Imagine this:  you are sitting in a shack (picture American commercials for Africa and giving money to the poor, those shacks) that has a television on (I know, it seems out of place, but it happens, just continue on).  You're playing with kids and watching Sesame Street in the Sotho language (sidenote: there is a character with HIV on the Lesotho Sesame Street, it's not just rumors if you have heard of it).  Anyway, when that ends, the channel is changed, and on turns the daytime talk show The View from America.  Alicia Keys is on, talking about her trip to Africa she just returned from.  She discusses the poverty in the country and the faces of beautiful yet starving children are on the screen.  I want you to guess what is shown and discussed as soon (literally) as she finishes talking about these children without clothing...

...every person in the audience was immediately given a $250 gift card for clothing from some store in the States.

    I was in shock.  My mind has been racing ever since, and this was nearly two weeks ago.  Poverty in the 3rd world countries and...  rich people getting even richer.  Why is it that the more we have, the more we desire?  Why when we have clothes, do we feel we need more so we don't have to wear the same ones so often?  Why is it that I am living in South Africa and working with children who typically get maybe one meal per day, and I have the option to be full (or overly full) at every single meal? 

    I wish I could explain the rich get richer scenario.  I wish I could come to terms with that fact that I have WAY more than I need, even while I am living in Africa.  I wish I could begin to give away more and spend less on myself.  I wish I could see the needs of those I minister to in ways that don't require me to be spending more money.  Because, really, most needs can't be met with more money.  Most needs are basic needs, especially here. 

    In psychology class, I learned (multiple times) about the hierarchy of needs.  Where, in order to reach our full potential, we need basic needs to be met.  Now, living a life, I am able to see that the hierarchy is a formula and formulas don't necessarily ever fit completely into anything except math equations, but I do see that there are basic needs to be met.  And those basic needs are ones of feeling needed and feeling loved. 

    With the westernized way of thinking, sometimes we feel as though money will solve our problems and it's completely a matter of poor versus rich.  But, in what I have seen, it is a matter of being willing and not being willing to reach out to those around you.  It's a matter of each of us personally getting to know people whom otherwise we wouldn't:  the man on the street corner begging for money, the little boy without shoes sniffing glue to get high, the woman walking aimlessly through town with no place to go...  it's not a matter of money or rich and poor or society or culture or socioeconomic class or anything.  It's a matter of love.  And that's all that matters.