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Because while I do not know who the enemy is any longer, I do know who my friends are, and that I have not done as well by them as I should. I hope to change that. I hope to do better.

– from Bablyon 5

dance as though no one is watching you
love as though you have never been hurt before
sing as though no one can hear you
live as though heaven is on earth.

-souza

Yesterday a few of us headed down to Reliant Arena to help out with the relief efforts there. We were privilaged to be able to work in the makeshift pharmacy that has been set up, helping people get their perscriptions. I was struck not only by the thousands of evacuees, but also the thousands of volunteers who gave of their time, effort, money, and energy to help. As I sat back, I wondered what stories brought each of them to this place, and what each one of them would tell if they were able to speak.

There are hundreds of thousands of these stories that aren’t covered in the news. People who’ve lost everything. People who’ve dropped their lives to go down and help. People who took off an afternoon because they couldn’t stay at work any longer, and felt like something needed to be done. Big names and people who make a lot of noise get press coverage, but most of these people’s names will never be known.

Some people would have us believe that nobody helps people who don’t look like us or who aren’t in our social status, but in my experience yesterday I found that to be the exception rather than the rule.

There are more sacrifices being made than any of us will ever hear about in the news, whether it be doctors and nurses who fly in from across the country or drug stores that give away millions of dollars of medicine without knowing if they’ll ever get a cent from it, no questions asked.

written by my dear friend jeff keese…

during the course of an average day i spend several hours driving around the lovely metropolis that is bryan-college station. as you can imagine, this leaves much time for reflection, road rage and of course, dial-surfing the radio. usually i have to weather the storm of top-40 hits and country twang-songs (depending on who last drove my vehicle), but lately i have been addicted to a certain radio station from the small town known at houston, texas. the reason for my fascination with this station isn’t that they play the best music (by far) of any radio station on the dial but because they have been doing something simply amazing with their airtime. as most all of you know, the southern states of louisiana and mississippi have been devastated by the recent landfall of hurricane katrina. thousands of people have become refugees literally overnight and many of these refugees have found their way to houston and are being cared for by the american red cross in the astrodome. so this brings me to why this radio station is so wonderfully entertaining:

for the last forty hours (straight) the dj’s from this station’s morning show have been live on the air hosting what they are calling their “hurricane katrina request-athon.” here’s how it works: you call the station, you agree to donate a sum of money to their fund raiser, make a request and they’ll play it for you. (they’ll play anything, by the way…no really, anything. right now i’m listening to zydeco.) sounds simple, right? well, giving is when it comes down to it i suppose. so far, this simple fund raiser has gathered nearly a quarter of a million dollars in less than two days. (all this money goes to the american red cross disaster relief fund.)

i turned over to the local christian radio station hoping to find something similar happening , yet i was disappointed when the only mention of the disaster next door was a blurb in the news report. i was immediately frustrated! why could this rock station with their crude jokes and their songs with the offensive lyrics do so much more than we christians are!?! why were the unbelievers out-doing the believers!?! why do we talk so much about being Christ to those around us but when the time comes to actually be Christ we are left still just talking? why do i, knowing how much i have been given, still hesitate to give when i see a chance? what holds us back?

quick disclaimer: i know this seems entirely unfair to both the christian radio station mentioned and the christian community as a whole. i know that there are millions of christian families and people making sacrifices to help those people hurt in this disaster. i know that my saying that we are doing nothing is grossly inaccurate so let me just say this: i made the comparision earlier between the two radio stations to draw these conclusions: talk is indeed cheap and actions do speak much louder than words could ever do. i as a follower of Christ cannot afford to not serve those in need. if God has a mission and i do not step up then He will find some other way to accomplish His plans.