Matthew 10:8 – Freely you have received, freely give.

Christmas is just around the corner, which means that sometime this weekend you will be standing in the mall trying to decide what your mother-in-law or 22 year-old son might want for Christmas, and you will ask yourself that annual question, “wait, why I am doing this again?”  So, for those who resonate with that question, or who are thinking of ways to do it differently next year, might I offer a few suggestions on how your family might collectively decide to use your money to achieve a nobler purpose than procuring the latest Wii game or a newer flat screen TV?

1) Check out www.donate.worldvision.org and click on the “Gift Catalog.”  There you’ll find a long list of ways you can meet the basic needs of impoverished people around the world.  $75 will buy a goat that would nourish a family in Kenya; $100 would buy a well with a hand pump that would help provide clean water to a village; and for just $25, you can buy two chickens for a family in need.

2) At www.kiva.org, you can help support third-world entrepreneurs through microloans that could finance fledgling construction, food service, photography, or other businesses that can help an individual or family work their way out of poverty. 

3) Go to www.tradeasone.com to buy items from artisans around the world fairly and directly instead of buying everything through your local big box chain stores.  Once again, you help people pull themselves out of poverty without just donating money.

4) Check out www.globalgiving.com and consider giving money to community-based projects that need support.  Invest in education, health care, and other vital services in parts of the world that don’t have the resources we have.

5) Or, visit www.adventconspiracy.org and use the money you would have spent on presents you don’t need to provide fresh water wells through an organization called Living Water (thanks to St. Paul’s Collegiate Church for these suggestions).

Maybe it’s too late to reverse course this year.  But I would encourage you to check out some of these sites, and begin a conversation with your family and friends on how you might reject the consumerism of Christmas and instead make it about freely giving to others in the same way that our Father freely gave His Son to us so many Christmases ago.

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