A yearning of mine is to help combat famine. Not the famine of food although that is worthy of our time, money and resources, but a famine of the Word of God in the hands of those who aren’t allowed to have it. For whatever reason it has been a longing of mine for years to see Bibles given to those folks in closed countries. So the best I can do is help raise funds. $5/Bible is quite cheap.
So the kids in my church are fabulous. They give their quarters, nickles and dimes (all 6 of them), help collect cans and do other projects, and in the past 2 years they’ve raised $2000. That is approximately 400 Bibles. How cool is that? So this year we put up a contraption to help our endeavors. Here it is:
It is in the driveway of our our local grocery store so people can come in and shoot cans in the basket. Fun, don’t you think?
So now when I drive along the road I stop and pick up cans. Now this might seem like a lost cause. It takes 350 cans to equal 10 pounds which is $5 and the cost of a Bible. Wouldn’t it be better to give $5? Actually it is, and I do. But I’ve learned something from the kids. Most adults would say that’s an act of futility to pick up cans, here’s 20 bucks and let me save you some time. But the reality is that this probably would be the only time an adult would give–a one-time gift and forget about it. Then you have the kids. They keep coming with their piggy bank money (literally, and it’s quite touching) and their weekly quarters. So if every single adult in my church gave $20, we still wouldn’t have raised close to the $2000 that the 6 children in our church have raised. Those nickles and dimes matter. Even more than us adults giving one time gifts.
So here I am again, a couple of decades later, picking up beer cans. Maybe one day I’ll laugh as I find some other form of raising funds for Bibles that multiplies quicker. I would LOVE that especially as the days are short, but I just haven’t come up with anything. For now I’ll give my nickles and dimes with the children. Besides, they somehow in their child-like wisdom have discovered that the marathon gets you farther than the sprint. A good lesson to remember.
