Why not just help locally?

This is an honest and fair question. Why not help locally? When some of my friends are honest with me, they will say...but there are so many kids in this area that don't have school supplies or coats. There are so many who are struggling to make ends meet. Why send our charitable giving out of the country when our own at home aren't making it?

I guess to start with, I believe that people are God's diversification plan. Kind of like having a financial plan diversified in several investments. Some are long term investments, middle and short term. Risk can vary across the board. Some are better at some strategies than others because of their attention to detail, their patience or knack. I believe in part that this could be true amongst people who help. Our hearts get tugged in many different ways and "helping out" doesn't have to look the same for everyone.

When I consider Ethiopia, as I am sure is the same with other majority world areas, there just isn't anything about their extreme poverty, death rates and their sickness that come close to what we have to overcome in the US. There are somewhere around 5 million orphans in Ethiopia alone. I'm not talking about foster care or state assisted kids. We are talking about kids on the street whose family members have died, kids in big box orphanages and children living in the dump. We aren't talking about kids who don't have school supplies or are living with their Aunt, we are talking about kids who might as well be naked and eat a couple times a week. Children actually starving to death.

We are talking about broken systems where the child just can't ever get ahead.

I have also been asked, but what about Aids? Why don't the people just stop messing around and spreading the disease? I suppose if they would the spreading could stop, but they don't. So are we just going to wait for people to "wise up"? But what about the now and the innocent children that are infected? Some women are raped. Some don't know their spouses are infected. So many are sick because someone else wronged them. Why do we feel the need to pass judgement on why they are sick anyway? Don't you realize their are so many other diseases like Polio and Malaria and leprosy that haven't been eliminated from the society yet either?

How does the cycle stop? By telling them to stop messing around? Even at that, how can we encourage them if we don't engage with them at some level? We just think they know because we know? In the US we have so many diseases that we inflict on ourselves through many vices such as food, drugs, alcohol, too much TV, over working etc. We don't hesitate to cash in on our own health insurance even when we are sick by our own hand. But we say we won't help them because it is their own fault?

The idea that we truly are islands in our economy being successful all by ourselves and others around the world should just buck it up and do the same, is kind of ridiculous. We have so many advantages. Even if you are a "self made wealthy person", you still had some benefits from the outside: parents, or education, roads and infrastructure, cars to buy, supplies available, mentoring at some level, hero's to look up to, people to watch and so much more. What if truly none of that was available? I really don't believe that people are truly "self made". We just take for granted our advantages.

My goal is not to sway you to think the only needy place is in majority world countries. My goal would be for the reader to acknowledge that the need in the majority world is nothing like it is here. There isn't the advantages there that we have here. We take for granted our opportunities, our freedoms and our community or societal help. My desire would be for you to understand how far a little would go somewhere else. Most of all, rather than over analyzing everything, start somewhere and help. If you want to help locally than do! Or, better yet, diversify your investment and do both.

Regardless of where you decide to give, give sacrificially free of judgement and with your whole heart as unto the Lord. Don't hold back.