By now you may have surmised based on the clues and your public school
education I mean toilet paper. Just how important is it? Ever try to finish
the job without it? Ever get stuck when the roll is almost empty, or gone
altogether? How can a simple item like TP, or lack of TP be so important? Of
all the things invented, I wish I had the patent on toilet paper, think of how I
would clean up.....But yet how much of it gets wasted every year? Check into a
motel, anything less than half a roll is replaced, so what happens to the few
last pieces, are they wasted when they are still useful? Is it possible that
carrying an extra roll of TP when traveling may be more important than wearing
clean underwear? Am I crazy, or do you now find yourself checking the supply
before you sit down?
When it comes to gambling, the best odds are blackjack at 7 to 1, against
you of course. But one casino has taken the gamble out of using the toilets, at
least for the poor. Pechanga estimates they discard almost 20,000 partial rolls
of toilet paper a year. Ought to make a few land fill groupies upset, and you
thought plastic bottles were America’s #1 ecological crime. But the smarter
heads at Pechanga, the execs not the men’s room, have come up with a plan, and
it works. File it under a fair deal is when both parties benefit. They donate
the partial rolls to a rescue mission, we think food and drink, but how often do
you think of other needs for the homeless? A simple way to minister, an
overlooked but necessary need fulfilled. Not recycled in the truest sense of
the word, but taking a consumable and putting it to work. Something to consider
when coming up a roll short next time. “Honey, we’re out of TP,” and everyone
in the neighborhood now knows it too.
But that is just what ministry is seeing a need and filling it. Which is
what Jesus did, and exhorts us to do. We have sock and blanket drives each
winter, toy runs each Christmas, but what about the rest of the year? When
Jesus fed the 5000, how long was it before they were hungry again? Yet we do
one good deed, and move on to the next, never considering how consistent food,
water, housing, clothing, and yes, toilet paper really are. Consumables,
because we use them and need to use them again.
When we come to Christ and become a Christian, not only does our heart
change, but our thinking does too. A regeneration is how Romans describes it,
and some of us need more generating than others. We need to use the brain God
gave us, and when in conjunction with our heart, act accordingly. But it takes
the spirit to guide, I see people affected by those hungry, then donate apples,
neglecting to see how many cannot chew or have missing teeth. Feeding centers
placed in industrial parks, far away from the homeless and hungry. Bus passes
given to those who are by no bus route, and being invited to church, yet not
being welcomed when the do show up, not properly attired. Well meaning, just
not well executed....it takes Jesus. We see it everyday, free this or free
that, but do we ever wonder why it is free? Or if it is useful?
For instance, I used to get a lot of rich women’s close donated. But not
every homeless woman needs an evening dress, but a friend found a use for them.
When offered 100 prom dresses from a store, he wondered what good are these?
Then he considered the homeless kids who cannot go to the prom, and ended up
giving away all of them to girls to go to the prom. Simple, yet you argue we
don’t need to go the prom. Do you need a closet full of clothes? How many sets
of golf clubs? Expensive dinners? They are all part of our lifestyle, and
believe me, the girls esteem was boosted. One night out to be special....or
have we fallen so much we forget?
So life may be more than prom dresses or toilet paper, but both meet a
need. That is what ministry is, and where teamwork begins. Jesus invites us to
be part of his ministry, to help those in need. Something to consider the next
time you’re stranded and stuck on the toilet bowl. What will you do when you’re
stranded and you don’t have a roll? You’ll agree, we will never take toilet
paper for granted again. Someone at Pechanga came up with the idea...how can we
better serve man in the name of Jesus? I hope your answer surprises and blesses
us.....goodness and kindness, against which there is no law.
And you thought computers were going to eliminate paperwork!
Talk about being a roll model....
love with compassion,
Mike
matthew25biker.blogspot.com