i dare you

I heard a story about a small church that was having a reunion. A former member who attended the celebration had become a millionaire. When he testified about how God had blessed him over the years, he related an incident from his childhood. He said that when he earned his first dollar as a boy, he decided to keep it for the rest of his life. But then a guest missionary preached about the urgent need on the mission field. He struggled about giving his dollar. "The Lord won, however," the man said. Then, with a sense of pride he added, "I put my treasured dollar in the offering basket. And I am convinced that the reason God has blessed me so much is that when I was a little boy I gave Him everything I possessed." The congregation was awestruck by the testimony—until a little old lady in front piped up, "I dare you to do it again!" from our daily bread feb 3/06.

from bbc news "Before Christmas I asked Zambia's finance minister, Peter Ngandu Magande, who is to blame for the poverty of so many of his countrymen.

He wrote: "Poverty . . . Most times is the perception of other people who decide to give a tag of poverty to another person . . . Only two days ago, someone in Europe defined me as being poor because I receive a monthly salary of $1,400 against his $5,000".

$1400 a month is poor by some standards but $1.00 a day is extreme poverty by anyone's standards and yet most of the world's population live like this daily.

check out bbc news on other countries and learn about poverty. we, one of the wealthiest nations, know nothing about real poverty.

Dominic Nkhata, 29 and his wife Patricia, 27 are a young Zambian couple with a two-year-old daughter. Dominic works as a factory hand while Patricia is a housewife. The couple are also responsible for four orphans, the children of Dominic's deceased sisters. The family live in two rooms in one of Lusaka's poorer neighbourhoods, a shanty town called Garden Compound, about five kilometres outside Lusaka city, and are typical of the millions of Africans who live on less than a dollar a day.

can you imagine trying to feed 7 people on less than $1 a day? oh did i forget to mention that most of their income goes to pay rent. or that they are dying of aids so they will leave 5 young children to care for themselves.

what are you doing to end poverty? are you doing enough? are you doing anything?

or are you buying another new cd, a new set of dishes or towels or decorations to go with the new paint job?

what do you perceive as poverty? your $3,000 a month, $2,000 a month. it's true the more you have the more you will spend. have you ever thought of spending it on someone other than yourself?

do you already sponsor a child somewhere? or two? if you can do one you can do two. if you can do two you can do three.

what would you give to have clean drinking water? food to eat?

can you not find it in your heart to deny yourself one new cd a month or one timmie's or starbucks coffee a day and send it to support a family in africa or india that is literally starving to death.

i dare you.