Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “The Least of These”. I love this lesson! It lifts our eyes from ourselves to look outside of ourselves and actually “see” what’s going-on out “there” in our society and our culture. And if you look, I mean really, really look, it will chill your blood! So many children and youth are being “sacrificed” on the altar of their parent’s so-called “freedom”. Their parent(s) freedom to be or do whatever the parent(s) want or need. And so many parents themselves are lost, too. Searching… and often searching in the wrong places… for meaning and purpose. Our culture has largely cast-off the “anchor” and is adrift on a tumultuous sea of sin and self. What to do? How to help? Here are two real-life stories.
1. I belong to a volunteer community “Prevention Coalition” group established to help stay the tide of human carnage. We are focusing on the following initiatives:
a. Underage drinking:
i. Education campaign “Parents who host, lose the most”.
ii. ID scanners for alcohol “bracelets” to validate proper identification of alcohol purchasers.
iii. Host “TIPS” training for the responsible service, sale, and consumption of alcohol.
b. Binge Drinking:
i. Creation of a “Safe Ride” program to reduce driving while intoxicated.
ii. Promote “TIPS” training.
iii. Community “C.A.R.E.” assessment. A checklist validation performed by discreet individuals at events to validate compliance to liquor licensing requirements.
iv. Standardized drink size cups at events to reduce binge drinking.
c. Tobacco use:
i. Provide tobacco cessation groups.
ii. Support Wyoming Tobacco Hotline.
iii. Provide “Smoke Free” and “E-Cigarette Free” signs to all businesses throughout the community. Meet with County Officials about placing the signs around towns.
iv. Lobby to include E-Cigarette in the city youth tobacco ordinance.
v. “Vaping Prevention” program introduced into schools.
d. Opioid use:
i. Promotion of “Deterra” drug deactivation bags and medication lock bags.
ii. Promotion of Medication Drop boxes at local police departments and “Southwest Counseling”.
e. Suicide Prevention:
i. Mental health training through the community.
ii. Crisis intervention team training.
iii. Gun lock program
iv. Promotion of medication lock bags, Deterra bags, Medication drop boxes.
v. Support “Suicide Bereavement Support Group” sponsored by the SDA church.
vi. Suicide bereavement packets to survivors of suicide loss.
vii. Suicide attempt packets for those who have completed a hospital stay for attempted suicide.
Each initiative may be small… may or may not be overwhelmingly effective. But it is a start.
2. My second story involves two wonderful people who lived for a time in my home state of Maine… Saleem and Grace Farag. Dr. Farag was a world-class CEO for various SDA hospitals throughout the US. He was chosen to be a member of California Governor Ronald Reagan’s ‘Health-care Task Force” when he was CEO of a SDA hospital there. Upon retirement, he became a consultant and advisor for many SDA hospitals around the globe. Upon viewing the appalling devastation of AIDS in Zimbabwe over two decades ago… where a whole generation had died of AIDS and the next generation of children have literally no parents or aunts or uncles left to raise them so they run as orphans in the streets… Saleem turned to Grace and said, “Someone should do something about this!” And so they did. Saleem and Grace started an orphanage in Zimbabwe. They are currently in their eighties and are still the main supporters of this orphanage, living there and providing the essential care. The last I heard, they were housing ~60 children and feeding ~300 more each day.
Saleem and Grace come back to the “States” on occasion to elicit financial support for this endeavor. They both decline any praise. They say that this effort is so small compared to the need. It’s really just a drop in the entire bucket of need. But for each individual child saved by the Farag’s, it’s everything.
Some folks I’ve known have traveled to Zimbabwe to render assistance to the couple. Anyone who has gone there are reluctant to come back. The children there are so needy, need parental care so much, that they latch-on to you as parent figures. In all ways making a high claim on your love. As the Bible says, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few” (Matthew 9:37).
As church members, it is high time we all were highly engaged with our community. As the teacher’s quarterly quotes C.S. Lewis, “Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular”. Our church is to be “light”, often shining from a distance to illuminate the way. But it is also called to be “salt”. “Being salt, however, takes extra commitment because it must mingle with ingredients different from itself in order for its healing properties to have an impact” (Teacher’s quarterly under “Commentary”). Let us all, each church body, critically examine our relationship to our community. We could be failing miserably in our mission, our commission from our Father. To be salt and to love our brothers and sisters everywhere. The “field” is all-around us. Let us do all we can, through God’s grace.
With brotherly Love,
Jim