Are You Neglecting The Poor Among You?

Tweet

In my country, South Africa, poverty is evident when you see conditions under which many people are living. Jobs are hard to come by in these tough economic times and many people who had work have been laid off due to downsizing and cutting back on expenditure. The government has been talking about creating new jobs and eradicating poverty for years but still the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. The trouble is that eradicating poverty will not happen if there is so much corruption. The point I'm getting to is that it’s not the government that will suddenly make poverty disappear, it will be up to each one of us as individuals or groups of citizens to do our part however big or small in helping the poor. The other day we went to our nearest city, Port Elizabeth, to do our monthly shopping and afterwards we were seated in our car at KFC having an ice cream. My wife looked across at the road intersection and pointed to two figures sitting in the rain next to the traffic light. “Please go and give those poor people something!” she said. When I looked I saw that it was a man and his dog. He had dressed his dog in an old raincoat and it looked just like a person! I ran over and gave him some money and asked him if I could take his picture with his dog. We usually keep a stock of tinned fish or something in our car so when we come to town there is always someone to feed. We learnt this when on a church outreach to Ethiopia and saw the terrible poverty in Addis Ababa. We were told to ignore the beggars but we bought breads and fruit and gave to beggars in the streets. I heard that in some countries it is illegal to feed the poor, why I don’t know. Jesus said that the poor will always be with us and that we are not to neglect them. What are you doing about the poor in your country? (The copying of my posts & images is forbidden!)