April 4, 2008
Rod Dreher notes this story from the Dallas Advocate, and Sudan, and the Central Market parking lot.
For Priscilla and Joseph, the necessary money may as well have fallen from the sky.
Most Lost Boys are employed in fairly low-paying jobs due to their lack of education, and Joseph was no different. For more than a year after first moving to Dallas, Joseph was employed as a shopping cart retriever at Central Market, sending money to Priscilla when he could, but far from earning enough to get her and his new daughter, Aguer, to America. Until one day Joseph made a fairly unusual discovery — a shopping bag filled with $3,000, innocently sitting in an abandoned shopping cart.
“Now, this money could’ve changed his whole life,” says [volunteer counselor Anne] Worth, who tells the story with far more enthusiasm than the reserved Joseph and Priscilla. “He could’ve used it to help people in the camps, get his wife and son over, so what does he do? He gives it to his manager.
“The manager is just flabbergasted. He’s like, ‘Are you serious? Joseph, why didn’t you take this?’ And Joseph tells him, and I quote, ‘God is my provision.’ ... Naturally, they give him a job handling the store’s cash.”
Never, never, never give up hope. Patience, perseverance, goodness will not
fall into the void, though we don't get to dictate or manipulate the outcome.
Scarcity or plenty, gratitude or envy and resentment, are an Inside
Job. There's more context; read it all (scroll to page 50, about p. 26 in browser pdf display).
And note that the responsive employer, paying attention, is one of the heroes, too. Everyone has a part to play in miracles.
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Additionally,"poverty is less a matter of having few goods than having lots of problems." Prioritizing. Escaping overwhelm and despair is essential. It is always useful when people are ready to look, within or on the outside, for help on those specific matters. That is, where to start? First steps. Small steps. Starting somewhere, even without certainty.
Update: And with the key note of self-reliance, which is essential to incentive, according to Dr. Helen. Our question -- how to help where help is needed, with encouragement that builds on itself? Probably only on small scale, multiplied by many, as the senior Bush used to say, "points of light."
Now we have a great walkway that goes to the beach and to the canals that came from the partnership of community with government
Posted by: womens supra | January 05, 2012 at 11:17 PM