Hi everybody.
Our article this week is discussing giving back to communities.
We all live different lives. Some are coming from poverty and abuse, broken relationships, forgotten veterans needing help and so on
It is a diverse picture.
Count your blessings and remember where you came from.
If there is anything satisfying in life is giving back to the community.
Give
You start by giving what you have.
You can start small. We are taught that giving opens doors to blessings.
Give shelter, you may be one of those people that have been blessed abundantly and you may afford to buy a hostel for the homeless. Or just blessing someone with a house of their own.
There are communities who desperately need food and water. Organizations such as Water Aid, Tear Fund, Save the Children, just to cite a few, are zooming in to assist on specific needs. There are many schemes around such as food banks and soup kitchens, the later is where people sit down for a warm plate of food.
Maybe you don’t have money to give but you may be a good cook, offer your services. Or you may be a good dishwasher/kitchen assistant.
It can help you too if you are coming from a rough neighborhood or you are one of those people hooked on substance use and trying to let go and recover.
Engaging and giving its a way of giving back to the community no matter what our circumstances are.
You may be thinking that this is stuff for older people, but if you’re in high school you can do something that impacts positively to your environment. Fund raising perhaps. Wherever you are you can make a difference.
We have seen celebrities in our communities, big names giving back. Good examples are in the UK, Stormzy, trying to bridge the gap by send black students to top universities like Cambridge. The first Stormzy scholarship was offered in 2018 and its an ongoing. There is the late John Lennon BMI scholarship, the Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund, initiated by rapper Jay-Z and many others are good examples.
Let us not close the door on anyone who needs our help and where we know we can make a difference.
Love
God is love, We’ve never seen God but we believe that God loves us and that love lives in us all. We can show that love in the daily acts of our lives.
Legacy is not just to your kids but to society. We can all make an impact to society.
Gratefulness is not as sign of weakness.
Nobody owns anybody anything but covering a need is the right thing to do, to cloth and feed somebody if we are able to.
Its not fun being homeless, living on the streets and begging. Humiliation is not even a good enough word to describe a person/s in that situation. Being stripped of everything, job, shelter, maybe friends is the lowest one can be.
Let us not kick the next person when they are down.
This is an opportunity to give a hand.
If there is anything covid19 has taught us is that there are more important things in life, everyday simple things.
To those of us going through trials and tough times, your opportunity is coming hold onto hope.
I was watching a Mercy ship program the other day and they were talking about Senegal. In some of the poor parts of Senegal people pay from their pocket for the drugs, gloves, pain killer, and so on. They showed a man with a huge tumour on his neck the size of a football, children with clefts. Unfortunately this is a common reality in most parts of the world,
These are diseases that can be treated and which could have been eliminated earlier on but because of lack and poverty some of these people are carrying on untreated, because they cannot afford the medical costs. They carry on as they are until they drop. This is a common problem in most poor countries and dysfunctional states.
Benefits of giving
It is a privilege to give.
Giving gives meaning to life.
I don’t know about you but it makes me really happy, to love and not taking life for granted.
Service, the good thing about service is that every contribution is precious. It’s just like a building, you need the corner stone to hold the whole thing together, hinges, nails and so on. Each and every part is important and plays a role. Each dot makes sense when joined together.
When we are old and weary, we will remember the good things we ever did. Our legacy.
Start creating the memories now.
Think life, love, warmth and touch.