Image source Image by blickpixel
Hi ladies, This is my response to this week's thought provoking question. What gift would I want to give someone who can't transfer it on to others and why?
December is a month we always give gifts to those who really need them. As a leader of the church youth for years I would organize and buy gifts for the hundreds of people who needed them. I remember a year when we went out at midnight to different parts of the city in two or three crowded cars to seek out the needy and help them.
**Why Midnight? **
The city I live in gets really cold during the winter months. This being a metropolis all kinds of people live here. We have a huge number of homeless people sleeping on the streets. This came as a shocker to those of us who never get out of our homes any later than 10 pm. Perhaps we had not noticed these homeless people before or we assumed that they were poor but they did have homes of some sort. The government has on paper provided homes to most of the city's homeless. It was only when we did the rounds of the city that we realize that a huge number of homeless people slept on the pavements and under flyover built around the city. We realized that there was so much we could do for these people, if not for all, at least for a few in our neighborhood.
What did we learn from our rounds of the city?
During our rounds of the city we noticed that there were thousands of homeless people who slept under the awnings of shops after they were closed or under the flyovers.
These people magically disappeared in the morning when the city woke up.
These people hid from the eyes of the cops at night and found spots that were totally hidden away from open view.
They fed the stray dogs and the dogs acted as their blankets or warmers. These homeless people often curled up with dogs to keep themselves warm. The dogs also guarded them from others who stole even from these people.
What could we do for them?
We could surely not provide them a roof over their heads. However, we could address some of the immediate problems albeit in a small way.
We decided to give them a blanket, a new set of clothes, some items of personal hygiene and some packaged ready to eat food.
How did we deliver these gifts?
We could have easily announced in the church and hundreds of people would have lined up to receive help. However, from our previous experiences we decided that this was the group that was reached by others, we had done so ourselves in the past. Our goal was to reach those who needed our gifts the most.
We decided to go to them a little later than midnight when they were fast asleep.
We covered them with blankets and left their gift boxes near the dogs who we knew would guard their master's gifts. We were at times chased by these dogs but we carried goodies for them as well, sometimes these tricks didn't work with the dogs.
Why these people?
Like I mentioned earlier we wanted to reach those who were ignored by the society.
We did not want their their gratitude or their loyalty.
Our aim was to address some of their needs and nothing beyond that.
We were not there to create followers or loyalists, so we did all this in the cover of the night.
In the past when we gave some families groceries we were told that this being a time of festivities we need to have given them better gifts.
Often times we got ourselves some followers who looked at us with expectant faith to provide for all their needs. We had unknowingly created a dependency relationship. We wanted to avoid these unexpected consequences.
We did not want people whom we helped to feel obliged or grateful to someone. It was our small gift given to them without expectations nor did we worry about whether this gift was utilized properly or not, we did what we could, period. We had found the pure joy of giving.
Looking back
We continued this gift giving until the pandemic stopped all activity.
This thought provoking question brought back all those memories, I wish we'd never stopped doing this gift giving which brought us much joy.
Maybe I will get back to this soon. Maybe I will find like minded individuals who would want to give gifts without any agenda.
Thanks for reading and for your support.