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.