My family has a saying, “Everyone has different taste buds”. This gets aired quite often. At the supper table. At a restaurant. At the video store. At Wal-mart. You see, the literal meaning is that people like different foods. Very true in my family - my oldest nephew is the pickiest eater I have ever seen. But in a more liberal interpretation, it really just says that people are different. And we should allow them to be that way.

Today, I ate lunch at Subway. Sing along with me, “Five, five dollar foot long…” Ok, so I don’t eat a foot long. I always get the roasted chicken breast. It’s not that I don’t like their other sandwiches because I do. I am not a picky eater and will eat most anything (except for beets, radishes and raw celery). But if I have a regular, I don’t have to decide what to choose. Much quicker! It used to be the chicken with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. But I have been branching out lately. Today’s sandwich had lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, green peppers, olives, oil & vinegar, and mustard.

You know what? It was good. I have been missing out because I was stuck in my own little box. I’m not picky when it comes to food, but I still needed to shake things up.  As I ate my lunch, I started wondering where else have I limited myself.

We have an opportunity to enlarge our worlds. Personally, I have been avoiding the news lately. I can’t take all the pictures of the awfulness that continues to persist in Haiti. When we hear of mass casualties, our brains have a hard time comprehending it. One or two people injured in an accident - I can wrap my mind around that. There are conflicting statistics on the number dead. But once you start adding zeros and get into the hundreds of thousands…I can’t picture that.

Hoare’s Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

I can’t solve the incomprehensible problems in Haiti, but I can tackle some smaller ones. So why don’t all of us get outside of our self-imposed boxes and do something about these problems?

In case you need a little nudge of where you can get started, here are a few of my suggestions:

• Donate to Help for Haiti relief work through Samaritan’s Purse - I have been involved with this organization since 1995 and am friends with some of the employees. They do a great job mobilizing around the globe when they are needed.
• Donate to the Haiti Earthquake Disaster Relief through Compassion International - The number of orphans in Haiti has increased dramatically in the last weeks. The little boy I sponsor through them lives in Kenya, away from this disaster. But there are many others who need help now.
• Stay tuned for updates about the ”Help Haiti Live” Event: Three concerts. Eleven artists. Streamed online at HelpHaitiLive.com. With the proceeds going to Compassion’s work in Haiti. This is going to be big, people!
• Pray without ceasing.
• They don’t need more people in Haiti right now, but things will die down eventually. The eyes of the world will pass by this little county. It won’t be on the nightly news. There is coming a time when they will still need help, and that is when we can put our lives where our money is going. So get ready, they are going to need us. It’s like A.A. Milne says in Winnie-the-Pooh, “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

Since we do have different taste buds, I’m sure you have some other ideas. What else are you going to do to branch out?