It should be a feel good story. It is about an organization called World Changers, a Southern Baptist organization based in Georgia that sends young people, age 11 through college around the world to help people in need fix up there homes.
The group plans to send about 23,000 students to approximately 90 cities and towns this year.
From the organization's web site:
World Changers is sponsored by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. World Changers began with a focus on involving senior high youth in hands-on missions. Since its beginning in 1990, World Changers has been committed to offering first-rate mission experiences. World Changers has expanded every year and now offers a variety of projects for students.
When World Changers began in 1990 the goal was to change the way we approach mission education, to get students out of the classroom and into a hands-on missions experience. The focus was to change the life of the participant by giving them an opportunity to change someone else's world. That focus is still true today. Even though World Changers has become a strategic plan to eliminate sub-standard housing for many communities and is housed in Volunteer Mobilization at the North American Mission Board, the focus is still changing the world of the participant by giving them a hands-on missions experience. DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD? Just bring your students to a National World Changers Project and watch it happen. Who knows? Maybe your life will be changed as well.
Participants work in crews of 10-15 members to help needy residents through:
roofing
painting
repairing porches
siding
sheetrocking
and much more!
All crews work under the supervision of a local crew chief that is skilled in construction. Then everyone comes together in the evening for a time of inspiring worship.
Based on the quotes in the APP article, it seems that the program is fulfilling its mission. The young people on the mission are experiencing the joy of making a difference in others' lives, as well as learning new skills and building empowering relationships. For those who are getting their homes rehabbed, they are experiencing a gift from God. "God bless 'em. . . . Something like this ain't never happened to us," the APP article quotes one recipient of the program's generosity.
What bothers me about this is the fact that program sent the young people--320 of them for 35 projects-- here--to Monmouth County--twice. Not Newark or Camden. Not New Orleans or Appalachia or the South Bronx, but to Monmouth County New Jersey. Maybe they are going to those other places too, I don't know, suspect they are. But here?! Why? Why is there a need here?
What does that say about us? We should be on the giving side of such a project, not on the receiving side. What is happening here?
I have many conflicted thoughts and emotions about this. I'll probably make it my summer project for the blog, like racism was last year. No answers, theories or attribution tonight, just raising the questions and inviting you into the conversation.
Have at it in the comments.
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6 comments:
It's the property taxes ! people can't afford to fix up minor or major repairs .Just last week I read that a man fell off a roof trying to fix it he was 76!...people are desparate .when propery taxes consume 30 to 40 % of your income ,it makes one feel like he's living in a third world country ...so why not monmouth co ?
Where in Monmouth? Could be Asbury Park or Neptune which have a need for some rehabilitation. Possibly they go where there is some connnection to the Church?
Look, Habibtat for Humanity has a Western Monmouth Store in Freehold. They have built homes in Freehold Boro and they will build a home in Millstone for a veteran. So the need exists in Monmouth. (Could the problem be that Newark and Camden probably get so much State and Federal aid they do not welcome such small projects?)
I'm all for Habitat and World Changers, any volunteers who want to help truly needy people live better, etc.. what's bothering me is the mortgages that went, (under Barney Frank's great plan for "equal housing opportunity,")to folks who could not sustain them, thereby helping to create the bank failures we now get to bailout,and then, it's programs,the programs!.. now, we pay for other people's down payments, other people's utility bills, other people's repairs through CDBG, it goes on and on, from our taxes- of course nobody has anything left to maintain their OWN places!!.. it's simply gotten to critical mass for the few left working and paying, working and paying!!..this is NOT what the Constitution and Declaration intended, and we, the exhausted and broke taxpayers, need to do something to stop this madness,pretty soon!..we're headed for 60% of our income going to levels of government, folks: is that what you want?. hand your check to Obama, then THAT phony gets to decide what YOU get back?? it's way past time to tell the grubbing politicians: we're done with this system, STOP!..
Art,
I had a very similar thought when looking at that article yesterday morning.
I do not doubt that there are people in Monmouth County who have fallen on hard times. But, I expect people in poorer areas must be worse off than people here.
As a teen, I was involved with groups that did similar projects, but we went to Asbury or Camden when we did projects in the state.
Perhaps if people in Monmouth are hard up, they should be seeking help locally and let these good groups go help people who have no other chance.
Good to hear from you Alyssa.
I've participated for over six years in an annual week-long program in northwestern Monmouth County that helps the local elderly, physically disabled, and poor with small projects like painting, yard work, etc. Believe me when I tell you that driving around town gives you absolutely no indication of the unmet needs in your community. There are elderly widows and victims of MS who are hunkered down in those nice houses you see in your community. They are getting Meals on Wheels and social services nurses are dropping in regularly. Not to be mean, but I assume you aren't out there helping or you'd be more aware. Don't wish the helpers away. That's a careless prayer, sir.
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