It's that time of year again! No, I mean besides the election. The season for canned food drives and clothes donations. The church I attend is partnered with "Samaritan’s Purse". They distribute shoe boxes which you fill up by running down the aisle of a Dollar store and stuffing it with toys, hygiene items, and things for school.  Drop it off at the church and they send it to a child in one of the countries in Africa they support. Before you drop it off, you scan the barcode so you can track where it ends up. I must say it is more fun than writing a check, which is probably more efficient in terms of getting useful things in someone's hands but lacks the joy of picking a doll off the shelf and thinking of the young person who will receive it and whose life will be touched by it. My wife and I support several children overseas too, through various Christian organizations, allotting a certain amount per month. But the shoebox thing is way more fun.

In my career and travels over the years I have witnessed abject poverty that beggars the imagination. In one country in Africa where I worked, the highway signs need to have holes pre-drilled in them, to stop the villagers from stealing them and bending them into a pot. In another country, I worked in immediately after a civil war, before I left it in a helicopter a man begged with two stumps where his hands had once been, amputated by rebels. That image haunts me to this day.

Those who have never traveled or whose travel had been limited to package tours have no idea of the wealth of our nation, or how much we take the simple fact of the rule of law for granted. I think if more of us visited these countries, we would appreciate our own so much more and not be quick to denigrate it. What is considered "poor" here is wealth beyond the dreams of Croesus in those countries.

So you if have a moment, and a little spare cash, I urge you to take advantage of Samaritan’s Purse, or another like it.  The time and money spent will reward you spiritually when you think of the joy you are sending. And it is alot more fun than writing a check.