Count Your Blessings

Count Your Blessings

• If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, and a place to sleep … you are richer than 70 percent of this world.

• If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace … you are among the top 8 percent of the world’s wealthy.

• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness … you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

• If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation … you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

• If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death … you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

• If your parents are still alive and still married … you are very rare.

• If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful … you are blessed because, although the majority CAN, most do not.

Taken from Growing Grateful Kids by Susie Larson, pages 129-130.

I made laminated bookmarks with the above blessings for Mom2Mom this week. Our theme for the month was "Teach Perspective" and we had a marvelous gal from our church (sorry, no photo!) speak on the topic. She was amazing! Through the telling of the story of her son's adoption from Ethiopia, she really opened our eyes to the needs of the world's very poor. The statistics, images and accounts may not be unknown to us, but somehow the telling from someone we know touches us in a more powerful way. Our blessings are, indeed, innumerable!

A few of the things we learned ...

Did you know that Africa's Big 5 used to be game animals, like elephants, lions, tigers, etc? Now the Big 5 Killers are lack of clean water, malnutrition, malaria, childbirth, and infectious diseases/pneumonia.

Water: the average American uses 105 gallons of water/day. That's for eating, drinking, bathing, laundry, watering lawns-both home and public parks, etc. The average African uses 2.6 gallons of water/day. That's equivalent to two toilet flushes/day! That's for eating, drinking, bathing, laundry. Forget yards and parks. It's the women who fetch the water, usually walking 6-7 miles/day, taking up to 4 hours/day. The young girls will begin carrying water containers around age 13. A 5 gallon container, which weighs around 40 pounds will be carried on the head, or frequently strapped to the back. Think about this the next time you let the water run while you brush your teeth! Oh, and that heavy water container on the head/back of a young girl ??? It causes her bones to become very round, not elongated, which causes her to be shorter in height than normal. This bone structure and stature leads to very difficult and long-labored childbirths, during which either or both mother and child do not survive.

$.98 US - that 98 cents will provide clean water for one person for a year!

Here are links to some wonderful organizations who are doing a mighty work serving the poorest of the poor. I challenge you to checkout the websites. Your heart will be moved to action.

Living Water International - http://www.water.cc
World Vision - http://www.worldvision.org
Samaritan's Purse - http://www.samaritanspurse.org