I’ve been saving this entry for the time when I could not think of anything to write. I expected for that time to occur much earlier in this process. It did not and since I doubt that I will be able to write anything until after Easter, I thought that I should share this now.

Why we’ve chosen not to buy anything
We’ve talked about it for some time. I think even before Jennifer went to Africa we had discussed not purchasing anything but the necessities. Jennifer recommended doing it for Lent, and I may have muttered some sort of noise which sounded like an agreement, but I was not seriously committed to the idea… until the wedding. Our friends and family were incredibly generous. We received gifts almost everyday two months prior to the wedding, so many in fact that we had to start opening them and using them before the wedding just so we would have some space to walk through the office. By the wedding I thought for sure we had received everything we were going to receive. We had certainly gotten most of the things on our rather long registry. I was wrong. You couldn’t see the floor in the office for all the gifts people brought to the wedding. It was incredibly overwhelming. After the honeymoon, we would spend a couple of hours a night opening gifts and finding a place in our house to put them. It took several days and it was overwhelming for me. I would be exhausted at the end of the evening from opening gifts. So much generosity. So many gifts from people who care about us. So much. Jen and I are blessed. Extremely blessed with good jobs, good health and a wonderful family. We don’t need. And this stands in stark contrast to the poverty Jen encountered in Africa, that I encountered in India, that we all encounter here in our local communities. Not buying anything was a means of reminding me of that. I do not expect to understand poverty any better, or to make a difference. I simply want to remember how blessed we really are and how little we really need.