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You know the drill. Your shopping is done for the holidays. You’ve got wrapping well in hand. Your list is nearly crossed off. You’re sitting down for a well-deserved cup of coffee flavored with self-congratulations on your organizational skills.
And then you remember … Uncle Fred.
Five new gifts in the Global Gift Guide were added this year to support projects we saw gain traction during the past year. Continue reading Five new gifts in the Global Gift Guide
When you give a kid living in poverty in a remote village a goat … It can end up changing their entire life.
Right now you’re thinking “Really? Come on. It’s just a goat.”
Yes. It is “just a goat.” But a goat means a lot more to a child in a poor family beyond the end of the road than it does to someone else.
Want to hear more? Continue reading When You Give a Kid a Goat
Thanksgiving is coming. Then Black Friday. Then Cyber Monday. But do you know about GivingTuesday? Continue reading What’s GivingTuesday?
The power of gratitude wowed me when I first met our new neighbor, Della. She was in her 80s when we moved in next door, and she greeted us with a beaming smile and a litany of how happy she was to meet us. In subsequent encounters, which were frequent, she never failed to talk about how grateful she was for her life and how much God had blessed her.
Della radiated joy. And I thought, “That’s the way to live!” Even as dementia took her memory, she continued to do a little dance and recite her gratitude on a daily basis.
Della embodied one of my favorite quotes by 19th Century theologian, Alexander Maclaren.
“Seek to cultivate a buoyant joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life.”
I love the words Maclaren uses—buoyant, joyous, crowded kindnesses. I can’t help but smile thinking about the picture he paints.
So many kindnesses. So much love. A God who crowds us with His kindnesses. A God who tells us to be grateful because He knows it will make us joyful. We can be buoyant—able to stay afloat no matter what—when we are grateful. This is the abundance of life God wants for us!
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (another 19th Century theologian) said “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”
Joy is not something we produce. It’s something we find in the presence of God.
How do we get into God’s presence? We worship Him. We thank Him. (Psalm 100:4)
Being thankful is our way of saying, “You are good, Lord. And what You do is good. What You choose for my life is good. I trust You.”
Expressing gratitude is like planting a seed, and joy is the fruit that grows from it. We plant a seed without seeing its fruit. We just trust that something good will grow from it. It’s an act of faith. And the harvest we reap is joy.
A life filled with thanksgiving is a life that gets better and better. And I’m not talking about faking it, speaking in Christianese, or posing. I’m not saying we should ignore the trials we’re in.
I’m talking about thanking God (along with being honest about how hard it is) in the middle of those trials—if only for the fact that He promises He is with us during them. I’m talking about being on the lookout for things to be grateful for—regardless of what’s not going well on any particular day.
Aside from the fact that we are commanded to be grateful in the Bible (1 Thessalonians 5:18), gratitude is just a healthy practice for life. Even modern-day psychologists report this. In 2007, Robert Emmons began researching gratitude through a psychological lens. He found that expressing gratitude improves mental, physical and relational well-being. Being grateful impacts the overall experience of happiness, and these effects tend to be long-lasting.
Author Ann Voskamp said, “Being joyful isn’t what makes you grateful. Being grateful is what makes you joyful.”
If we want good mental health and a good life, gratitude needs to become a habit.
Westerners who go on short-term mission trips often comment on the joy they see in people they work with. We are astounded that someone who lives in poverty can be joyful. But the same lessons of gratitude that apply to us apply to everyone. A lifestyle of gratitude doesn’t take away problems, it just makes them easier to bear.
William in South Sudan is an example of a grateful person. He was unable to provide enough for his family until he learned to fish. Now he has food for them, and an income.
William said, “I’m really thankful to God because I tried different things until I found this really was the main source of my livelihood. I previously didn’t know how to fish, so I asked people to show me and also learned by observing. Fishing is very beneficial to my family.”
Hla (name changed for protection) is another example of the power of gratitude. She lost everything when her home was burned to the ground and she escaped Myanmar with her family. After walking for nine days to reach Bangladesh they entered a refugee camp. The work she had in Myanmar was not available in the camp, but she was given an opportunity to learn how to sew and she took it.
Hla said, “If I learn this work, I can keep my children safe. I can provide them an education. No one can steal or buy my skills.”
