The Life You Can Save

So today was another busy day at the office. More training (there is some awesome technology out there...the latest, WebEx conferencing systems), another free lunch with co-workers to get to know one another (taco bar this time!), lots of research and planning (Jackson Square is going to be awesome!). Then Lana and I decided to take one of our supervisors, David, up on his offer to attend a book discussion at a church in Oak Park tonight.

I guess Lana and I finally shut down our computers and left work about 5, grabbed some dinner, roamed Target, did a drive through of Park Ridge (the town I live in) and a quick tour of my house, then headed back to the office to meet David at 7. We were invited to go on Tuesday so this did not allow us time to read and reflect on the book (The Life You Can Save) that the others have had about a month to ponder.

It was a small group, 9 of us, from different places and different backgrounds. Some worked for Bread for the World, one was a Pastor who held David's job for 16 years quite a few years ago and just recently returned from a 5 year mission/trip to Ethiopia, a guy who specializes in microfinance, an interesting group none the less. Most consider themselves "activists" on some level or another. They graciously let Lana and I just sit and listen to the debates and points they raised and try to absorb all the ideas and concepts with a very brief overview of the book itself.

At some point this summer I will pick the book up and dive into it more myself, but from the gist I got, the author, Peter Singer, really challenged people to consider how much money they are truly giving in proportion to what they make. He created a whole model of what he thinks would be a reasonable amount based on income levels. There were varying viewpoints on this but I felt like our discussion kept coming to this narrow focused point. Many of those around the circle are extremely advocacy focused, headed to Washington, D.C. in the coming weeks to lobby for this and that. And to generalize their feelings, they got stuck on the fact that Singer was talking money and individual giving and how that didn't apply to the work they see for themselves. They seemed to think that we needed to be spending much more of our time and resources on petitioning our government for foreign aid (which is not a bad thing, let me clarify) and that asking someone to sacrifice a latte and donate the money instead was just not enough. I struggle with this.

The work that I am apart of this summer, I am coming to find, is so incredibly comprehensive and because of this, so incredibly exciting. We (the ELCA) have a whole team that is dedicated to advocacy, we have whole teams dedicated to getting people to donate funds, we have whole teams spending their time on education, we have teams that are distributing money both domestically and abroad to those most in need and in the most practical ways possible to have maximum effect. A lot of times, we're fortunate, because those teams overlap in a wide variety of ways. But not all of us are born to be lobbyists in the halls of Congress, not all of us are born with the boldness to plead the case for funding with a potential donor, not all of us are given the gifts of dynamic presentation to deliver speeches. But that is what makes all of us who we are. God made us the way we are with the gifts we have and we have to understand that about one another. We can't start judging people because their strength isn't what our passion is.

My biggest job this summer is to encounter 36,000 high schoolers in a 5-day span and get them to be aware of the enormity of World Hunger and Poverty and care. To empower them, that even though they may seem like one kid who can't do much about it, they can have an impact, greater than they can fathom. Even if they just spread the word, even if they skip a latte (or a coke or burger or movie...think big!) and donate the $3, even if they say one prayer for those suffering. Or maybe they feel it bigger than that. Maybe, just maybe, they get it. They discover what their gift is. They take a risk. They involve others in their congregation. And, heres the best part...TOGETHER we can start making change. Using our overlapping gifts to stick up for the "bottom billion", to lobby our representatives, to help the homeless person you see on the street everyday, the list goes on. If one kid walks away changed...imagine.

What life can you save? How can you make a difference? Is it donating money or goods or how about just your time? Think about it. Pray about it. Then, and this is most important, ACT on it!