts with a bunch of poor kids in southeast Fresno I’m suddenly shaking in my boots and looking for excuses not to go. I have chores to do. I’m tired from working all week, etc, etc. But that’s all crap. When I look down inside, I see that I’m simply scared. And the reasons I’m scared reveal some very ugly, ugly attitudes. So I’ll just throw them out there, let’s not screw around here alright?

I don’t like hanging out with poor people. They are dirty. They are uneducated. They are crass. They are lazy. Their neighborhoods are dangerous. They’ve made their situation. They are not worthy of my time.

Wow. That’s some ugly crap right there. If this weren’t a family friend blog, I’d be using a stream of expletives to explain how vile and nasty that admission tastes to me right now. But I write it because I don’t think I’m alone here.

They say the faults we find in others are driven by the the things we hate about ourselves. I think the greatest fear I have in reaching out to to others is that I’ll have to face the fact that when all the pretty things I’ve surrounded myself are off the table, and I’m on their turf, and it’s just one on one, It’s going to become apparent that I’m not as awesome as I think I am. I’m afraid they won’t like me. It’s me who’s not worthy. That’s scary.

I write all of this because I was humbled this weekend once again. The last time I was humbled like this was when I went to Africa. I came back with a new outlook on life but I quickly let that outlook deteriorate into old routines again. I let the fear back in. But as I mentioned earlier, my wife asked me to come play with some kids and so I figured what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. And I was humbled again.

What I experienced were a bunch of kids from all kinds of cultural backgrounds and with all kinds of family structures. Most of these kids were under 10 years old, walking up unsupervised, often with kindergarten age siblings in tow. Many speak broken english or none at all. They show up with smiling faces, wanting to play. And so this is where I realized that I had all these feelings and fears pent up and these little smiling kids were quickly washing those fears away. It was a freeing experience.

They don’t care if you have any great skills. They don’t care about your house or your job or your status. They don’t care about your color, or your age. They aren’t interesting in judging you or holding you to some standard. All they want is some face time. They want an adult that’s willing to play. Somebody who’s willing to throw a frisbee or have a sack race, or slide down a piece of plastic soaked with water. They just want somebody to show up and put in some time.

And so to bring it all the way around, I think that’s what we need to do. We need to just show up. Tuck our preconceived notions away, quit trying to put on some false front, and just show up. Just show the heck up.

In the next few days I’m going to post some video and stuff of this past weekend. I’m also going to see if I can get a list of volunteering opportunities from the church. There’s a lot that needs to be done out there and not enough people to do it. Hopefully more of us will be encouraged to help out. It will be life changing, I guarantee it.

• US citizens give 3 times the amount of the French and 14 times the amount of the Italians.
• Conservatives give more than Liberals.
• The poor give a higher percentage of their income than do the rich.
• Religous people are more likely to give and to serve than non religious.

So what this says is that even though America is labeled the greedy monster of the earth, we’re more generous than any other country on the planet. The people who talk about compassion and caring the most are the ones least likely to give or serve, and the rich really are greedy #$%%@’s after all.

Another thing I find interesting, and possibly concerning, is that organized religion takes in the most contributions. The question I would then ask our religious organizations is; What are you doing with all that cash? I mean, I’m sure you’re using some of it to spread the gospel… though the apostles did a really good job of that without a lot of cash. So are you putting the rest to good use in our communities?

Take a second to follow this link. We all need to ask ourselves; What are we giving? Who are we giving to? Can we be doing more?

http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/charity-who-cares/

This was my second time actually running it, but Michelle and I have been involved in one way or another for several years. It’s a great charity and honestly, I had a great time running today. Just being a part of something and doing something for other people is a cool deal.

As this holiday season approaches, there are going to be a lot of ways to reach out and help others, especially in these depressed economic times. So I’m going to do some posts to highlight some of these charities and I encourage everyone reading this to check back, see what interests you, and get involved!

It was a little different for me this year though and I think it just has to do with the Africa trip coming up and some of the training I’ve been through for that. At our team building meeting the speaker took some time to talk about the importance of just loving people. As Americans we are always so focused on tasks and results that often we forget about just being with people. I mean physically just sitting and interacting with folks. So it was interesting that I had several people come up to me last night and ask what they could do, or if they could have brought something extra or given some more money or whatever. And suddenly a light went on. I was seeing first hand what this guy was talking about.

