By: Cal Thomas
Most people who haven’t finished (or even begun) their shopping are starting to worry about what gifts to give a friend, relative or spouse. Quick, what did you give or receive last year? How about two years ago? Most of us can’t remember, unless it was a big-ticket item.
What if you could give a gift that mattered; one that literally kept on giving and improved the life of another person? Would you buy that gift?
Two years ago I bought two gifts for people I have never met. One was a goat and the other a sewing class. Both went to people in countries who need just a little to enable them to take care of themselves and their families.
The gifts were purchased through the humanitarian organization World Vision (www.worldvisiongifts.org) and while I can’t track my gifts, World Vision has told me stories of people who have received similar presents. They are accounts that should touch every heart and motivate more of us to commit ourselves to things that actually produce results (unlike so much of what Washington does, which mostly produces mounting debt and bigger government).
The gift of goats helped a Ugandan girl orphaned by AIDS. Last March, Teopista received her first gift ever, two goats from World Vision. The goats will not only provide milk but fertilizer for the family garden. The goats are already reproducing and when there are enough, some can be sold to provide income.
Sewing lessons provided Mariana Prendi, a single mother in Albania, with job skills and a steady income since her husband died in an accident 11 years ago. She says she feels “confident and safe” for her family’s future. “Now, I’m learning a vocation that fulfills me and gives me joy.”
These stories are typical of what small and inexpensive gifts can do for people in great need. They are not welfare, like so many dead-end American programs. Call them “help-fare,” because they help people to become self-sustaining. That’s a value embraced by most conservatives and even, I suspect, by some liberals.
World Vision also helps some of the world’s estimated 2 million sexually exploited children, most of them girls, through its Trauma Recovery Center. One such girl, “Charity,” was rescued from a life of sexual exploitation.
There are many more such stories that could be told and many that won’t be told unless people literally give the gift of a new life to people who otherwise are without hope. Gifts are also available for Americans who need a small amount of capital and encouragement to begin to stand on their own feet.
Think about that as you use your charge card for those last-minute gifts that will be too-soon forgotten. The gift of a new life! Despite what the ads tells us, isn’t this the real meaning of Christmas?
