Holiday Christmas Giving 2017

Christmases Past       

As it was late November, the sun had already gone down and it was pretty cold, but I went outside to get the mail in my stocking feet, because I didn’t want to put shoes on. I grabbed the couple of bills, advertisements, and a magazine from the white mailbox and slammed the door shut. Running back inside, I handed the mail to my mom and kept the catalog for myself to look at. When I opened the catalog, there weren’t toys or dolls, as I was hoping, instead there were pictures of chickens, ducks, cows, and smiling children. At first, I though that if we paid the seemingly little amount of money (I thought cows were a lot more expensive than 50 dollars), we would get the things in the catalog. I told my mom I thought we should get some chickens, because I didn’t think there would be enough room for a cow, and we didn’t like to eat duck eggs. After my mom understood what I was saying, she chuckled and said that the chickens weren’t for us they were for people who didn’t have chickens and could use them to make a living.

           

World Vision

That’s my first memory of an organization called World Vision*. We got their Christmas catalogs every year and sometimes we would donate to them, other times, we would participate in something called Operation Christmas Child. (I’ll explain more later.) In their catalogs, and on their website, they have everything from school supplies, to farm animals, to live saving medicines, and many more. In between the first time I ever heard of world vision and now, a family in our neighbor hood donated a cow using world vision in our family’s name. That’s one of my favorite features of the charity. When I took violin lessons, my mom and I often struggled with what to get my teacher, because my mom knew, as she was once a teacher, that students often get teachers the same things: candles and mugs. If students feel the need to give me presents, of course they don’t have to, then I would love it if they used something like world vision to donate in my name. It’s a really nice idea, and that way the students know they are getting me something I would really enjoy and no just another mug. Sometime people use ‘give a donation in someone’s name’ as a joke, because it’s for things that the person is against. However, everyone can probably get behind giving water, medicine, and other similar gifts to those in need.

The Role of Giving in My Life

Because of verses like Deuteronomy 26:12-15 as well as others**, I believe it is my responsibility to tithe 10% of my income before taxes. So people do it differently. Some give more, some less, but that’s where I am at the moment. To be honest, sometimes I don’t want to give the money away. I think that I don’t have that much and I could use it to pay of my loans faster or something like that. But I’ve never regretted donating. I used to use an automatic donation system, but as I work part time my income can change from month to month and a set recurring donation doesn’t work as well for me. So this year, I’ve done a lot more donations through World vision, because I get to go ‘shopping’ for what I want to give each paycheck. It adds an element of fun to the giving process. Plus, when hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit, I could just use the ‘give where most needed button’ and feel like I had helped in at least a small way.

But with the holidays, and specifically Christmas, giving goes to another level. Every year the church I go to when I’m living with my parents does a special Christmas Eve offering, where they give it all away to both global and local organizations that help communities. For many years the church has partnered with ministries in Ethiopia, including those that build wells for clean water. Another part of the offering is going towards an Iraq Women’s Refuge, a Jordan based ministry that helps refugees, and medical supplies for people living with HIV and AIDS. As Hurricane Maria’s effects were devastating to Puerto Rica, part of the global offering is to Water’s Refuge International to help with providing clean water to Puerto Rico. Some of the local ministries include Servants Home Helps, which partners with churches to conduct home repairs that people can’t afford and/or can’t do themselves. The church is also helping with the other devastating hurricane that made headlines, Hurricane Harvey, through funding relief work in Texas.

Christmases Present

I’ve been fortunate enough to grow up with this being the norm. Christmas giving not just being between family, but also to the rest of the world. Hence this post. I want to share some of my favorite charities that I like to give to and maybe encourage other people to start or continue giving as part of the Holidays. Operation Christmas Child is a lot of fun, especially when you are younger or have younger kids. You fill a shoebox sized container, an actual shoebox or a plastic bin or something similar, with items from the list on their website, like soap, gloves, hats, and other things. Unfortunately, I didn’t post this in time for national collection week, but it’s still possible to donate a shoebox. A lot of organizations, churches, clubs, etc. take part in Operation Christmas Child, but it’s also possible to do it individually, or with a group of friends.

Kiva.org

The next is one that the Vlogbrothers youtube channel*** introduced me to a little over a year ago. While watching one of their old videos, I heard them mention Kiva.org. Kiva connects people in less fortunate areas and circumstances who need low-interest loans. I saw a post online where someone said that if they became rich, they would just fund people’s ideas and dreams. Well this is one way to do that. The loans have a very high payback rate, but even then I like to just lend it out again as soon as it’s deposited into my account. You can help farmers, people starting or expanding their businesses, or people trying to enrich their communities. A fun feature they have is that you can see what country the people you’ve given loans to are from. Eventually, I want to have given out a loan to someone from all of the 77 countries.

Wycliffe   

Finally, although there are a lot more awesome charities out there, I also really love a ministry called Wycliffe bible translators. Now this isn’t for everyone, as I don’t think non-Christians have as much of an interest in whether the bible is translated into other languages. However, as I love languages, I find this a really cool ministry. They’ve been around for years and years. They go into communities where often the area doesn’t even have a way to write down their language and working together with the locals and native speakers develop a writing system for the language. Then, again working with the native speakers, work to translate the bible into the newly able to be written down language. While most people can’t go to a foreign country and help with on the ground missionary work, this is one way to be involved from afar.

Wrap it up        

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Christmas isn’t quite the same as when I was younger, but getting gifts for my siblings, parents, and giving to those in need brings a good bit of the fun back into it. I know it sounds weird, cheesy and all that, but and I don’t want to pressure anyone, but if you want to you can give it a try. It’s fun to know that you were able to make a difference to at least someone. (Wrap it up get it? Yeah it’s cheesy)

Notes:

*I’m just going to put one big disclaimer out. No one asked me or is paying me to do any of this, nor do any of these organizations know I’m writing this article. So that’s that.

**For anyone curious those others include: Gen 14:20, Lev 27:30-32, Prov 3:9-10, Mark 12: 41-44, and even more, but those are the main ones.   

***I’m not sure what video. If someone knows which video, leave it in the comments and I’ll update the post to include a link to it.

Image Credit: “Donations”by Andrea DG