Saturday 28 February 2009

Greed and Poverty

I have been absolutely disgusted and very pleasantly thrilled this week and though I would like to share my reasons with my reader!
The cause of my disgust is the news of the pension for the guy from RBS of £630,000 per annum. I worked it out that he will be getting over £12,000 per week, as much as many people earn in a year. I believe this is obscene and no one will convince me that any one deserves anything like that sort of money either in salary or as a pension.

The cause of my pleasure is tied to something that has taken off at my home church and further afield into the circuit – let me give you the background. We have a number of Zimbabweans in our congregation and some weeks back we heard from a relative of one of the ladies still living in Zimbabwe about an orphanage where the children had no socks or underwear and that these items were now quite expensive as the Zimbabwean government had devalued their money and a trillion dollars was now worth one.

Essentially an appeal was made at our church and it was mentioned at the circuit meeting and just two weeks ago over 1500 items were sent out to Zimbabwe and the cost of the shipping had been paid from donations that have been made. Work is now ongoing to send the next lot of items and when I called into church this morning I was amazed at the amount of stuff already there towards the next shipment. I think too given that we are in this credit crunch period it is even more amazing that people have been so generous.

We have also heard a report that the action of one fairly small church in Walsall has encouraged the church in Zimbabwe and they are now praying fervently about the situation in Zimbabwe in general. Perhaps we could encourage the man from RBS to buy a few pairs of socks out of the massive wealth he has!!!

2 comments:

David said...

I went to Zimbabwe just a few months after the country gained its independence. Its a fabulous place and there was so much optimism. Let's pray that the good times return and God bless your church for the initiative.

David

Fat Prophet said...

Thanks David, I never fail to be amazed at the generosity of the folk at our church they also support Bulgaria Aid and have done for a number of years and our District Chair's project which is supporting a hospital in Rwanda and an organisation called PHARP.
They also respond to lots of other things and have had a ministry to asylum seekers and refugees for quite a long time.
I do often think we are living out our faith in a very positive way.