Pakistan Redux

What I had planned to write about yesterday was not spirituality and the workplace but rather something I did on the weekend (other than spending nearly two full days painting fiesta booths for Old Mission Church), but apparently there was a need for yesterday's topic. So, that done, I am now back to the topic I had originally planned for yesterday.

It took a few days, but on the weekend I finally was able to make it over to a nearby city where there is a Western Union office to send Wajeeha a cash infusion from God's credit card. Now, there are three important pieces of information in the sentence that I just wrote: Wajeeha, Western Union, God's credit card. Each has a background and life of its own that may not make a lot of sense concatenated in the way I have concatenated them in this particular sentence unless you have been following this blog and remember some of my older posts. So, for assistance, let me provide the background and some new information for each of these.

Wajeeha. Given the rampant corruption in the Pakistan government and the loss to individuals within the government of much of the foreign aid coming there to help people affected negatively by the recent floods, Wajeeha, a young lady with whom I became acquainted nearly two years ago, and her classmates at the university in Karachi, an unaffected area, are making a pilgrimage to help their countrymen, one family and one homestead at a time. I promised to send her some money to help with her project. A little bit goes a long way there. (I did send some money; she got it immediately; she and her friends were able to buy clothes for some of the families who had lost their homes and everything they own. It is a great motivation to help when you have a direct, on-the-ground connection to the hands abroad doing the work together with your funds, as limited as they might be.)

Western Union. When I got to Western Union, I planned to send a set amount of money to Wajeeha and her friends. I had also saved aside dollars to use to pay the transfer fee, which can be quite high. I planned on about $60, based on my previous experience with Western Union. After all the personal information was entered, I asked the fee. The clerk astonished me with her reply, "You are sending money to Pakistan; there is no fee for Pakistan." It turns out that this is Western Union's way of helping with flood recovery. On the bottom of the Western Union customer receipt appear the following words:

Western Union expresses its deepest sadness to its valued consumers who have loved ones affected by the recent floods in Pakistan. We have waived our money transfer fee to Pakistan from 8/12/2010 to 9/12/2010.

I told several people at work, and they are now scrambling to gather as much money as they can to send to their relatives in the flooded regions before September 12. I hope that the waiving of the fee will encourage others who can afford to do so to send monetary help now rather than waiting.

God's credit card. I have posted information about God's credit card many times in the past. This credit card seems to have a life of its own. The last time I used God's credit card, about a month ago, the $500 that I spent on behalf of our prayer group to help a couple in need of divine intervention in their financial life was repaid within a week by volunteer donations from each of us within the group (20%), two individual donations from within the group from money that had fallen into their hands (50%), and unexpected sources of income (30%). That is the way it works with God's credit card. God puts someone in need in front of me. I use the card. It gets paid off immediately by money I did not have and would not normally have but that appears out of nowhere, and the card is ready to use again. In some months, the need arises multiple times. What is fascinating now is that within my prayer group, people are treating God's credit card as our group's credit card to help God's people. It is no longer mine alone. An interesting phenomenon, to say the least. We have used it for individuals in need who come to the attention of any one of us. Then we all contribute whatever we can afford to help pay it off, and the rest of the money comes from sources only God knows. The amazing thing is that the sources are always there, and the card is always paid off. I sent $300 to Pakistan on Sunday; I did not have the money to spare, but the card did. On Monday, a friend gave me $20 that she had saved up to help with Pakistan and told me to use it to help pay off God's credit card. This morning, I deposited another $175 in cash that came from an unexpected cash source, with another $50 from the same source promised tomorrow, unrelated to God's credit card but definitely appropriate for "spending" it to pay down the card. I also got an automatic deposit of $30 from the distributor of my books for some Internet sales last month, not a fortune, but here I am, three days later, just $25 from paying off God's credit card for the money used for Pakistan, and certainly I could donate the $25 from my salary easily, making the card immediately available for re-use, perhaps even for another infusion into Pakistan if God's will for such were to become clear. As I said above and have said every time I use that card -- AMAZING! With those kinds of experiences, it is easy to have full trust that God will take care of anything and everything.

And that is the post I had planned to run yesterday.

Come Along on a Journey to Help Pakistan One Family at a Time

Perhaps a few years ago, many people would not have been able to place Pakistan on a map -- well, those of us who were around when Bangladesh (East Pakistan) ran into trouble in the 1970s might have been able to put two and two together. Pakistan, however, was rarely in the news, at least in the regions where I lived, until right after 9/11 when the US needed help from that country. Now that country needs help from the USA -- and from the rest of the world, from you, from me, from anyone with a heart. Perhaps people gave all they had to Haiti; perhaps Pakistan is too far, too Eastern, too foreign for those of us living in the West. Whatever the reason, assistance from the West, which usually comes through for people in dire need, has not been as forthcoming in this instance, a place and time when help is needed in an overwhelming amount: 16 million Pakistanis are suffering from the devastation caused by the floods. (Help, of course, is needed and welcomed from everywhere and anywhere. Readers of this blog come from 109 different countries, including Pakistan. I hope that among you, there will be people who can help.)

Among the readers of Blest Atheist, the blog that preceded 100th Lamb, was Wajeeha, a young acquaintance of mine from Karachi, Pakistan. She and I mainly communicate via FaceBook. Over time, I have come to feel like she is just another of my children, and I am proud of what she is doing, both in college and in her current plan to help her country. A college student, living in an area unaffected by the flood but nonetheless concerned with the lack of help coming to the families stranded, impoverished, and left starving by the floods, she and her college classmates are taking matters into their hands and trying to help the people of Pakistan one family at a time. I asked her to write a post about her journey, and so I will let her tell it in her own words:

I, Wajeeha Asrar Siddiqui, with some friends and colleagues of mine have started the effort to help those who are affected by flood in Pakistan. We are collecting funds in this regard and have decided to take up the charge of everything under our own control. As prior we had trusted some government official with our money but there is nothing come to name of progress and God knows where the money gone. Now, we have decided to do everything by our own.

We are up for the task of rehabilitation for the people of Besham, Kohistan and connected districts. Our main motto is not to just provide them with food. The main motto is to let those back to their normal lives with all their respect and dignity. We are up to help those people without let them feel inferior to other members of the society.

We have aim to help those with food, water and clothing at first and then with books, raw material and space to practice and sale their handicrafts. People in those regions are masters of handicrafts. As we are already having Ramadan here so, the very first thing that is needed is drinking water and then food.

We would leave from Karachi to Besham and beyond by the end of August 2010. Our first target is to help 2000 families. An average cost of drinking water, food and clothing of a family for a month is around $150 - $200. We still need hands to join in and help us making our targets possible.

As we do not have much time left I request all those you’re seeking to help to send us their donations in cash. As the fact is, transferring of cash would take less time as compare to transferring of good. For all those who are looking forward to help can reach me by email ID: Wajeeha.thewonderful@gmail.com. (Money needs to be transferred via bank transfer or Western Union, so those wanting to help will need to contact Wajeeha and get the information to do so. I am reluctant to put this kind of information on a public site.)

You can also reach our representative in Besham, Engr. Said Mehmood (s.mehmood@crspk.org) who is working with Catholic Relief Services to help all those who are affected by flood.

I promised her some help from God's credit card now that it is paid off once again (see God's Crazy Math -- it took only two days for money to appear to pay it off), but that has a credit limit (probably a fortunate thing). Won't you help, too? Even a couple of dollars can make a difference. Given the exchange rate and the cost-of-living difference, a little can go a long way. I will ask Wajeeha to report on her journey periodically when time and electronic resources permit. Let's measure the compassion of the blogosphere with Pakistan as a criterion!