Why I Give – 2011
“Freely
you have received, freely give”
Matthew
10:8
During
worship services on November 13, 2011, congregants received an exciting and
challenging surprise as they left the building. During his sermon, Pastor Chris
relayed the news that he had received a letter from recent visitors to Arcola
Church. The letter praised the welcoming
sense of community they had felt as they were embraced by our members. It also included an attached check in the
amount of $2,000.00. The givers indicated
that the church could use the money in any way it felt necessary, but they
hoped that in some way, the gift could be multiplied and perhaps could
stimulate an even greater move towards giving.
As the adults and children filed out of the sanctuary, ushers gave each
person a $5.00 bill. Pastor Chris
acknowledged that each person could do with the $5.00 as he or she wished. He asked only that we take it seriously and
pray about what God would have us do.
Please enjoy the wonderful stories of how this act of generosity has
spurred Arcola’s men, women and children to care for God’s people, not only in
our own neighborhoods, but also far across His world.
Responses:
My son
took his $5 and added $15 of his allowance money and donated the $20 to SOME.
Our family took the $5 and added it to
our “money for food box” that we had been working on as part of a Daisies
project. Our daughter, Grace, was able to take the money, including the
$5, along with her friends and buy over $70 worth of canned goods that went to
needy families for Thanksgiving!
Thank you again on what I thought was a brilliant use of the donation!
We
will change our $5 bill into singles, give them to our seven year-old grandson
Jake Lynd and he will put the money into various Salvation Army pots in the
coming weeks. Here’s why:
Bob’s
maternal grandfather, Roderick E. Spence, served in the Canadian Army on the
front lines in France in World War I. He
suffered permanent disabilities from nerve gas and being dragged by a
horse. He overcame these obstacles and
got a government job as a lighthouse keeper on the Red River of the North, near
Winnipeg, Manitoba. He successfully
raised a family of three children and a foster child in the midst of the
Great Depression of the 1930s.
“Poppa”
Spence always thought so highly of the Salvation Army because they were “Over
There”-- in France, supporting the troops with coffee, food and spiritual
comfort. So every year during this
season, we put some cash in the Salvation Army pots, in memory of Poppa Spence.
Arcola
Church’s “$5 plan” gives us an opportunity to teach Jake about giving, family
tradition and the man who was his great-great grandfather.
Priceless!
We
doubled our contribution and donated it to the Tulk family education
fund. I am a teacher at Little River Elementary, and this past Tuesday,
one of our second graders lost her father in a tragic car accident.
Rachel is the oldest of three girls and still managed to come and perform at
our second grade play on Thursday night. As a family, we thought our
donation would do better locally than globally, this time.
Thank
you for the opportunity to discuss with our children the positive impact we can
have when we give.
We’re
taking our inspirational gift and turning it into an opportunity for a young
camper by donating a summer camp scholarship for a week at Camp Highroad.
Although
we considered ordering a couple of pizzas with the $15 you gave us last Sunday
(smile), we decided to do the following instead...
I
wanted to write and tell you what I did with the $5. When you first
mentioned it on Sunday morning, my head started spinning with all of the
possibilities and all of the good organizations that could use more
donations. I was so excited. On my way home from church, I stopped
at Starbucks (which I only do once a week or less) and they had signs up for
their campaign to donate $5 to help America's jobs program. I like that
idea, because it's a corporation trying to help the economy instead of laying
more people off, as so many corporations are doing. But I wasn't sure
about it. It's a brand new campaign and unproven, so I was
hesitant. I know Starbucks is a very family-friendly and
community-responsible company, but I hesitated. Besides, I wanted to
bring the $5 home to show my husband and children, and explain that if they had
bothered to go to church that morning, they would have also received $5 to grow
and to sow.
