Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

  “If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the lands that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.” Deuteronomy 15:7 I’m reading through the Old Testament of the bible and came across this passage. The Old Testament is rich with miracles, history, and stories, but it is also quite harsh. When the Israelites who were slaves came out of Egypt and were told by God they would be given a new land flowing with milk and honey, they were also told to kill all the people in the cities which they conquered. The Old Testament has lots of wars and killing in it, but right here in the middle of all of it, God reminds us to take care of the poor. Now, usually in this blog, I tell you lots of ways to help others. I’ve even given you data that shows that if you do help others, you will reap benefits of joy and gratefulness yourself, as well as...

Do you ever feel like there are too many issues out there for you to make a difference? Believe it or not, I’ve felt this way before, especially with my knowledge of all the things going on in the charity world. For instance, last week, there were three different things I wanted to talk about—National Literacy Day on the 8 th , September 11 as a day of service, and National Suicide Prevention Week. If you “tuned in” last week, you know I settled on the latter. Why? Simply because I’ve written about the other two and hadn’t written about the third one yet. I felt like it was time. On the tenth anniversary of September 11, I definitely focused on that and as a former English teacher, I’ve written about literacy throughout the year. The two other issues are important to me. I buy my books from Better World Books because I know they give books to people that need them and provide literacy programs throughout the world. I also made brownies and cookies for my local firefighters on...

Five more kids will have presents from their fathers in prison this year because of the Angel Tree program and the ladies of my bible study. I called some local churches and one of them said they’d look into doing Angel Tree next year, too.   I know it’s not much but it’s something those five kids will not soon forget. Today I’m going over to my local food bank to drop off food from my hurricane closet. Hurricane season ends when November does so I cleaned out my closet and had a bunch of canned soup, ravioli and veggies to donate. I put a note on my Facebook page so my friends can give me items to donate, too. Last year we had a food drive at my birthday party in lieu of gifts so we were able to bring a nice box of items. When I called the food bank, they were eager to get the food with so many people stopping by right now needing it. We already sent a bag of Christmas food and money for a turkey through our church. I can’t help it. I keep hearing on the radio about ...

Dear God, I often wonder what you would have me do to help others. It sometimes seems like I can’t help someone who really needs it, for how does that person find me? And even if he did, how could I truly help in the all ways he might need it? Providing food and money only helps with physical needs when spiritual needs can outweigh those. Someone in the grips of despair has emotional needs, too. You say that pure religion is caring for widows and orphans. That lets me know that caring for others is important to you, but I don’t have enough money to support another family. Or do I? One thing that I have found is a way to pool my money with others by sponsoring a child through a group like Compassion International or World Vision. These organizations take the monthly amount I send them and combine it to provide services for many children in one area. The wonderful thing is I’m not just providing for someone financially whom I’ll never know. I can write to my child and hear ...

Great new things are happening at http://www.annesanders.net/ . You probably have noticed that my website Helping Hearts has been changing.   For a month now, I haven’t been able to update the Today’s Ways to Serve feature on a regular basis, because I’ve had a designer working on the page.   I haven’t been sending out my monthly newsletter because I have a new header that I’ve been tweaking.   For those who have checked out what the site looks like so far, you can see that it’s easier to navigate and looks a lot better, too. The official relaunch of the website is set for next Friday, March 6.   I will be giving away a Sevenly T-shirt that says “Awaken Your Hearts to End Hunger” in honor of the relaunch. The cost of the t-shirt provided 35 meals for people in Darfur.   Anyone who signs up for my newsletter in the month of March gets a chance at the shirt and I’ll announce the winner in early April. The website has a philosophical change to it as well....