Anyone remember the real song?

Anyway…..Kate is hosting a Group Writing Project at Babylune. In an effort to bring some stories of joy back to the forefront, Kate is asking readers, bloggers and friends to promote their favorite charities and to share why they are so important to them.

Excellent! It gives me an opportunity to share one of our favorite holiday traditions!

For years, we’ve been sponsoring children through World Vision. World Vision has a great reputation for keeping their overhead low and for putting the money where it is most valuable, into the lives of the people who so desperately need their help.

Anyway, a few years back Bald Man and I decided to honor our sponsored kids at Christmastime by buying something from World Vision’s Gift Catalog. Usually, we buy a goat. I love the catalog because it provides so many different gifts from which to choose. If you have a passion for providing for babies, there’s something for you. Love fishing? Want to honor some fishing buddies while helping others? You can buy a fishing kit that will help provide food for a family. Can’t leave your home, or head to the gym, without a bottle of water? You can be a part of providing clean, healthy water to a school or neighborhood.

Can I be honest? It’s not always easy to give. Not because it doesn’t feel good (it does). Not because it isn’t necessary (it is). But because there are so many needs and wants in my own home. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that anyone in my house is starving (certainly not me!). It’s just that, caught up in my own days and lifestyle, there are so many things that seem like “needs” that we can easily justify purchasing. “Needs” that make it really tempting to keep more of “our” money to ourselves. But honestly? In light of the actual needs of men, women and children whose lives are on the line every day? Compared to the fact that many mothers, who love their children just as I love my own, will have to watch their own babies starve to death? I have no needs, and all to give.

Besides, how many times in your life will you be able to say you bought a camel?

photos from World Vision

Post from: Blisstree

All I want for Christmas is a goat that nays….