Friday, April 27, 2007

A moment of wrestling


While I was gone last week, Janelle repainted our kitchen walls and cupboards. It's looking nice, but we've run into a little trouble with the hinges and handles to the doors and drawers...

so, this afternoon I find myself standing in front of hundreds of handles and knobs at Mennards. It was my second stop at this spot... I had checked the choices and then went to Lowe's and Home Depot to compare prices.

I think about the fact that I'm about to spend around $70 (which is fairly inexpensive) for the hinges and handles for my kitchen.

Then I think about the fact that 10 days ago Jason and I were standing in a house just across the border in Riberas, Mexico. The entire house was not much bigger than my kitchen. It was one of 60,000 just like it in that area. Most houses would have 6-10 people living in it. The average weekly income per house???

You guessed it... $70.

Even crazier, $70 a week is pretty good in comparison with much of the world.

I posted these stats last Christmas, but I throw them up again to consider...
  • 20% of the world live on one dollar a day.
  • Another 20% live on two dollars a day.
  • 20% live on $70 a day.
  • The other 40% are somewhere in between.
  • The combined income of the 447 wealthiest people in the world is more than the combined income of 50% of the world's population (3.25 billion).
  • Americans (5% of the world) consume 50% of the worlds resources.
Stats from Dr. David Livermore's book Serving with Eyes Wide Open... a great read for anyone going on a short term missions trip.


I don't know what exactly to do with these thoughts, but I'm wrestling.

I've got to keep wrestling.

I think we all need to.

But at some point wrestling has to turn into action...

1 comment:

Scott said...

Great post. If I gave you $500. and asked you to get the best value for your money to further the kingdom, how would you spend it?
You could give it to the needy.
You could buy tracts and hand them out.
You could throw a youth party.

I don't know what I would do...yet, But I'm thinking about it.