Volunteer at:
• Shelters
• Free medical clinics
• Food banks, pantries, meal kitchens
• Low-income housing projects
• School programs/support groups
• Environmental projects (parks and animal protection)
Be an advocate for:
• All of the above
• The National Low Income Housing Coalition and The National Coalition on Homelessness
• Environmental coalitions
Become a maven
Maven (Yiddish) means to know more on a subject than anyone else. We need to know what we are talking about and how to organize one-on-one until a critical mass is reached and our combined votes get us a seat at the table where decisions are made. Ask the hard questions: Why does this situation exist? What is the cause? Why is it not being dealt with? Pursue solutions tirelessly and relentelessly until resolved—even as you volunteer in service that establishes credibility for advocacy.
Dorothy Ames lives in Milford, Del., where a
van picks her up every Sunday for worship at the Pentecostal church.
Photo by Tom Mihalek.It happened during Christmas week. A seismic shift
sent a mountainous wave that rolled over Indonesia. As of this writing,
there are 150,000 dead and counting — so momentous that all other news,
issues and events paled in comparison. The world was stunned by this
tragedy's sheer magnitude.
Then came the response. Like a
minor tsunami itself, people worldwide wrote checks and sought ways to
help. Some nations responded instantly by pledging emergency aid in
money and in kind. Reaching out to the victims was the action of the
moment. It's called compassion — the essential, bedrock, biblical
response that Jesus embodied in his life and ministry.
Henri
Nouwen, priest and professor, defined the sainted life as being one of
compassion. Of being "lost with the lost, hungry with the hungry, sick
with the sick, suffering with perfect sensitivity," he wrote.
But
this is never easy. Individual stories of caring emerged amid the
thousands of bodies washed up along Indonesian shorelines. One
interview with a vacationing American told of how Thai people acted
with great concern for surviving tourists — even as they mourned their
losses — leading foreigners through the dark to higher ground, helping
them through the night.
One Thai made the dangerous descent down
into the flooded beach village and returned with rice and other
nourishment for frightened tourists. He was a Buddhist. Compassion was
in his faith lexicon — just as ours is in Christ Jesus.
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