bierkergaard

Last Sunday, our gathering of Veritas Church volunteered for this organization : (www.bindinglove.org) Binding Love is a non-profit that takes donated clothes and turns them into scarves and sells them, directing the proceeds to help get women out of sex trafficking in Thailand. Our job on Sunday was to cut the clothes into the size needed for scarves. Kind of full circle for the clothes since many of them are crafted in the developing world by poorly paid labor. Mostly women, mind you.  I found my 7th grade Home Econ. class to be of little residual value as I attempted to cut the clothing straight. Yet, it was a fun day and despite the seriousness of the situation of the sex trade, I was getting silly. I put on the pink shirt and had other scraps of clothes around my neck and pink and blue wristbands that were previously sleeves.  Someone commented that I looked like a mash-up of Richard Simmons and Rocky, and then me and another guy alternated between soun...

Last Friday, a call went out on Facebook that a farmer friend of mine needed a hand unloading 7,000 pounds of potatoes coming in late on a tractor-trailer. The truck was delayed, some of those that were going to help out when the shipment was supposed to have come in earlier in the day, had to leave. I was at home when I saw the message. I was going to lift weights. I decided to pick up potatoes instead. I remembered an old comic in Mad Magazine where a kid is lifting weights while his poor mom is taking out a massive trash can load of garbage. It is easy to ignore pleas for help. Pretend I didn't see it. The story of the Good Samaritan starts with seeing but not responding. Luke 10 is clear that they saw.   However,  I decided to run contrary to my individual inertia and hopped in my car and headed West to York. It was only while driving out to the location that I recalled that my farmer friend had bailed me out years before when, during one Halloween Night, he hurried...