Gift Ideas

I was reading news from the BBC the other day and I ran across an article on OxFam's new gift catalog (or "catalogue" for those of you across the pond...). Basically, OxFam offers several "gifts" at various prices that go to help people in 3rd world countries. For example, I bought a brood of chickens. You could get someone started in a goat loan program, train a mobile teacher, or purchase blankets for AIDS orphans. I thought it was a great opportunity to help out in some tangible way and feel like your money had some specific impact. I know they are aiming at having people use these as gift ideas for others, but I ended up doing it just because I wanted to help out. It just made me stop and think -- I know global poverty is a big problem and its easy to sit back and not do anything because of that reality. This really helped me to feel like I could at least have an impact in someone's life. If you can do something small but still make an impact, hey, sooner or later, we're gonna get some things done.