When have you been the recipient of generosity? How did it change you?

My family was the recipient of a huge gift many years ago. Our youngest qualified for a Make-a-Wish gift, and so all of us were sent to the amusement parks of Orlando- all the Disney parks, plus Sea World, and the Universal parks. It was an amazing week, especially for our kids.

We stayed at a resort called Give Kids the World Village. It was perhaps the most magical place of all…and I hope you never get to stay there. There are no paying guests; it is exclusively for Wish families.

There are no words for what an amazing place it is. A life-size Candy Land, an ice cream parlor that opens at 8 am, and every Thursday is “Christmas,” complete with Santa Claus, snow, and presents. Everything is free.

Give Kids the World operates on 95% volunteer labor. From the cooks to the guides to the janitors – almost everyone is a volunteer. As I wrote at the time:

There are some who are there just for the week. Others, such as the woman who met us at the airport, have been there for years and years. Many of the long-term volunteers are employees at Universal Studios and Disney, there on their own time. Many are retirees.

They treat the families as royal guests. When they tell you it is their honor to wait on you, serve you, you believe they mean it.

The younger people are very energetic, lots of enthusiasm. For many of them, I imagine we Make-a-Wish familes are people they care for, people they want to make smile, people they are (in the best sense of the term) sorry for. They don’t yet know that WE are THEM. But some do.

The older ladies, for the most part, are very helpful, very efficient, very friendly. They want to make our lives easier for the week we are there.

The old men … well, they are the ones that make my chest tighten. They’re silly and they wear their hearts on their sleeves. They want to make the kids laugh. And when they think you’re not looking, they’re giving your child a long, wistful look. And you know, you just know, that if it were within their power, they’d give up the rest of their lives in exchange for the life of any child there.

The goal of Give Kids the World was to make it a child’s idea of heaven on earth. So it’s perhaps not surprising to find angels there.

This generosity changed who I am. It definitely shaped my theological beliefs, especially about the nature of being human. I got to see how overwhelmingly wonderful our fellow humans can be. On days such as the ones we are living through right now, when it can feel that we are seeing hate and greed all around us, I think back to that trip and the magic that humans can create.

(The reason why Give Kids the World was created? Henri Landwirth, a Holocaust survivor, was working in hospitality in Florida. When he was unable to find a hotel room for an ill child before she died, he vowed he would not let that happen again.)

Christians will sometimes talk about how each Christian may be the only encounter someone has with the gospel, and to act accordingly. As a deep Humanist, not based on belief/disbelief in God, but in the power and responsibility of humans, I resonate with that. Each of us has the power to shape how others think of human nature. Do our actions affirm “original sin” or refute it? I hope to do the latter.