I appealed to my family a few weeks ago to help two families in Gaza. I’ve edited what I sent them to remove personal information. Try asking your relatives. If they don’t help, try something else.
Hello Everyone,
Thank you for thinking of our family and sending us $50 for some extra things for the girls. I’ve decided that instead of spending that $50 on ourselves, we should give it to families in Gaza who need the money far more than we do. For the past months, I’ve spent all my extra time promoting lifeline4gaza.com, which is a website that gathers verified fundraising campaigns from Gaza and prioritizes them on the site with the most urgent campaigns at the top. I simply selected the first two campaigns that accepted US Dollars and donated $25 to each of them. Neither of these campaigns had received a donation since October 20, and neither of them have received any donations since I gave to them yesterday.
Here are the links to them:
These two families in Gaza need far more than I can give them, but your help could make a real difference in their lives. I’ve also attached fliers I’ve made for their campaigns that you can print out and share.
I always used to wonder how the Holocaust happened. Now I know. It happens because ordinary people commit small acts of genocide every day. When they see a lifeline, they cut it, because they don’t see the people on the other end as human. They tear down the fliers I put up appealing to help families in Gaza, but they leave up the flier for a lost cat or a community picnic. Many of our neighbors see a Palestinian life as less valuable than the life of a pet. I encourage you to try it with your own neighbors. Put up one of the attached fliers next to the first “lost dog” flier you see, and see how long it lasts, see which of your neighbors tears it down, and ask them why they’re doing it.
A few bits of scripture have been on my mind lately. I’ve thought of the parable of the sower:
Behold, the sower went out to sow; as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. And when the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much.
That parable was always explained to us in Sunday School as a metaphor for the Gospel, but it speaks to so much more. Farmers don’t really plant seeds in the way the parable describes, but any of us trying to do something that matters can take this to heart. We have to keep doing everything we can to spread the seeds of change. Most of them will not take root, but some will. I’ve also thought of the parable of Judgement:
But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.
Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.” Then the righteous will answer Him, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?” And the King will answer and say to them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.”
Then He will also say to those on His left, “Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.” Then they themselves also will answer, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?” Then He will answer them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.” These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
How do people go to church every sunday and listen to this, and then turn their backs on the very people they have genocided? It is our own government that has perpetrated this genocide against the people of Gaza. If this is a democracy, then it is we who are the perpetrators. Do most Christians actually believe any of those red-lettered passages in their scriptures? How could they have fought the Crusades if they did? How could the churches in Nazi Germany have stood by as the Holocaust happened? How can mainstream American Evangelical churches continue to support Israel today? I don’t need to believe in a God that will reward the righteous and punish the wicked to know that we will all have to live with what whatever we did right now for the rest of our lives, and that our children and descendants will also have to live with whatever actions or inaction we take right now. The judgement is very real, whatever one may believe.
The current ceasefire in Gaza has provided people there a little relief, but only a fraction of the promised aid is getting in, and Israel continues to violate it daily. If we do not have the power to stop our own government from perpetrating this genocide, we can at least do everything we can to directly support a few of the suvivors.
Finally, one more bit of scripture has been on my mind:
Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a person’s enemies will be the members of his household.
This past two years has brought out everyone’s true colors. For two years, the most outrageous atrocities have been live-streamed to us. I always used to wonder about that passage. Now it makes more sense to me. What do people do when it matters? Do they choose not to listen? Do they choose not to see? Do they choose to do something? How much can you do? What do you do about the people you know who refuse to do anything, or who even defend and perpetrate evil?
I know it’s difficult to know what to believe, to know whom to trust. If you feel overwhelmed, if you don’t know where to turn for reliable information, I would recommend following Electronic Intifada (electronicintifada.net), watching their weekly livestream on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@TheElectronicIntifada). I appeal to you again to stay informed, and to do whatever you can to help real people in gaza. Lifeline4gaza.com is a reliable website promoted by people I have listened to for news for years. If a campaign is on there, it’s been verified. Please encourage everyone you know to give to campaigns there, especially during the holidays when people are thinking of giving and considering what they’re thankful for. I also encourage you to give everything you can. My family could have really used that $50 for all kinds of things. For us, giving $50 to something is extremely difficult. It was $50 we weren’t expecting, which made it easier, but If we can give, I know others can give more, that others can help those particular campaigns and make more of a difference than the $25 we gave each of them. I tell you this only because I hope it will encourage you to give something as well, to make more of a difference with what you have than I can.