Raising Funds to Plant Communities

Learn about my work to plant communities.

I believe the key solution to ending poverty in our world is by planting communities where people share resources and services with one another, so that no person is left in need of life’s most vital qualities (water, food, shelter, and friendship).

How do we plant communities which embody the principles of giving and sharing with one another?

Step 1 in planting a community is to build relationships with people who have a common interest in the mission, cause, and function of the community. Since our goal is to eliminate poverty, building relationships with those who are currently suffering from the injustice of poverty is crucial to establishment of the liberation we hope and believe our communities will bring to those in need of water, food, shelter, and friendship.

Step 2 is to locate and receive land, homes, or buildings to be used for the purposes of community shelter, space for growing food, and community gatherings. It is myhope to raise funds by providing free services in return for donations for the mission of ending poverty through community plants and receiving donations by traveling the world to campaign for solutions to global problems.

This is the beginning of my plans to help those on earth who need our help most. I hope that you will join me. Please feel free to say hi and let me know what you think about this solutions by leaving a comment below.

The Property of Ownership, Africa Land Grabs, and Injustic

I would like, for a moment, to write about the property of ownership. Is the belief that we have ownership over a section of land, building(s), automobiles, and other items, man-made or not, a healthy thing for humanity?

The danger with ownership is that we believe we possess something, but that some-thing also possesses us, many times to our demise. One of the contributing factors to the depletion of many African resources and land, came when the white men discovered they had no law which said they owned their land. They simply lived on the land, farmed for food, and lived a quite communal lifestyle, free of laws. Well, because they had no law, the English decided to make their own, stating that where law did not exist, that land was under the law of Britain, and was free-game for the whites to conquer and claim as their own.

This process of “land grabbing” is continuing to this day. Here is some information about the issue from www.stopafricalandgrab.com:

“Land grabbing is the contentious issue of large-scale land acquisitions; the buying or leasing of large pieces of land in developing countries, by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals. While used broadly throughout history, land grabbing as used today primarily refers to large-scale land acquisitions following the 2007-2008 world food price crisis. By prompting food security fears within the developed world and newfound economic opportunities for agricultural investors and speculators, the food price crisis caused a dramatic spike in large-scale agricultural investments, primarily foreign, in the Global South for the purposes of food and biofuels production. Initially hailed by investors and some developing countries as a new pathway towards agricultural development, investment in land has recently been criticized by a number of civil society, governmental, and multinational actors for the various negative impacts that it has had on local communities.
The target locations of most land grabs are in the Global South, with 70% of land grabs concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa. Other primary areas of note are in Southeast Asia and Latin America.”

I will write more on this subject at a later time… stay tuned and please feel free to comment leaving your thoughts below.

5 Ways to Complain About A Government Welfare System

I was going for a long walk late this evening, when I began to think about complaints I hear about government welfare. My thoughts have led me to compile a list of 5 ways to best lodge our complaints about the government-run welfare system. Here we go:

1. Take the time to meet the poor. When you see a person asking for change, give them 5 minutes, ask them questions, and show that you value them as a person with value.

2. Buy someone who is hungry a meal.

3. Invite someone who is homeless to come to your home for a meal, and potentially a roof for the night. It may seem scary, highly inadvisable, and they may be unwashed; but what you’ll have to choose is whether or not you value love and kindness over your own belief in what security actually is. Organize your church or community group to use building space to provide a shelter for the shelterless to sleep at night. If churches and groups began to do this as a priority, cities will be transformed by love and kindness.

4. Learn about who a person living in poverty truly is. Discover their talents and passions, and help them earn income by doing what they are naturally good at. You’ll discover there are many people living on the streets with high-level degrees, and unique abilities,but are in need of someone to take the time to nurture and bring those abilities into the world.

5. Give extremely to any person who is in need. When we begin to change our culture in to a culture of giving, the needs of all people are met, and all are invited and welcomed into the family of the community.

We have the tremendous honor and liberty to give to one another, to lift each other up in times of need. When that liberty is not exercised, the government steps in to fill the holes. The government welfare system is incredibly inefficient, and creates dependency within people upon an institution. But what if we began to rely on one another and the love we have for each other?

We have the choice to eliminate the government welfare system. If the people rise up to meet the needs of one another, we will have no need for government welfare, and indeed we will know liberty to a degree we have in my estimation – never before seen.

How Giving Changes The World

We are trained at an early age to believe in the philosophy of “survival of the fittest.” We are taught to do our best in taking care of our-self, to rely only on our-self, to become successful in life and business.

Because of this indoctrination – “survival of the fittest” – our behavior is shaped toward gaining as much as possible to provide for our own well being; our own security. But what if we inverted this thinking? What if we began first with the principle of giving, rather than gaining? I propose that if our focus is on gaining so that we might give, our capacity to give will be restricted as it is not truly our priority, and thus may never be realized. Because our first focus is to gain for ourselves, we continue a path of accumulation and giving becomes of greater difficulty, the more we accumulate.

We accumulate more and more, but it is difficult to shift our focus toward giving after years spent in pursuit of personal gain.

So what if we begin with our focus on giving? Do we sacrifice gain? I believe the answer to this question is absolutely, no.

When we give of ourselves to others; our time, our resources, and our friendship, we gain value that is priceless in the hearts and minds of people in need of hope. And hope is a force which can change the world.

If you think you have nothing to give, think again.

“And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us. So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”

Written by Paul in 2 Cornithians 8:1-15 (from the New International Version)