A really awesome mission has been initiated called Buckets of Hope. This undertaking has been presented by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) for the sake of relief in Haiti. I heard about this from the youth pastor of my church, and it is something I plan to help out with. What we are doing is making up a five gallon bucket filled with specific food items and paying for the shipping of it to Haiti. To get involved is not hard at all; anyone can make up a bucket. However, if you want to take the easy route just send in cash, and someone will make up the bucket for you. If this tickles your fancy, just go to the NAMB website to download a pdf format of the instruction, and watch this instructional video. Also, you can check out news footage on youtube.
I think this is a pretty cool way to actively get involved with disaster relief in Haiti. The food items that will be sent are sufficient for an entire family for a whole week. That in itself is awesome, to be able to feed that many people for a week on about forty bucks. I mean a family of four would spend about that much to go out and eat just once. However, while the food stuff will expire the bucket will not. In reality, the bucket is probably the most important item that is being sent. Such a tool can be used to get water and clear wreckage debris. Such an act is an excellent way to show that we want to help people out in their time of need. Even more so, is the Love of God that is displayed through such a helping hand. You do not have to be involved in a congregation to get involved; simply having a compassionate heart is enough.
The list of food items is pretty basic, but extremely specific, and so is the arrangement. The items include two bags of rice, two bags of black beans, vegetable oil, two boxes of spaghetti noodles, five pounds of flour, a canister of sugar, and a jumbo jar of creamy peanut butter. These are all to be the Great-Value brand that you buy at Wal-Mart, but they need to be the specified size to be able to fit in the bucket. The buckets themselves are supposed to be plain white buckets. This is so all the buckets are uniform. Apparently, mass riots could break out if someone believes that a bucket has something different or more items inside. They say this because of the desperation of the people. In order to enhance the uniformity of the buckets a decal will be placed on the side of the bucket.
My congregation has set a goal of eighty-five buckets. We hope to surpass that though. I would encourage everyone to let their fellowship know about this, and I challenge you to some friendly competition to see how many buckets you can raise. If you do not have a congregation of believers that you fellowship with it is not a problem, do this with your family. I think this is a great way to teach young children about generosity and helping those in need. Even the youngest person can help.
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I always liked the idea of the shoebox drives during the holidays for children but I always felt that the container would be of little use after a short while (a cardboard box would not hold up that long). I like the idea of shipping the food in buckets so the container is also an item of utility in addition to desperately needed sustenance. Thank you for this post.
ReplyDeleteThe Buckets for Hope is a really good idea. It is very encouraging for me to see so many people helping out in so many ways. You mentioned that you were doing this as part congregation and I know that my grandmothers church and several others are doing something similar. Outside of church though, many Americans have stepped up to help out those less fortunate. Out of curiosity I googled "Haiti earthquake relief" and I got over 5 million results. Granted, not all of them are feasible but that's still really impressive. Even more importantly its not just the everyday Joes coming together but the victims are getting both governmental and celebrity support. While devastating this experience has taught many people to be thankful for life and to band together in a time of need.
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