Come Along on a Journey to Help Pakistan One Family at a Time

Perhaps a few years ago, many people would not have been able to place Pakistan on a map -- well, those of us who were around when Bangladesh (East Pakistan) ran into trouble in the 1970s might have been able to put two and two together. Pakistan, however, was rarely in the news, at least in the regions where I lived, until right after 9/11 when the US needed help from that country. Now that country needs help from the USA -- and from the rest of the world, from you, from me, from anyone with a heart. Perhaps people gave all they had to Haiti; perhaps Pakistan is too far, too Eastern, too foreign for those of us living in the West. Whatever the reason, assistance from the West, which usually comes through for people in dire need, has not been as forthcoming in this instance, a place and time when help is needed in an overwhelming amount: 16 million Pakistanis are suffering from the devastation caused by the floods. (Help, of course, is needed and welcomed from everywhere and anywhere. Readers of this blog come from 109 different countries, including Pakistan. I hope that among you, there will be people who can help.)

Among the readers of Blest Atheist, the blog that preceded 100th Lamb, was Wajeeha, a young acquaintance of mine from Karachi, Pakistan. She and I mainly communicate via FaceBook. Over time, I have come to feel like she is just another of my children, and I am proud of what she is doing, both in college and in her current plan to help her country. A college student, living in an area unaffected by the flood but nonetheless concerned with the lack of help coming to the families stranded, impoverished, and left starving by the floods, she and her college classmates are taking matters into their hands and trying to help the people of Pakistan one family at a time. I asked her to write a post about her journey, and so I will let her tell it in her own words:

I, Wajeeha Asrar Siddiqui, with some friends and colleagues of mine have started the effort to help those who are affected by flood in Pakistan. We are collecting funds in this regard and have decided to take up the charge of everything under our own control. As prior we had trusted some government official with our money but there is nothing come to name of progress and God knows where the money gone. Now, we have decided to do everything by our own.

We are up for the task of rehabilitation for the people of Besham, Kohistan and connected districts. Our main motto is not to just provide them with food. The main motto is to let those back to their normal lives with all their respect and dignity. We are up to help those people without let them feel inferior to other members of the society.

We have aim to help those with food, water and clothing at first and then with books, raw material and space to practice and sale their handicrafts. People in those regions are masters of handicrafts. As we are already having Ramadan here so, the very first thing that is needed is drinking water and then food.

We would leave from Karachi to Besham and beyond by the end of August 2010. Our first target is to help 2000 families. An average cost of drinking water, food and clothing of a family for a month is around $150 - $200. We still need hands to join in and help us making our targets possible.

As we do not have much time left I request all those you’re seeking to help to send us their donations in cash. As the fact is, transferring of cash would take less time as compare to transferring of good. For all those who are looking forward to help can reach me by email ID: Wajeeha.thewonderful@gmail.com.

You can also reach our representative in Besham, Engr. Said Mehmood (s.mehmood@crspk.org) who is working with Catholic Relief Services to help all those who are affected by flood.

I promised her some help from God's credit card now that it is paid off once again (see God's Crazy Math -- it took only two days for money to appear to pay it off), but that has a credit limit (probably a fortunate thing). Won't you help, too? Even a couple of dollars can make a difference. Given the exchange rate and the cost-of-living difference, a little can go a long way. I will ask Wajeeha to report on her journey periodically when time and electronic resources permit. Let's measure the compassion of the blogosphere with Pakistan as a criterion!

Sabbath Sunday

Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom) has made the suggestion that we "rest" on the Sabbath by taking a break from our normal blogging and sharing an older post of which we are particularly fond. Rest? Gladly! I don't get to do that very often, but now, thanks to Fr. Christian, I get to do it at least once a week -- and it gives me more time to spend with God, which is a wonderful gift.

For this week, I selected a post from my 100th Lamb blog that seemed somewhat appropriate to the H2 Helper theme: Today's Drama.

Have a restful and peaceful Sabbath!

God's Crazy Math

Although most of my bi-weekly salary is already spoken for before it arrives by bills, children’s needs, and routine living expenses, I do make donations to those causes to which I am led. A couple of years ago, I began sending $10/week to one cause only. Tt was all I could afford on my tight budget, or so I thought. Once I began the routine donation, it became possible to double it, then double it again, and again. I am now up to $210/week with that donation. I have also been able to add other donations to which I have been subsequently led: $110/week for donation #2, $20/week for #3, $15/week for #4, $12.50/week for #5, and $7.50 a week for #6. Each started out as a $10 weekly donation, then grew a dollar or two at a time until the older ones became sizable.

