Take a risk to make a gain

Just this week, I went to a birthday party for someone from church. Peter, a young, sophisticated Thai was the birthday boy. I saw how you celebrate birthday parties these days. You celebrate with those with you at the party but also with the world through Facebook. Peter directly uploaded photos taken at his party onto his Facebook. That started people from all over the place sending him greeting messages for his birthday. So Peter was able to celebrate with us present and with the rest of his friends and the world through Facebook. Amazing! Now Peter had a spare phone and I needed a new one. So I asked him about it. It is a Motorola smart phone. I have never had one like this before. He gave it to me on trial and will sell it to me if I like it. Anyway, I now have this phone that can do all sorts of things, including receiving my email. I think it is just amazing!! In my innocence, I never thought of the implications of having such a service. Basically, after 24 hours, I thought - who pays for the email service. Then I realised - I do and it costs big money. So I immediately rang Peter and asked how to disconnect from the email component as it was just costing too much. I then immediately disconnected, being left in my naivety with a big phone bill for this month. My take is that when you take on something new, you are also being opened up to new and unknown risks, risks that may cost. However, take no risks and you take on nothing new. So I pay the cost and move on. I apply this same principle to a request that came my way yesterday from an agency working with urban refugees. The request was to share in givng an asylum seeker a loan of money so that he can get a visa for accepting a job in Thailand. This would be a good outcome but the risk is high. Basically, will he repay the loan? In taking a new step in helping these people, you take a risk. If it works, it allows for a new avenue in helping. If it fails, you tried and you just move on.