How Family Jokes can Help Change Lives {free downloadable service calendar}

“Wanna buy a chicken?”

Every family has a joke. One that no matter how many times it’s told, you can’t help but laugh. Other people look on and wonder what’s wrong with your kinfolk because the joke is obviously not that funny.

But they haven’t been at the Christmas parties where it’s uttered at just the right moment. They haven’t heard your grandfather tell it with a straight face. They don’t have the memories flood back each time the joke is told.

But you do.

I’m going to tell you my family’s joke. You can laugh if you want. You can poke fun. But none of that matters because, to my family, this one silly joke brings back many years of memories and laughs.

Here goes:

Do you know how to sell a deaf man a chicken?

YOU WANNA BUY A CHICKEN????!!!!!!

I promise it’s a lot funnier in person when you scream in the listener’s ear. So here’s the crazy thing – our family really DOES want to buy a chicken.

In an attempt to get my children more involved in helping others on a global scale, I poured through the gift catalog on the World Vision website and found chickens. For $25 you can purchase 2 chickens for a family in need. Those chickens will provide food and the chance for income as they produce eggs and more baby chicks.

So I grabbed a jar, put a picture on the front and told my kids about the idea. They loved it and immediately purged their piggy banks. Over the months that followed, I watched as my children would choose to give part of their birthday money and allowances and place it in the jar.

I never pushed because I wanted the kids to come to their own sense of “need to do something.” I wanted them to give because they wanted to, because the Holy Spirit was working in their own lives – not because I forced them. The thing about faith in God is it has to become your own before it works. You can’t scoot by on the faith of your parents. So dollar-by-dollar and quarter-by-quarter, they’ve raised the $25 to purchase the chickens.

Now a family somewhere in the world will receive the gift of chickens because of an eight-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy. I think I’ll celebrate with a scrambled egg dinner, then I’ll let them look at the catalog to decide how they want to help next, but I’m crossing my fingers they choose to buy a sheep.

The funny thing about the chicken jar is for months I’ve walked past the jar on the kitchen counter, and each time I think, “You wanna buy a chicken???” And then I chuckle to myself and nod.

“Yep. I do!”

 

See below for SERVICE CALENDAR.

**Starting your own chicken jar is one of the ideas for this month’s service calendar.

Please click HERE to download the May Service Calendar.

Print it out and put it on your fridge to encourage your own family to get involved. Then encourage other families to join in by sharing this post and calendar on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Remember change always starts with just one.

 

Don’t like chickens? Visit World Vision’s gift catalog HERE and pick out a different animal or choose to help build a well. There are lots of ideas to choose.