Three weeks ago during church Pastor Chris gave five of us $50 with instructions:
Give it to someone who needs it;
Don’t take anything back from it;
Give it to someone you don’t know.
From the moment I got that money I began to think about it — a lot. I thought about the $50 as much or more than any money ever.
First I considered some homeless people in DC and some of the folks I know here in the local area. Next I considered the fact my travel was planned to Newton, North Carolina —an area on an entirely different economic scale than Oakton/Vienna. Three of the twelve months of year last year the Newton area lead all counties in the nation in unemployment. (Just let that statement sink in a minute.)
Soup kitchens and small shops struggle to survive as no one has money to spend. People have grown obese due to cheap food and the only thriving industry seems to be the medical profession. In addition the skilled craftsmen are thought of as slow instead of methodical in their work-ethic and the generation gap between young and old seems larger than in most places. So my mind was made up to take the money to that region and do “more good with it there.”
One of my best friends from high school and I still talk regularly. She volunteers at the soup kitchen in Newton. Asking her [to give away the money] would be easy but also kind of cheating as I wanted to figure out the best use of the money myself. So my daughter Hanna, my mother, and I went to meet my friend at the soup kitchen during lunch one day.
We sat down and they fed us. (Imagine my horror as we are being fed and I actually came to help out.) But by doing this we got to learn about some of the people who were there and what had happened to them. The day prior I had told my friend about the money and was hoping to help someone out at the soup kitchen. The best advice I got was when finished eating my lunch at the soup kitchen my friend saw me looking down at the $50 and said “You will feel when the time is right and when to give it away.”
After that comment it was easy to “see” a bit better. I noticed a couple with a newborn baby. You could tell a bit about them from looking even though we had never spoken prior. I got up and helped the servers with the others in the lunch room — a bright and cheery place because the staff has made it that way and people are constantly saying wonderful things and sitting with the customers and smiling. It was easy to like everyone regardless of what had brought us together. I served the couple with the child and asked about the baby and if there were things they wished they could provide for the child. They did not elaborate but said yes and I did not want them to elaborate either but left the money with them on the table as I cleaned up and told them to use it help. (To this day I do not know their names and I don’t need to.)
The next day my friend saw the family again at the soup kitchen. The wife had come back to tell her what they bought with the money. The couple had gone to the thrift store and bought an item for the baby to sit up straight (she was having problems with that) and a high chair type tray.
It also makes me think about how much I think about my bills and my lifestyle and if we have money for a DVD or something nice at the house that we likely have money to help others too. It made me think of the movie Schindler’s List where at the end even after doing so much for so many Mr. Schindler was distraught that he did not save enough money to save more people.