Dan
West was serving as relief worker during the Spanish Civil War. His job was divvy
up the rations of powdered milk to hungry families. Each day he was forced to
decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn't – literally, who
would live and who would die. The same starving children came everyday asking
for help and there would never be enough to go around. This kind of aid, he
knew, would never be enough. Then a simple idea hit him; Give them a cow not a cup.
So
when he returned home he started by sending seventeen cows to malnourished
children in Puerto Rico. The idea was to end hunger permanently by providing
families with livestock and training so that they "could be spared the
indignity of depending on others to feed their children.” Each
family would be given cow with only one catch. When each animal gave birth,
the first newborn cow had to go to another family. The gift had to continue. So
an idea grew. An idea that is now estimated by the organization he founded, Heifer
International, to have fed over 8.5 million people in 125 countries. A gift
that could be passed on by everyone that received it.
Look
at our world today and you will see people starving. They’re not starving for
milk or meat but bread. Bread not made
by human hands but the bread of life. People
starving for meaning in their lives, purpose, direction. They have been
trying to fill the hunger with worldly substitutes. It never is
quite enough to satisfy. Soon, they will come back searching for more. It’s not
enough, it will never be enough.
So
God in his wisdom gave man a gift, the sacrifice
of his Son. To give man what he needed to overcome the misery in his life. A gift that never will run out (John 4:10). A
gift that can fundamental change the lives every starving person. It also comes
with one catch. You have to pass it on.
Every
one of us can look around in our world and see people in need. In need of help,
in need hope, in need of love. We may be
able, in the short term, to give them a cup, but they need something more.
They need ‘that which will last’. They need the Gospel of Jesus. An idea that
can change their lives in numerous ways. It gives us meaning to life. It gives
us direction. It gives us hope.
Paul
wrote in Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it
is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek.” Dan West had an idea so powerful it could feed the
world; Jesus had a message even more powerful.
It
could save the world.
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