Very funny.
Have you ever been in the doghouse?
I’m torn.
Most of us love receiving gifts and now that we’re into the Christmas season our thoughts go to giving and receiving. I’ve got to be honest and say that I’d love to get lots of exciting gifts this Christmas but while I’m being honest I also have to admit that there’s not really much that I need.
On the other hand there are millions of people around the world who, through no fault of their own, don’t even have enough to feed themselves or their families.
The Global Food Crisis continues to claim lives and the crisis is only deepening.
Compassion Australia has now released their Global Food Crisis Appeal Gift Catalogue. It’s full of a gift ideas that will save lives. Did you realise that just $14 can help feed a child for a month? How can we indulge ourselves with stuff we don’t need when such a small gift can give life? How thankful would we be if it was our child being saved with that gift?
Compassion Australia’s CEO, Paul O’Rourke explains the need for the catalogue.
Every night over 300 million children go to bed hungry. An emerging global food crisis threatens to widen this tragedy by forcing an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty.
Knowing that children are going without food for one day is bad enough, but knowing that, because of the global food crisis, children are going without food for days on end is simply too hard to stomach.
Here in Australia we may be feeling the pinch of having to pay a few cents more for petrol and food, but it is those who already struggle to live on less than a dollar a day that are paying the worst price of all – the inability to feed their children.
Here at Compassion we have committed to raise $2 million dollars by 30 June 2009. We are constantly asked if we have a gift catalogue, so we have combined the need to raise money for this urgent cause with people’s desire to buy gifts for friends, colleagues and family. We hope that as you eat dinner each evening you will pray for those who don’t have what you have, and when you need to buy a gift, as we all do, consider buying a gift that has more meaning than most.
Thank you for your support.
Blessings
Paul O’Rourke
Chief Executive Officer
I hope you’ll have a wonderful Christmas and that you enjoy the giving and receiving of gifts, but I also hope that you’ll carefully consider helping those in desperate need by choosing something from the Compassion catalogue.
I don’t want my selfishness to contribute to the problem so I’m hoping that when people consider what gifts to give me this year they’ll choose them from a catalogue like this one.
I’ve seen him plenty of times before.
He’s usually there when I’m having coffee with my cycling mates on Saturday mornings. I’ve seen him as I’ve hurriedly walked past cafés on my way somewhere else. He’s been there when I’ve been enjoying a quiet cuppa with Pauline. He’s there in shopping centres, airports and cafés everywhere.
Sometimes he’s tall and middle aged. Other times he’s a little shorter and fairly young. He’s bald or with a full head of hair. He’s dozens of different people but I always want to be him.
Yesterday I was that guy.
I was the guy sitting on my own in the café, sipping a long black while reading a good book. There’s something very therapeutic about sitting in a busy café, letting the world buzz around nearby as you bury yourself in the pages.
I had to be at Mia Café in Inglewood yesterday for a Christmas afternoon tea. The rest of the family had to be across the other side of town so Pauline dropped me off an hour and a half early. That gave me the opportunity to partake in the magnificent pastime that I see so often yet so rarely enjoy.
Maybe I need to make that one of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2009. “Spend more time alone in cafés.” In 2009 I intend to be that guy a lot more often.