Giving Money

Sunday night we have a group of young people come to our house for dinner and worship/bible study. last sunday we read about how people in the early church would bring gifts and put them at the feet of the apostles. the pastor had used this passage from Acts to teach that people should give money to their local church. the connection between me and the early church left me feeling a little empty inside. here's why:
like everything else in america, i'm prevented from seeing the entire process. i don't grow my food (except a few herbs and some spinach) - i buy it at the store all ready for me to eat. i don't grow cotton, don't put it through the gin, don't spin it into thread, don't weave cloth, can't sew (not very well, at least) but i wear all kinds of cool clothes. my shoes were made by people i've never met in morocco, and the music i listen to is played by artists i've never seen.
same with the money i give. i hand it over, and i have no idea where it goes. yeah, i can read the church's budget, but again, i'm removed from the actual end result.
i have a feeling that the money the early church laid at the apostle's feet went to feed the widow who lived on the next block - the one you saw every day. you know she was helped by the money you gave because you saw her preparing food the next day after she hadn't eaten in two. the orphans who received some of the clothes you gave sat next to you at the church's dinner, looking much better now they were fully clothed.
i'm not saying we should stop giving to the church. and i certainly don't want to remove the blessing of giving blindly. jesus said our giving should be done in a way that our right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. but i think that's different from just blindly handing over the money to the elders to pay for the machine that is the church. especially when the things the early church used the money for are the things my church designates for its special once-a-month "deacon's offering", which is supposed to be above and beyond any regular giving to the church.
apologies for the long post. i'd love to hear your thoughts on this.