a part of a goat

it's only Christmas eve and i've already received what i daresay will be my favorite present this season.

since our flight to minnesota was at 5:47 a.m. last thursday, tim and i spend the night at my sister's. that evening, we exchanged gifts, and becky and brady proudly handed me mine in a gift bag. a very light gift bag. i pulled out a handful of tissue paper and felt a small envlope inside.

opening the envelope, i felt like i was in a seinfeld episode: "a gift has been made in your honor!" the cardly proudly declared.
really...? i was kind of thinking more along the lines of a best buy gift card, or maybe some homemade certificate of me being a cool uncle. trying to appreciate the joke, i opening the card. if this was a joke, they went all the way with it. "to uncle jeff, from becky, brady and caleb", i had been given a share of a goat. a share of a goat.

my polite confusion elicited their explanation. becky had received a catalog in the mail from some charity called "heifer international" (yeah). she laughed at it and was about to toss it, then looked through it. the organization turned out to be legit (after some internet sleuthing) and works to provide impoverished third world families with animals for nutrution and additional income. a goat, for example, can provide several quarts of milk a day, and the excess milk can be used to make yogurt, butter or cheese. better still, goats can help fertilize a garden. : )

the more i thought about this, the more i loved it. becky and brady said they were first going to give it to me as a joke before a real present, then reconsidered on the likelihood that i would rather have a share of a goat than another dvd on my shelf. after a few moments, they were definitely right. initially, they wanted to go for part of a cow (i like cows) but cow shares were costlier; a share of a goat was a more viable option. over the next day, this whole notion of helping out with a goat kept getting more and more awesome.

"with all the money donated to help fight famine around the world, with all the grandiose plans concerived to cnquer poverty, sometimes all it takes to save a child is a goat."

sheep go to heaven. goats, too.