Where to help?

The needs here are overwhelming.  Sometimes it is too much and I just cry and cry when I think of all of these precious people and what they lack.  I understand that the most important thing is that they know Jesus.  But there is a part of me that hurts because they live in conditions that I consider unfit.  I also understand that a lot of my views on living conditions were formed because I grew up in the USA.  Not to say that there aren't poor people in America, because there are, but there are poor-extremely poor-people everywhere you turn here. 

I love to go on home visits to meet the children and their families but sometimes it is too difficult because I can't imagine living in such homes.  I have a lot of guilt about my advantages in life.  While I wasn't born in America, I was born to American citizens.  Why was I and not some of these children here?  I don't know why I was afforded certain opportunities and others are not.  I obviously enjoy the advantages that being an American affords me, but on the other hand it annoys me that not everyone is afforded the same advantages.  I am the same as anyone else. . .except for my birth certificate that says I am an American.

"Because I have been given much, I too must give".  That is the place I am in right now.  I have been given so much and I have greedily taken so much during my life that now is the chance for me to give back.  The only hard part is deciding where and who to give to.  The needs are so great and I am not Bono (does anyone else think it's sad that the greatest philanthropists of our time are not Christians?) but I have been given much. 

Thank you to everyone that is allowing me to be here by supporting me.  So far your money has been able to provide a month's worth of food for five separate families, new clothes for a little boy, and rent for a single mom with two children that was facing eviction.  Also, your money will soon be providing a woman that is supporting 6 children (not all are hers) by making injera and selling it, with a new electric oven and the electricity to make the oven work!!  She will be able to make the injera much faster and the electric oven will be healthier for her.  Right now she is chopping firewood and when she sits in front of the fire all day she breathes in all that smoke (she is now having lung problems) and the fire burns her knees. 

These may sound like small things but they are huge to the people that receive them.  Thank you so much for your faithful support.  I can't tell you enough how much it not only means to the families that are blessed by it here, but to me as well.