How far Can One in Poverty Go?

As I listened to the announcement in church about giving donations to the poor for Christmas, I suddenly recalled a documentary shown on tv over a year ago. It showed adults from a locality in a very depressed area who only had one kidney. It was very unique...strange. Almost all of them had only one kidney. Why? The reporter found out that these people sold one of their kidneys to hospitals or families whose relatives needed a kidney transplant. This was illegal of course. But no one really paid attention to it until it was brought to the public's attention by this reporter. So the state made it clear to hospitals not to accept donors for organs who were not relatives of the person who needed the organ. The reporter said that the remaining kidney of some of those who sold one of their kidneys have started to fail. That wouldn't be such a surprise considering their poor health and condition.

I have heard of very poor people involved in crimes and drugs, even offering their children up for adoption or worse, (I can't find a better way to phrase it) selling their own children to "customers." Many of them are from depressed areas. It was their way of surviving from day to day. But watching the documentary on tv about people selling half their kidney to survive was a first for me. It was shocking, unbelievable. As always, things like this depress me. It made me realize how deep poverty is and the extent some would go just to survive and feed their families.

These people would be classified as the poorest among the poor. They have a typical profile. They live in makeshift shanties made of boxes, rusty galvanized iron or small pieces of wood put together. The roofs of their houses would be compared to paper that you had to put paperweights on to keep the wind from blowing them away. They used hollow-blocks as weights to keep their roofs from being blown away by strong wind. On stormy days, well, one can just imagine how they survive after each storm.

When I see or hear things like this, I always look at my own situation and learn to appreciate the blessings that have come my way. I sometimes hear my children complaining about the food they eat, even refusing to eat at times when they don't like the food on the table, or, hating going to school. I remind them how lucky they are that they can eat several times a day and that they are able to go to school to have an education while others their age barely get to have a full meal in a day, have to walk miles just to go to school, and work to help their parents earn money to buy food.

I of course don't want my children to go through hardship, but it certainly will be good for them to be aware of things around them to be able to appreciate what they have and be concerned enough to initiate sharing their own blessings with the less fortunate whether it's Christmas season or not.