A Helping Hand

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else," said Booker T. Washington, an educator, speaker, author and Civil Rights Leader who was born into slavery and rose to the top of African-American leadership during Jim Crow segregation. Wu Yiebing and Cao Weiping may have never heard of Booker T. Washington, but they have wholeheartedly embraced the message in his saying.

Keith Bradsher writes in his "In China, Betting It All on a Child in College" The New York Times February 17, 2013, article, "Mr. Wu and Mrs. Cao, who grew up in tiny villages in western China and became migrants in search of better-paying work, have scrimped their entire lives. For nearly two decades, they have lived in a cramped and drafty 200-square-foot house with a thatch roof. They have never owned a car. They do not take vacations -- they have never seen the ocean. They have skipped traditional New Year trips to their ancestral village for up to five straight years to save on bus fares and gifts, and for Mr. Wu to earn extra holiday pay in the mines. Despite their frugality, they have essentially no retirement savings.

Thanks to these sacrifices, their daughter, Wu Caoying, is now a 19-year-old college sophomore."

The couple have one child, Wu Caoying. Abortions are forced on women in China. Since 1979, Chinese couples have been limited to one child by law in order to control the country's population. Read my article "Thoughts About Abortion.

Mr. Wu and Mrs. Cao have invested in their daughter expecting her to get a job or run a business after college graduation and to financially support them in their old age.

Family helping family is Biblical. Proverbs 11:25 Amplified Bible says, "The liberal person shall be enriched, and he who waters shall himself be watered."

The New York Times reports that for seven years it followed the family of Wu Yiebing, Cao Weiping and Wu Caoying. The New York Times also says this family is like other poor families in China.

Bradsher writes in his article, "She has chosen to major in logistics, learning how goods are distributed, a growing industry in China as ever more families order online instead of visiting stores.

But the major is the most popular at her school, which could signal a future glut in the field. That is a sobering prospect at a time when young college graduates in China are four times as likely to be unemployed as young people who attended only elementary school, because factory jobs are more plentiful than office jobs."

God has a unique plan for each person's life, and it is not always the safest route. Someone said there are 365 statements in the Bible encouraging us to be not afraid in living according to God's will in every area of life.

Nick Vujicic was born in Australia with tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by the absence of all four limbs. He's good with numbers. Family and others encouraged him to pursue a financial career, and they took a while to warm up to him telling them that God called him into motivational speaking and evangelism. But they did warm up. Today Vujicic is an international motivational speaker and evangelist. He is also an author, runs a non-profit group, Life Without Limbs, is married to Kanae Loida Vujicic-Miyahara and the couple had a baby boy, Kiyoshi James Vujicic, born to them on February 13, 2013.

One of the benefits of receiving and living in a-now-and-eternal relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost is that God will bless us even in economic hard times. Genesis 26:1-3, 12-13 Amplified Bible says, "And there was a famine in the land, other than the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I will tell you. Dwell temporarily in this land, and I will be with you and will favor you with blessings; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. . . .Then Isaac sowed seed in that land and received in the same year a hundred times as much as he had planted, and the Lord favored him with blessings. And the man became great and gained more and more until he became very wealthy and distinguished"

The blessings of God do not mean that every believer will be financially rich. It may be that being financially middle-class is best for most. Agur writes in Proverbs 30:8-9 Amplified Bible, "Remove far from me falsehood and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, Lest I be full and deny You and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal, and so profane the name of my God."

Many people desire to be rich like Isaac rather than middle class. Isaac was never poor. Even though Isaac knew how to work the resources God gave him in Gerar, Isaac had a head start on being wealthy. Isaac's father, Abraham, was wealthy. After Abraham died, his wealth went to Isaac. Genesis 25:5 English Standard Version Bible says, "Abraham gave all he had to Isaac."

A generous, financial helping-hand from those with means to those of lesser means is Biblical. Read my article, "Faith, Fear and Japanese Americans."