Instead of complaining over her circumstances, Hla expresses gratitude for aid workers. She said, “Without God, how can we live? God has created us and sent us into this world. He is giving us everything and feeding us. He is doing this through His agents.”
Thanksgiving is a great time of year to be reminded of the power of gratitude. We generally make our “I’m grateful for” list sometime around this holiday. And at our house we go around the dinner table and say what we’re thankful for while feasting on turkey and favorite side dishes.
But gratitude isn’t something we take out of the closet for a certain holiday every year. It’s something that should be at our table, and on our lips, all year long. It’s evergreen.
Our neighbor Della lived to be 97, and I never tired of her grateful litany. In fact, I sought it out. Her joy lit up our lives, every single day.
Let us know what you’re grateful for in the comment section below. Share what you do to maintain a grateful heart. We’d like to hear from you and share your thoughts with others.
We’re in the middle of a campaign to provide emergency nutrition right now. $11 buys one month’s worth of Nutripackets for children who are starving to death in parts of Northern Kenya and Somalia.
There isn’t enough food where they live.
I have to pause and remember to breathe when I hear that. Continue reading Emergency Nutrition for only $11?
Emergency nutrition is saving the lives of children who eat only once a day in parts of Northern Kenya.
Their mothers eat even less. They give everything they have to feed their children. Continue reading Emergency Nutrition Saves Children in Northern Kenya
Seven-year-old Shiphon is growing up in Hindu Para, Bangladesh. He lives with his parents and sister. His father is a rickshaw driver, and there is no extra money to pay for Shiphon to have an education in Bangladesh where admission to school is often two months wages.
But, in reality, Shiphon’s family never planned for him to go to school anyway. You see, Shiphon is mute. He’s never talked, and no one is sure if he ever will. And special education in Bangladesh is far away from his community.
When Hindu Para Village began to collaborate with World Concern in our One Village Transformed program, we helped them open a preschool in the village. Soon Shiphon’s sister began to attend.
Shiphon saw his sister learning and making friends, and soon he started following her to school. He sat amongst the students and listened eagerly to the teacher. Soon enough, Shiphon was there every day, ready to work.
“At the beginning, he struggled,” explained Shipon’s teacher. “But now, he has opened up and in some cases is even doing better than the other students.”
Though Shiphon is mute, he manages to write everything down to communicate. He doesn’t speak, but he never fails to express himself.
“Shiphon is the first one to arrive to school,” Shiphon’s teacher shared about him. “I love and admire him because of his dedication to his studies. This determination is his strength, and it overcomes his weakness.”
His determination is also making an impact at home. Shiphon’s mother, Runa, has always dreamed of educating her son, and now it is a reality.
“I would try heart and soul to prepare Shiphon to further his education,” Yeasmin said. “This preschool stands out from other preschools and always supports him.”
For the first time in years, Runa sees a new future for her son.
“I am very grateful to you,” Runa said to World Concern OVT donors. “You value education, and I thank you for supporting Shiphon in his schooling.”
Runa also joined one of the savings groups OVT brought to Hindu Para. She started saving money, and her goal is to send Shiphon and his sister to school as they get older. In short, she’s working toward transforming their futures for good!
Shiphon and his sister are just two of over 200 students enrolled in the OVT preschools in this area of Bangladesh.
And the savings group his mother joined? There are 20 others just like it, with members who are learning, growing, and saving to create new opportunities for themselves and their families.
Written by Heather Nelson.
Heather Nelson is World Concern’s One Village Transformed Communications Coordinator. She visited the Samburu region of Kenya in April, and shares her journey to collect water with a Samburu woman named Lolmodooni.
I walk to get water every day. From the living room to the kitchen. From the bedroom to the refrigerator. From the backyard to the little nook in my garage where I keep a case of water bottles. We all walk to get water.
But we don’t all walk like this.
People in countries where there is drought spend hours walking for a drink of water. Lolmodooni is one of these people.
One morning, she let me come along.
Life was a struggle in Enchoro, the Maasai village where Kampus and his large family live in rural Kenya. Recurring drought made it impossible to earn a living. Livestock died. Crops failed. Kampus’s wife walked long distances in punishing heat to collect water. And his children were chronically sick with water-borne diseases. Continue reading How Clean Water Lifted Kampus and His Family Out of Extreme Poverty
