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| Not able to attend the Relief Sale this year? Make your generous donation here. (click on the "Sharing Our Surplus Campaign button) (Daily News-Record photo 9/22/17) |
While we were all shocked by the terrible effects of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, they represent only a fraction of the ongoing suffering experienced by millions in northern Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.
More than 60 million people worldwide have been displaced and 2.5 million are refugees following a decade of famines, floods and wars that threaten the lives and future of whole generations. At least 15 wars have erupted or reignited in just the past five years, forcing millions to flee for their lives.
The refugees affected include not only the elderly, children and the disabled, but resourceful professionals and entrepreneurs rendered homeless by events beyond their control. And the average stay in today’s ‘temporary’ refugee tents or other makeshift dwellings is an appalling ten years.
David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, writes, “I believe the biggest question in the 21st century concerns our duty to strangers. The world is more connected than ever before, yet the great danger is we’re consumed by our divisions — and there’s no better test of that than how we treat refugees.” (4/26/17 Washington Post)
One of the local efforts at raising funds to help this cause is the annual Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale to be held this year at the Rockingham Fairgrounds September 29-30. Last year nearly a third of a million dollars was raised for Mennonite Central Committee’s efforts to help relieve worldwide suffering.
This year a special S.O.S (Sharing Our Surplus) campaign by the Relief Sale Board solicits generous cash, check and credit card contributions in addition to funds raised by the auction and from food and other sales (giving can also be done online at http://vareliefsale.com/donate). This is being offered in light of the fact that only around 10% of the estimated 10,000 people who attend the event each year actually take part in the auction itself.
When MCC was founded in 1920 in response to suffering caused by famine and war in the Ukraine, over $1.2 million was raised over a three year period. In today’s dollars that would be some $16.7 million, a significant accomplishment.
In the spirit of Jubilee, our giving today should likewise be over and above our regular charitable contributions, without resulting in decreased giving elsewhere. This should mean our willingly becoming poorer for others’ sake, rather than assuming the right to accumulate ever more personal wealth each year regardless of world need.
Some modest “sacrifices” on our part could include:
• Giving a tithe (or more) of whatever is in our savings accounts
• Matching what we spend annually eating out
• Keeping an aging vehicle an additional year, etc.
In response to a first century famine in far off Judea, the apostle Paul, in his second letter to believers at Corinth, wrote: "Right now you have plenty and can help them; then at some other time they can share with you when you need it.”
Which is exactly what Jesus and the Biblical prophets would urge us all to do.
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