So I took the $5 and my
chai latte home, found my husband and boys, and told them about the
challenge. The next couple of days I thought about all of the
organizations, here and far away, that help people in so many ways. I
read the email about the Kiva lending organization, and I thought of the local
charities that my family usually supports. Would it be better
to donate to a faraway place where people have so very little, or to
someplace local, where I might occasionally see someone and wonder if my
donation had helped him or her? By Wednesday night I was overwhelmed
by all of the needs across the world. I began to realize how small my
donation would be, even though I planned to add more money to it, as you had
encouraged us to do. It would be such a small drop in the ocean of
needs. I know every bit helps, but still, it was so frustrating
to know that I wouldn't really be changing anyone's life. So then I began
praying that everyone everywhere who is in a position to give their time, money
or talents would do so, so that we could all truly meet your challenge and
Jesus's challenge to us.
On
Thursday morning I read about the devastating tornadoes that had occurred
overnight in the southern states. More loss, more need created
in minutes. So much is destroyed so quickly and so often. Is
anything ever created for good so quickly?
Today
I finally made my decision and donated to the Kiva organization that
someone else at church had recommended. Of course, I'll still
continue my usual donations to my usual list of organizations (and
hopefully be able to grow those amounts). I'm imagining that all of
Arcola Church together this week, with our collective donations, created
something good that will outshine the destruction occurring in various places
in various ways and for various reasons!
My
first idea was to buy another copy of the book we're reading in the men's
reading group. Why? Because it's a great opportunity to bond with
other men in the church, and the last two times I've been, we've had other
folks join us who weren't there at the beginning and didn't have the book, but
still were able to contribute. How much
easier and welcoming, would it be if we offered a copy of the book they could
borrow?
So
maybe that will help build our community a little bit the next time we meet.
But
what else can $5 do? Maybe I would do
the first idea anyway.
Yeah,
I should do that on my own. And the
donor mentioned "multiplying it."
Hmmm. And then one day this week,
the Bank of America ATM told me they would contribute $2 for every $1 I
contributed to a food bank. So the
original $5 became $15 because it seemed like a good number and a matching gift
of another $30 for an area food bank.
I took my $5 and
made dinner for my neighbors who had a baby last month. They have lived
two doors away from me for a year and while I’ve waved or said hello in
passing, I haven’t taken the time to really get to know them. I give in
the hope that the small gesture of a meal will open the door to a more personal
relationship between our families.
Thank you for your sermon on
giving this past Sunday. We really enjoyed it and are taking it to heart to see
where we can give more. I must admit, Riley was just excited to get $5 but
after talking about what the sermon meant, we were able to decide on how to
spend our money.
We decided to buy a flock of
chickens through Heifer International. Riley found our magazine in the mail and
said that is what he wanted to do. So Rob, Riley and I used our money for that.
Mackenzie has decided to double her money and buy fabric to help make
quilts for the quilt ministry. So we will pick that up and give it to
Vivian at a later date.
Just wanted to let you know
that you message was inspirational to us. Thank you again for sharing.
I donated the $5 plus $50 to the Loudoun
Abused Women’s Shelter, which provides emergency shelter, food and emotional
support to women and their children who are escaping domestic violence or
assault.
We
took our $10 we received in church the other weekend and made it $25 ($5
for each member of our family) for a donation to Share Our Strength - No Kid
Hungry (http://nokidhungry.org/). And
our $25 became $50 with the generosity of matching gifts from
the Share Our Strength partners - Food Network, Walmart and
ConAgra. For every dollar that is given, Share Our Strength connects a
child with up to 10 meals...
So, for our $10 that became $25 that became
$50... we sponsored 500 meals for children!
We multiplied our $10 by 20 and bought 10
flocks of chicks thru Heifer International. Ten families from Cameroon to the
Caribbean will receive flocks of from 10 to 50 chicks. A good hen can
lay up to 200 eggs per year which a family can eat, share, or sell.
We are very excited about doing this! Thanks so much for challenging all
of us. It would be interesting to see the
world's "Return on Investment" on Arcola's original $2000!!