Compassion Fundraiser and Giveaway

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Christmas as the season of repayment. It's a time when we give to those who give to us, and feel good about ourselves for doing it. 

Not this year.

Help a malnourished child - $13

This year I'm challenging myself and others to go beyond the norm and buy gifts (and ask for gifts) that benefit others. A bead bracelet that helps reach out to women in prison in Ecuador, a fabric and burlap bag that helps African widows know God and raise their standard of living--these are the kinds of gifts that go beyond "repayment" and enter into the realm of true sacrifice, helping those who cannot return the favor.

But I'll come out and say what I really, really want to you to do this Christmas: buy something from Compassion International's gift catalog.

Compassion is a ministry I'm passionate about (more about that here), and their catalog is full of amazing gifts that you can buy for people in poverty. Here's a sample:

• Provide Garden Seeds for a Family in Africa - $10
• Give a Christmas Gift to a Mom and Her Baby - $20
• Provide a First-Time HIV Test for a Child - $25
• Give Children Access to Safe and Sanitary Bathrooms - $30 
• Help Develop a Future Leader - $40

My goal is to raise $100 through this blog. That's just 10 readers giving $10 each. And here's the special part:

Care for a baby's medical needs for a year - $55

If all of you raise $100 for Compassion, one of you will win a $10 Amazon.com gift card or $10 worth of merchandise from the Compassion store.   

Giving and receiving. Giving grace, receiving mercy, giving treasures, receiving joy, giving our hearts, receiving Jesus. That is what Christmas should be about.

This works on the honor system, so please do not abuse it. Follow this link to the Compassion Catalog and buy one of the items. Then enter the contest by selecting the amount you have donated (the more you give, the more entries you get). Once we raise $100 I will randomly select a winner and you can choose your prize!

You must live within the continental United States and have a physical address to which your prize can be mailed in order to win the giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you donate, please leave a comment mentioning what you purchased!

The Season of Repayment

What's wrong with that title? Oh yeah, Christmas is the season of giving. Right.

pretty parcels, a photo by shimelle on Flickr.

Tell that to me when I'm trying hard to remember what my friend gave me last year and tallying up how much it must have cost...
or when I'm combing through gifts.com looking for a present I haven't thought of yet...
or when I'm shoving receipts into my empty wallet....

Giving is sometimes the last thing I want to do at Christmastime.

I do love picking out presents for my friends and family, imagining their looks of surprise and excitement, making their day with something completely unexpected. Don't we all? But then there's that niggling concept of repayment.

Some of my friends have a bit of money, others don't. I give gifts to each accordingly and try to balance it out with creative ingenuity. For the last few years my brother has given me a present worth about $20, and I've given him a $20 present.  In essence, we end up spending $20 on ourselves. That's about how it goes with everyone.

"But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men." - Luke 6:35

Artisan Cheese Lust

I've had a problem for a few years, one that I'm not quite proud of. It's time to come clean. 

I lust after artisan cheese.

Whether I'm in a fancy Whole Foods-type market or a Walmart supercenter, my eyes and feet are drawn to the case of cheese. Forget those insipid blocks of Great Value mozzarella—this is the real stuff. 

Fresh, blue, round, soft, goat, herb, gouda, manchego, tallegio, stilton...the list goes on and on. I love looking and touching and examining these cheeses, but never actually purchase one because the prices make me gag. $6.00 for that? So I drool in silence.

40 Days of Solidarity With The Poor

I'm scared to death of posting this, but I'm going ahead anyway. For the next 40 days I will be on a journey. It’s a journey that I've needed to take for a long time, but I've been stubborn and afraid. Now is the time to put all of that behind me and trust in my loving Heavenly Father.

Image from picturesofpoverty.com

Quite a few incidents led me to this decision, which I need to talk about. I’ll start by saying that I’ve discovered what it’s like to ignore something so much that you know it’s something you should pay attention to. For months—years, perhaps—I’ve had a sneaking antagonism toward fasting. If I don’t eat I tend to get weak and headachy, so going without food is a very unpleasant experience, plus who wants to practice that kind of self-denial for any period of time? Nevertheless, I kept coming up against fasting in the Bible, in conversation, on the covers of books, in sermons, etc. The more I heard and saw it mentioned the more I gritted my teeth and reiterated all of my objections. It’s an outdated practice. It’s not healthy. I don’t need that. What it really came down to was that I didn’t have the necessary self-control.   

Poverty: Finding the Key

When I found out that I had to give a persuasive speech for my college speech class, I knew almost immediately what the topic would be. 

Perhaps you've read what I've written in the past about the nonprofit organization Compassion International (I recently posted a review of a book written by the CEO, Dr. Wess Stafford), and you know that I am an advocate for children living in poverty. I decided to create a presentation that shows how Compassion's child sponsorship program is changing the world by rescuing children from poverty!

What do you think? Is poverty something that we should all be fighting against? Is child sponsorship really the best way? 

Book Review: Too Small to Ignore

There are some books that hit you squarely between the eyes, revealing things you never knew and cannot imagine that you didn’t think of. What Dr. Wess Stafford lays out in his book, Too Small to Ignore, is a revolutionary approach to poverty and Christian missions that brought my attention to matters I had never considered before, and encouraged me in my own work as an advocate for children in poverty.

As the leader of Compassion International, Dr. Stafford has seen his share of poverty, but it all began when he was still a child growing up in an African village as the son of two missionaries. This is where he first learned about the ugliness of poverty and the beauty of the poor, and he has dedicated his life to saving the lives of others who might otherwise find their potential wrecked upon the hopelessness of poverty. Part memoir, part call to action, Too Small is a book meant to change your mind about children.

Tee Shirts Save Lives

You have a disease caused by a parasite. 10-15 days after you're infected, you begin to feel feverish; you have headaches, you vomit. The parasites have developed resistance to a number of medicines, and if not treated the disease will disrupt the blood supply to your vital organs. You can die from this, easily. You and 655, 000 other people in 2010 alone. If you survive, you're one of the lucky ones.  

The disease is called malaria.


And we can prevent it.



For the next three days (and 23 hours, 48 minutes, and 03 seconds) Sevenly.org will be selling an awesome shirt (men's and women's, in a variety of styles) for $22-$27, with $7 of every purchase going to buy an insecticide-treated mosquito net that will be hung over the bed of a child in Rwanda to protect her from deadly malaria-causing insects.


You could go to www.Compassion.com and give directly to the cause of fighting malaria, but this way you get an awesome shirt to help spread the word! The perfect solution is to follow this link to sponsor a child from Rwanda and you'll get one of these shirts for free. Sponsoring a child is an awesome way to share the love of Christ with someone who desperately needs it. 

BITE BACK and save a child's life. I did.