BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Assalaamu alaykum salaam
I ask Allah to envelop you in His Mercy and Generosity.
I drive my kids to school every morning usually. It's about a half hour drive/15 miles--if we leave home by 6 a.m. they will get to school on time. And we try to make sure we are out the door and in the car by 6 a.m. It is like clock work every morning almost. Yesterday, one of the rare days someone didn't get in the car by 6 a.m.--and it was me. My kids already in the car. I asked them to move to our SUV because it would go faster than my old Honda Civic. One of my sons said, Mom that would take a lot of gas. Then I said, that's okay you need to get to school on time. He then said, Egypt mom? I said what about Egypt? Then he said, "the gas money would feed many poor Egyptians!" My other son said, "Allah will bless our time inshaAllah, and He will let all the lights green when we pass through inshaAllah." I told them they were right. So we took off in the Honda and Alhamdulillah they got to school on time, in fact we arrived at the drop off spot earlier than we normally did! SubhanAllah!
We lived in Egypt for about 8 months and came back in the beginning of summer last year. We chose not to drive the SUV after we came back (except a few times because I had loaned the Honda to a friend) because our hearts were still in Egypt and it was still fresh in our minds how the poor live there--and they were around us, we see the poverty every day, a normal sight. And we feel guilty driving around in a nice SUV while we know our neighbors in Egypt are hungry.
I remember the first few days after we arrived there, my kids were all excited that they now could eat halal MacDonalds. So we sat and ate at MacDonalds a few times and one evening we also had to order a carryout for one of my sons who decided to stay home. As we were walking back to our apartment, a boy, probably about 8 or 9 years old, darted in front of my son who was carrying the food for his brother from no where and tried to grab the bag from him. This was my son's first encounter of something like this--he had never been "ambushed" before. My son panicked and called out "Mom, Mom!" I told him to give it to the boy and he did. I cried so hard that time for Allah had chosen my kids to have plenty. After that my kids never asked me to eat at MacDonalds again. Later on they became in love with what the Egyptians called "the poor man's food", kushari, that we ate it several times a week. SubhanAllah!
There are so many heart breaking stories during our stay in Egypt which I can share with you but inshaAllah at a later time. The reason I am telling you these stories is to encourage you to give and give and give more. We have so much comfort in this country, it is very easy to take things for granted until we are reminded. It is very easy to forget the poor because, for many of us, we don't live among them--we don't see with our own 2 eyes their struggles. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, said something like this, the food for 1 can feed 2 and the food for 2 can feed 4 and so on. So don't waste, there is plenty to go around and there is so much blessings in giving. Make a daily or weekly or monthly plans to give, money and/or food and/or clothing. The regular it is the better. Remember these are good deeds that will help you in this life and after this life.
I am pretty sure you received a lot of emails asking for donations. You might feel bombarded sometimes but don't feel that way and please don't ignore these emails. Don't turn down any request for charity. Aisha, Allah be pleased with her, perfumed the charity she was giving because it would go right into Allah's hands and it is more fitting that it smells good. She thanked the poor person for giving her the opportunity to give to Allah. This is the attitude and manners of giving.
So send/give something to every asking. You are giving to Allah, your Lord, the All Generous. If you cannot send a lot, even a dollar will go a long way for your coming near to Allah. Don't be shy to give a dollar if that is all you can afford. You are giving to Allah and He knows what you can or cannot do. Make a conscious effort to cut down your expenses--use your small car instead of driving big cars and SUVs; don't buy soft drinks anymore (if you normally drink one Pepsi a day, you can now save $30 a month--besides this carbonated drinks destroy your bones); reduce the number of eating out and try not to eat out at all (you will have lots of great food in Paradise!) Use your savings to give to the poor. I am pretty sure you can give more than a dollar if you do this inshaAllah. For some of you, you have zakat to pay. If you often have more than $2400 or $2500 at the end of zakat year, you have already over the zakatable minimum in which you must pay zakat (2.5%). Many of us probably have this zakatable minimum at the end of the year. Put this zakat amount aside now, earmark it for zakat, and you can use this money you set aside to give out to the poor as they come throughout the year. InshaAllah, Allah will give lots of barakah to the rest of your money.
There are so many ways how you can save and give that savings to the poor. You just have to be creative for your specific situation. If there is a will, there is a way. May Allah give you tawfiq and protect us all from poverty. Ameen.
Wassalaam
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