My daughters recently decided that they want to fundraise for their mom who, in ten days, is going with a team of volunteers to dig a well in El Salvador. The well is going to provide drinking water to hundreds of people who otherwise don't have access to it.

So we set up a little booth next to a nearby Ralph's grocery store. The girls ended up raising over $300 in a couple of hours, but the real treasure was putting ourselves out there to speak for the poor.

The response ranged from people's faces lighting up at the opportunity to make a difference to, an irritation that we were there reminding people that there's a dimension in our world where people still drink dirty water.

The contrast got even grater when this happened: First an older lady in very expensive clothing and driving an expensive car stopped at the booth, obviously annoyed that she «had to» do it and put a couple of coins in the jar. What happened soon after was astonishing. A homeless man, who was sitting at the exit from the parking lot with a sign asking for money got up, walked over and gave about five dollars!

It was as if scripture had come alive, making the least likely man the hero, also making me ashamed of what I thought of him without knowing him. Truly generosity is like a jewel, it is beautiful even when framed by the humblest of circumstances. 

By the way, drinking water still looks like this to people in this world. Working with Living Water and The Turning Point, we were able to so far drill 2 wells in Ghana, refurbish 3 wells in Haiti and now this one in El Salvador.