This postAn hour or so ago I was skimming through my Google Reader backlog (it’s been a week or so), and I came across Janssen’s post about World Vision. It hit me hard.
Actually, now that I think about it, “hit” isn’t the right word — it was more of a warm, charitable feeling that blossomed in my heart (especially coming off the heels of that last post), filling me with a desire to make the world a better place for others. As I read, I thought of my purchasing habits. My selfish, wasteful, extravagant purchasing habits. Sure, I pay fast offerings, and that’s great, but I could be doing so much more. And yet I keep spending my money on things that don’t matter.
So I decided that if I’m going to be loose with my money, I may as well be loose with it in a humanitarian way. :) I’m now sponsoring a little eight-year-old girl from India named Vijisha. Her birthday’s one week from today, so this is a kind of birthday present of sorts. It feels so good to break out of my selfishness rut and make a commitment to help someone else. And not just a one-time thing, either, but something with more substance. Something that pinches a little bit:
“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures excludes them.” — C.S. Lewis
One thing I like about World Vision is that it’s a Christian organization. Not that humanitarian organizations without religious affiliations are bad or anything, of course, but it’s nice to know WV is a group of believers. And that reminds me of another quote, this one by Thomas Jefferson:
“I deem it the duty of every man to devote a certain portion of his income for charitable purposes, and that it is his further duty to see it so applied as to do the most good of which it is capable.”
I think World Vision fits that description. Apparently they encourage you to contact your child through either letters or e-mail, and that connection is something that really appeals to me — rather than just sending money off without ever directly seeing the results, you get to put a face on things, making it more human, more real.
(Disclaimer: this is not at all to demean in any way the Church’s system of fast offerings and other charitable donations. Those are vital and important. I see this as supplementing them, not replacing them. End disclaimer.)
Anyway, the more I can tear off these shackles of selfishness, the happier I’ll be. :)