No, I did not win any lotteries, and I have no idea where the money comes from. It just comes, and I am certain that as a result, the lower donation amounts will increase in the same ways that the larger ones did. Before anyone thinks that I am simply being humble about my riches, let me confirm that my salary alone would not cover these donations. These are God’s causes, however, and God covers them through many small financial surprises, such as being able to use per diem to provide $1000 for the children of Palomar, Colombia. I save pennies, and God turns them into dollars. I share dollars, and God multiplies them multiple-fold. From out of nowhere come unexpected bonuses, a higher-than-normal (i.e. higher than the cost of living) salary increase, unexpectedly good royalties, and, when gaps appear, a paid consultation that appears without my seeking it through a phone call from someone whom I may or may not know in need of my professional expertise. I empty the coffers. God replenishes them to a fuller level than before.

Similarly, a financial dilemma with the IRS left me $11K in the hole with nary a cent in savings in late 2006. God not only took care of that but gave me more –- enough to pay the tax accountant and donate $400 to a retreat center struggling to rebuild after a fire. I figured that the extra money belonged to God and so found a way to return it to God through the retreat center.

It’s the same way with God’s credit card, about which I have blogged on several occasions. The latest need was $500. Last week, on Saturday, I put $500 on the card for a couple in need, figuring that I could expect $50 in immediate return from others wanting to help out. On Monday, I got $90 in donations from others wanting to help. I turned around on Tuesday and charged $82.50 to the card in order to secure frequent-flyer miles help the sister of a friend and her two children escape from an abusive husband. The friend paid back the $82.50 and added $118 to help pay off God’s credit card balance from the earlier charge. The rest will come. I have learned to trust God’s crazy math.

Sometimes It's Our Own

In the spiritual circles in which I travel, particularly among the Franciscans, there is a pull (and sometimes push) to help those in need among the public: the hungry, the homeless, Just sometimes, though, it is not the stranger who needs our help. It is one of us. This our prayer group found out recently.

Two of our members, I will call them Carl and Renee, recently married, were excited to find out that their application for a home loan was approved. They found a modest home in our community and with great excitement moved in.

That was a month ago. Two weeks later, they stopped coming to our prayer group meetings. I called to find out why because it was unusual for them to miss even one meeting. They explained that they were depressed and trying to come to grips with an overnight change in their financial life. Just a few days after moving into their new home, Renee lost her job. Unfortunately, their ability to pay the mortgage was based in great part on her salary. Then, a few days after that, Carl learned that the overtime that he always got and which he counted on as part of his basic salary, given a very low weekly salary, would no longer be available to him. Instead, his employer was hiring a part-timer for the weekend hours -- it would be cheaper, I guess. They were reeling.

We discussed their situation at our prayer group. We decided to give them a housewarming party at our next prayer group meeting (tomorrow) but decided that we would do it not at the parish but at the home of one of our members who lives very near them. One of our members will be getting a greeting card for us all to sign and a plant to attach it to. In it, we will put a visa card that they can use to get past the next few weeks.

In discussing the amount, it appeared that most of us could only afford $5-$20. We thought we might be able to get a card for $150. Certainly, that would help them some, but we wanted to help more. I offered to use God's credit card. The card would hold at least $500, so I got a visa card for $500. A couple of people in our group were nervous about that since I don't have any way today to pay that off, and all we can raise right now is $150.

"Listen," I told them. "This is God's card. We are God's people, and Carl and Renee need God's help. We are God's hands on this earth, and God's credit card is there to be used. I am confident that between now and when the payment is due, some amount of money from a source we don't expect will show up to pay it off. It always works that way for me with God's credit card, and I trust God to make it happen again."

Either we trust God or we don't. There is no half-way! There is no doveryai no proverya (trust but verify), or trust but take no risks. Trust is risky. That is why it is called trust -- and I don't believe with God that there are any risks to trust!

Rickshaw Wala

Amrita, of Yesu Garden, recently posted the following heartwarming story that is fully in keeping with the H2 Helper challenge. Here is the situation:

During the cold season a rickshaw wala sought shelter in our church porch. He is a street dweller and usually camps beside his rickshaw with his few possessions .His means of livelihood is ferrying passengers and earning a few rupees everyday. He eats at cheap roadside food stalls and uses public places to wash. One night someone stole his clothes and blanket an elderly couple in our neighbourhood had given him...

Read the rest of the story at Yesu Garden: Rickshaw Wala.

Guyanese Village Built by Dog Biscuits

The following story was originally published in Florida Catholic and re-printed on the website, Food for the Poor. The Food for the Poor organization is dedicated to helping the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Joe and Judy Roetheli of Kansas City, Mo., made their fortune with a treat that cleans dogs’ teeth, and now the Catholic couple are using the fruits of their labor to house and feed those in need in far–off lands.

“We’ve been fortunate to have been successful and to have made the kind of money we’ve made,” said Joe Roetheli, 61, a parishioner of Holy Family Catholic Church in Kansas City. “There is only so much that we need and God wants us to do something righteous with our good fortune.”

