The Faithful Thing

In these times when prices of many items are sky-rocketing, and checkbooks and credit cards are hard hit, how do we manage to help our sisters and brothers in need around the world, who live of less than a dollar a day, and for whom prices are also rising?

We follow God’s plan for such times, as revealed in Scripture, in the early Church, in Christian tradition, and in examples of faithful Christians, our mentors.

The members of the early Church (Acts 2) also lived in hard times. But seeing the needs of others around them they “sold all their possessions and gave to anyone, as he had ned.”

We can do that. It is the faithful thing to do.

In the second century, the church had a rule: “If your neighbor is hungry and has no food at all, an you have none to spare, then you fast for three days and give your neighbor that food.”

We can do that. It is the faithful thing to do.

John Wesley had these rules:

“Work hard, and make all you can, as long as you do not hurt someone in so doing

Live simply, and save all you can

Give all you can, to help those who are less fortunate.”

We can do that. It is a faithful thing to do.

Some years ago, I went on a Church World Service tour in Central America. On the trip I had stopped the van to take a photo of two girls pushing back the green scum on a hog pond to take to their home two kilometers away. Eight kilometers down the road I took a photo of three girls pumping cool, clean water from a well CWS had drilled in a village. It was a vivid contrast.

I showed these two slides to a group in a church at St. Charles, MO. A lady named Holt came up and asked,” What does a well cost?” I told her that where I was then working, in Dominican Republic, a well cost about $1,000. She replied, “I will send you a check for $1,000 tomorrow. I have just retired from teaching and planned to go on a two week vacation to celebrate, but I think it is more important to stay home and think of people drinking cool, clean water than it is for me to go to Hawaii.” She sent the check and the well was drilled.

We can do that. It is the faithful thing to do.

We can look at the needs of others and balance them against our own wants. The price of this lady’s trip to Hawaii was that an entire village would go without potable water. She was unwilling to pay that price.

We can pass up paying another pair of shoes and feed five hungry children for a month. We can pass up a cruise and enable a family now living in a shack to have a decent home. We can drink one less soft drink a day and put a Nicaraguan student through high school.

We can do that, and things like that. It is the faithful, biblical and logical thing to do. Christians at their best have always acted like that, right?