So I had to stop and explain that just showing up, just being there and talking to these people, singing along with them, eating with them, sharing stories about the kids and enjoying Santa’s corny jokes together… that’s the greatest “task” each of us was given. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about people who are struggling, it’s that they are outcasts in our performance driven society, and they want nothing more than to feel included, to feel “normal”.

So next time you get involved with some form of social work or charity and you want to do something… remember that often just showing up is what’s most needed .

The cool thing about these laptops as well is that they are not your typical fragile, crashing all the time, call tech support I’ve got another virus, Windows laptops. They are custom built laptops designed specifically for the environment in which they will be used and for the kids who will use them. They require very little power, can be charged via solar panel and are made to work in hot, humid and dusty areas. The software is custom written and provides web surfing capability, writing and math software, sharing and chat programs and even music and art creation software.

I think this is an outstanding program and it’s encouraging to see my industry take up a meaningful project such as this.  But we don’t need to sit idly by and let everyone else make a difference. The machines are being built but they still need to be sent to the children. Many countries have voiced interest in purchasing these laptops, but not all of those promises come through due to financial restraints affecting those governments. So we can help.

For the next 15 days the OLPC project is offering a Give One, Get One program. Basically you buy two of these machines and the OLPC will send you one, and send one on your behalf to a child in a developing country. Of course you can also just buy laptops and have them sent directly to needy kids.

So check out the following link and think about taking part in this revolutionary program.

http://www.laptopgiving.org/

Usually I wait until our Africa meetings every other Tuesday to post an offical Africa Blog entry. However, this morning I was just hit with several Africa related stories as I fired up the old computer and I think as it gets close to the trip, God is just really placing a lot of things on my heart. So I thought I’d do an extra post.

First, my immunizations are done. YES! 7 shots later, I am now fully immunized against most of the common diseases I could get during my trip to Africa. I still have to finish my typhoid medication but those are pills so no big deal. One thing that is bothering me still is the Malaria risk. To combat Malaria you have to take pills during and for a short time after your trip. Not a big deal except that there are wicked side effects to some of the medications. Basically there’s two medications that most people take. The first one, called Malarone, is really expensive, nearly $200 for a three week supply. It’s complications are relatively minor, but the cost makes it unattractive. The second medication, called Lariam, is very inexpensive, but it’s side effects include nightmares, psychosis and suicidal thoughts! So I don’t know man, I think I’m going to take the expensive route, just for peace of mind. Literally.

So I wanted to talk about charity a little bit this morning because as I talk to my friends and family, it seems that charity is one of those things we are content to let other people do. It’s amazing how much we puff ourselves up when we give a toy to the Marines at Christmas or we drop off our old junk to Good Will twice a year. It also amazes me when we tear people down who are doing really good things, simply because they aren’t sacrificing enough in our eyes. Maybe it makes us feel better about doing nothing ourselves?

The reason I’m talking about this is because of a story that hit the news today. Bono, from the rock group U2, has donated a Ducati motorcycle to be auctioned off for charity. Now this is pretty significant because first, Ducatis are freaking expensive. And secondly, it is giving some publicity to a group called Riders For Health which is a group of people who use motorcycles to get health care out into African villages where there is no infrastructure as we know it. However, soon after this article was posted on a blog I read, the commenters started tearing Bono down, saying that a giving up a motorcycle wasn’t any real sacrifice to Bono. And you know, this just really pisses me off. Maybe it’s not a big deal for Bono to part with a bike that costs more than the cars we drive. But damnit, until your willing to match his donation in terms of time AND money, percentage wise, with your own, you really need to keep your mouth shut.

I also wanted to pass along another blog post I ran across this morning. It’s from a family who is going to Africa to do charity work and the guy has assembled a series of pictures showing what a weeks worth of food looks like for different families around the world. You can get to the post by clicking here. There are so many things that this series of photos illustrates to me I could do a whole post on that alone. Check out the link and let me know what you think.