“I can’t help everyone, but I can help some.”

As much as I love meeting students at universities when I visit to speak, meeting the faculty is pretty cool too.

After a recent talk at West Texas A&M I had a chance to talk travel with a few faculty. One of the professors was a horse trainer who told a hilarious story about being invited to Saudi Arabia to judge racing camels. Another was Dr. James Hallmark, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs. James (we’re Facebook friends, so I’ll drop the formalities) told a rip-roaring tale about traveling in Turkey and how he thought he had been abducted by al Qaeda.

Following my visit, James wrote an editorial for the Amarillo Globe News about my visit. In Consider Where Our Clothes Are Made James writes this:

We have been blessed with much and much is expected of us. Is it too much to ask for us to consider how our clothes are made or to feed a hungry child?

Jesus’ statement “the poor you will have with you always” is an indictment of our selfishness more than a statement about the poor. We will always have the poor because those of us with means abdicate our responsibility to feed, clothe, shelter and educate the poor. We will always have the poor because governments like those in Somalia will prevent us from feeding the hungry in their own country.

I can’t help everyone, but I can help some.

My visit inspired James to write this and now his words have inspired me.

James message is one that I hope all the students I talked with walked away with. And it’s one to which we sing our baby boy Griffin to sleep every night.