Last October the Roethelis answered that call from God, partnered with the Florida–based Food for the Poor international nonprofit relief agency, and broke ground on the Lil’ Red Village, a 100–house development in Guyana, the only English–speaking nation in South America.

Their $800,000 contribution allowed Food for the Poor to build enough houses to shelter up to 600 people in the village and provide them with sanitation facilities, a community center, a school, several retail shops, a water tower, electric service and a 5–acre community garden to grow food.

Their path to building a village for the poor in Guyana began with their Catholic faith — and an intervention from two priests, one from Ohio and the other from New York, Joe Roetheli told Catholic News Service. But, their means to be able to give so generously began much earlier, with an idea for a business and staggering achievement.

Roetheli was a federal government employee and his wife was a high school teacher in 1996, the year they invented “Greenies,” a dog treat that cleans the teeth of canines and freshens their breath.
By 2003 they had sold hundreds of millions of the dog treats, allowing them to form the Roetheli Lil’ Red Foundation, a charitable organization to help those in need. “Judy and I have always believed that it is important to give back, whether it is to your local community or to the world as a whole,” Roetheli said.

Their foundation funds a pet visitation program in nursing homes, mostly in rural Missouri; helps finance documentaries and books; and with their involvement in the Guyana project it now has branched into building stable villages for the poor in developing nations.

The Roethelis got the idea of joining forces with a relief organization to build a village when a substitute priest came to their church and discussed the great need in third world nations like Guyana. Shortly afterward, another visiting priest from New York told them about Food for the Poor and the work it was doing to help feed and house those in need in the Caribbean and Latin America.
“I almost see it as divine intervention twice,” Roetheli said. “Both times we heard things that we needed to hear.”

Initially, the couple had decided to develop their village in Jamaica, but after a year of trying unsuccessfully to get through government red tape in order to build, they moved the project to Guyana and broke ground on the Lil’ Red Village in October 2008.

“The Roethelis are amazing people and so generous with their talents, time, energy and money,” said Angel A. Aloma, executive director of Food for the Poor, during an interview with CNS. “They are a great example of altruism. They have taken the rewards of their labor and used it to help those in need.” Last March –– when the project was about 75 percent complete –– the Roethelis made their first trip to Guyana to attend the dedication ceremony of the village they helped build. “We were taken aback at the extreme poverty in that country, and even though the houses we built are not the kind of houses Americans would live in, it’s such an improvement from what they had,” Roetheli said. Though he’d like to build another village soon, he said his foundation will have to recover from the financial hit it took when the stock market nose–dived in late 2008.

“We’ve got to weather the storm financially,” Roetheli said. “We took a monstrous hit. But, we’ll get there. I’m confident of that.”

For more stories of how Food for the Poor has been helping poor people in the southern hemisphere, visit the organization's website by clicking here.

The Ticket

Since I have not found anything of particular interest to readers in the past almost ten days (well, of interest to me -- I am not always certain what is of interest to readers), I thought I might re-post here a blog entry I posted on 100th Lamb a couple of days ago. It has to do with a use (again) of God's credit card and how God seems always to help us when we are in the act of helping others. Here is the story:

On Monday, one of the members in my prayer group told me of someone, a certain Jose, who has been mostly unemployed this year, who needed a plane ticket for Texas (from California) this coming weekend! I have offered my frequent flyers miles from time to time, but this time would be quite a challenge. It is a holiday weekend, and it was a last-minute ticket. I knew I would not have been asked had it not been important, but could the airlines help?

I called the Premier Executive line for United's elite flyers. The agent on the other end was very pleasant. She found one flight only from San Jose and one flight from San Francisco. Then she volunteered that both required the same number of FF miles; however, for those miles the flight from San Jose was first class and left a tad bit later although still very early in the morning and the one from San Francisco was economy and really early. Well, that was a no-brainer, especially since San Jose is the closer airport.

The agent patiently entered all the "gift" information for Jose and sent him a copy of the itinerary. Then she charged me the required $35 for the telephonic, last-minute transaction. I used God's credit card to pay for it.

Later, my friend called and said that Jose had noticed the charge on the itinerary. Should she pay it, she asked, or would he be charged at the airport. Neither, I explained. I had used God's credit card to pay for it, and I was certain that the money would appear before the card payment was due.

Then I settled down to work on bills since it was pay day. As I worked through the budget, I found a $35 bill that I had planned to pay this pay day but for some reason that I had not caught, it was already paid! I think it is fair to count those found dollars as payment for the $35 I owe on God's credit card.

My only comment: well, that did not take long! I think my friend Omar is correct -- God spoils me in not making me wait!

Oh, and one other comment: I love having this credit card; it has given me many opportunities to help people that I could not otherwise have done!