welcome to America!

I was recently in Fredricksburg, Virginia visiting a friend over the weekend. I had a colleague with me from Africa. He is a native Kenyan and looking at attending graduate school in the States next year. One morning as we were leaving we went out to our borrowed car and what did we find? Eggs all over the car!

The car we were borrowing is usually driven by a 16 year old boy in the household. I'm sure the eggers were targeting him and not us. We got in the car, drove to the nearest gas station and began washing the windows so we could continue on with our very packed schedule for the day. I've never been a fan of egging or TP'ing. I know some people think it's just kids being kids, but I've always (even when I was young) considered it vandalism.

As we are wiping down the windows my colleague said something that caused me to dislike this juvenile form of entertainment even more. He said, "there are families in Africa who would have loved to receive these eggs to feed their children, here they are just throwing them away." Wow! Talk about a reality check!

The only response I could come up with is, "welcome to America!"

We don't have to go all the way to Africa to find hungry children. There are hungry children in America who could have eaten those eggs. Then I thought about my own life. Do I have wasteful practices? Could my wasteful practices help these?

I may not be throwing eggs at a car, but there are wasteful things I do weekly if not daily. How can I stop being wasteful even in the midst of the wealth I am surrounded with? How can I change my perspective to be more considerate of those in need?