Letter to the Congregation from Outreach Leader/Pastor

Dear Church Family:

What would you do if your neighbor’s home was completely destroyed? What if your neighbor became seriously ill and needed your help just to take care of life’s basic needs? You’d probably be right there, helping out in any way you could — giving your time, your energy and your money.

But what if the same things happened to someone across town? Or in the next state? Or in another country? Many of us have been wonderfully generous as we’ve responded to the crying needs splashed on our television sets after the tsunami in Asia, the earthquake in Pakistan/Kashmir, and the hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. We’ve added our contributions to the money that has flowed from the hearts and pocketbooks of people around the world.

Yet systemic “disasters” occur every day in the lives of millions of other people — extreme poverty and chronic hunger, terminally unclean water and nonexistent sanitation, terrorizing war and devastating loss. We see the images from time to time, and our hearts go out to those people. But that’s different, right? After all, we can’t be there for everyone.

Jesus might not agree. When a young lawyer queries Jesus about the command to ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ he asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds with a story. He tells the young lawyer about a stranger who helped a man who had been robbed and beaten and left for dead — a stranger who freely gave his time, his energy and his financial resources to help another human being whom he didn’t know and might never see again. Jesus tells us that we are all neighbors and need to respond to each other’s needs.

Since 1946, the Week of Compassion offering has provided an opportunity for each of us to become participants in humanitarian work that expresses God’s love to our neighbors far and wide — not just to victims of the major disasters that saturate the media, but to victims of the disasters that repeat themselves each and every day.

Gifts to Week of Compassion support programs that help our neighbors around the world build lives and communities that are healthy, safe and sustainable, making a huge difference in the lives of millions of families —
• creating sustainable sources of food for rural villages
• providing women micro-credit to start poverty-escaping businesses
• teaching trades and job skills to people maimed by landmines
• offering children a chance to survive past the age of five and go to school
• helping rebuild communities ravaged by natural disasters
• and so much more.

In the coming weeks, our congregation will participate in the Week of Compassion special offering. We’ll offer activities to help us better understand the problems facing our neighbors in other countries, and we’ll present an opportunity for you to make a gift that reflects your desire to show the kindness, compassion and mercy to which Jesus calls us. The Week of Compassion Giving Calendar (found online at www.weekofcompassion.org) will give you and your household a simple way to make small, daily contributions that also connect you to the challenges facing the world’s people.

When Jesus responded to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” he set a standard that wasn’t easy to meet. But, by participating in Week of Compassion, we can experience the joy of showing and sharing God’s love — offering a hand to that stranger in need and making a difference in the lives of our neighbors around the world. And in so doing, we are changed.

Sincerely,

Pastor/Offering Leader