Dear El Bob,
I will admit that in the heat of writing - it is like surfing - once you are on a wave, don't let it go - I was rather foolish in saying, "I've seen it all."
I did not go out to criticise the actual charity work but even Jesus said that we often can't see things because of the plank (mote; beam) in our eyes.
Take Violet's post about medical, social welfare coverage in the USA, etc - we are fortunate that our forefathers had the foresight and fought for and we, my generation, built a welfare state.
I have criss crossed the USA by Greyhound Bus (Just bought along with the USA School Buses by the local "First Bus" company of Aberdeen, Scotland. So I have seen a great deal there too. In fact the cowboys in Fort Worth appeared to know more about Buchan than the Buchaners.
My daughter lived in Dallas (The original is in Scotland) and is now in Tampa and I have heard an awful lot about whining, yellow bellied liberals.
Please remember that all we old poeple here have paid for what we ARE NOT getting NOW.
All of our lives we have had to pay fairly hefty National Insurance Stamps since the day we started work - 14 in my case.
No one need worry about being ill if money is a concern.
However, spectacles and dentistry were taken out of that general term and my glasses cost £136-00 - far more than my weekly pension. Some members of parliament had enough sense of duty to resign over that.
My last dental work cost the same.
Yet we have a dentist in our church who needed help when he arrived a few years ago but is now a millionaire - such are the profits in dentistry. Could he not donate some of his skills freely to the old and needy.
I have not been to a dentist in years because I am afraid of the cost. The last visit was caused by an old filling falling out and the tooth literally splitting down the middle - I had no choice but get myself into debt to get the work done.
I think I made it oviously clear that THERE WERE AMPLE if not generous supplies of clothes, food, etc. coming into that hall in Hong Kong - it was what was happening to them there that upset us.
I once drove to work past a Roman Catholic Church in Hong Kong and the street before it was literally covered with expensive high heeled shoes and the like.
They were flung there by the Chinese refugees because they were so angry at such impractical footware being handed out to them. A friend told me that there had almost been a riot over the distribution.
I cannot take the BIBLE literally or I would be selling my daughter to pay off my debts, and the slaves for food.
"It is better to dwell on the corner of the roof than dwell in a house with a quarrelsome woman."
I have never seen Jesus as being meek and mild since I was in my teens. He was rebel, determined to change the world for the good.
Most of my teens I was running "The Christian Endeavour" ( called Secretary) and our minister gave me access to many of his own books to help me write my "papers" - really, miniature sermons. I was nicknamed "The Professor" by the members.
I not only believed in reading the "BIBLE" but also books about the "BIBLE". As our minister said that not only was it the most published book in the hostory of the world but also it had more books written about it than any other book. He also said that I was wasting my time going to be an engineer but never elaborated. Perhaps he saw things I didn't. But Chalres Coward in Hong Kong wasnted to send me to a Souther Baptist Seminary - I am sure I woul be a lot better off than I am now if I had accepted his offer - but I felt I wasn't led in that direction.
In Hong Kong I knew that the crews on the company's ships were referring to me as "John The Baptist."
I was proud of the title as it, to me, proved that my message was still going out even on a solitary ship - by example, not preaching.
On one ship two other, senior, officers came to me, a junior engineer, and asked me to start a prayer meeting in the ship's hospital and, as I had a piano accordian with me, we also sang hyms from hym books I had bought in a Plymouth Brethern Meeting hall in Singapore. "Bras Besah Road." suddenly jumped into my mind.?????
I do know the economics of sending all that stuff out as lorry loads leave Peterhead every week driven by individuals, not instituions, to Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and thereabouts.
I have had my passport taken from me three times at Lagos Airport because BRITISH companies would never condescend to allowing payments of "DASH" - Bribery. Scandanvians at the airport sympathised with me, a stranger, because their companies gave them the money to pay the "DASH".
Just as British police are accusing BAE of living in the real world and paying a MILLION pounds to the Saudi Ambassador to the USA to get a desperately required contract and keep thousands of British workers in work.
But I think you should reconsider the fact, if one third of your home town people are living in abject poverty, would you ask them to put a minimum of £60 into the collection bag in the church when they may have a weekly pension of fiftyfive pounds.????? OR LESS!
Our Church has!
Many women in Britain are getting state pensions of 15 pence or 18 pence a week because the system tied them to what National Insurance Stamps their husbands had paid during their working lives.
It costs more to process and send the pension than the amount they get?
So, for my part, you can be as doctrinal as you want but it still does not excuse a so-called Christian country to feed others whilst many in their own population live barely above the existence level.
God Bless you all.
We all need it.
reekie
