Offering Help, Once and for All

A couple of missionaries went to Sudan with the mission of helping to rebuild a hospital in the suffering country. During their stay, Joy Mueller found out how full of trouble the lives of the Sudanese women were. She came up with the idea of providing a pregnant she-goat for each woman. The she-goat was for the woman to keep as a source of income, but the kid would be given back to Joy. Eventually, the kid would go to another family – and so on. Joy’s idea worked! Many Sudanese women were helped by her effort of helping them financially.

What Joy Mueller did was an instance of “giving people fishing rods instead of fish,” offering a help that will last forever.

Many others stretch out a helping hand to help the poor and needy in every part of the globe, by donating and providing basic needs – such as what is taking place in West Sumatra these days. Food, blankets, clothes and medicines are daily donated and distributed throughout the earthquake-ravaged land. Volunteers and paramedics from Korea, Singapore, Australia, USA and other countries strive to evacuate the victims, search for the yet-living and tend the wounded.

But these efforts do not last forever – though at present these are the help they need. Provisions will run out. Volunteers will return to their countries. What will be left for the Sumatrans, then?

They need the sort of help that will help them rebuild their shattered lives. They need people like Joy Mueller, who would come up with the idea to give them a “wellspring” that will not run out, a “fountain” that they can draw from, anytime they need, for the rest of their lives.

Will the government offer them such help?

Will anyone does?