Days 3 and 4

And the Holiday Charity List continues!

Day 3: Wellspring International 

Wellspring International is an arm of Ravi Zacharias' ministry. Ravi Zacharias is one of my very favorite people, and I have greatly benefited from his extensive body of speeches, podcasts, and books. He is an apologist, scholar, and author whom I have great respect for. I will be posting about the parent organization for Wellspring, RZIM, later in the month.

Their Mission: From the Wellspring International website, "Wellspring International was established in 2004 by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). A humanitarian arm of the organization, Wellspring International is an extension of the central focus of RZIM, where we live out what we preach and defend. Through a process of due diligence, the vision of Wellspring is to identify and financially equip existing organizations aiding women and children at risk, as well as to provide individual scholarships to support education, healthcare, and basic living needs." Wellspring provides aid to organizations in Cambodia, India, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, South Africa, Syria, the Netherlands, and Zimbabwe.

What you can do: Donate money and host fundraisers through races, fashion shows, and whatever other means your creativity can come up with. The website provides ideas, resources, and support for starting your own fundraising campaign. You can research their various projects to make a decision on where you would like your funds to go, or you can just select "General Fund" to send your money wherever it is needed the most.

Day 4: Good Samaritan Mission

Good Samaritan Mission is another ministry that is very dear to me. Two of the directors are very dear friends of mine, and I have had the privilege of working for and with this mission in the past. I love their vision, and the fact that it is a local ministry that has a profound and beautiful impact on my community makes me have all the more affection for it.

Their mission: From their website, "The Good Samaritan Mission, Inc. is a charitable, not for profit, 501 (c) (3) Christian ministry. The Mission is dedicated to a holistic approach to enhancing the spiritual, emotional/psychological and physical quality of life of farm workers and others living in poverty. [...] Everything that we do is inspired by our love for Jesus, and is financed by private donations from friends like you." This Mission hosts a food pantry once a week, a clothes closet, a Spanish-speaking church service, after-school program, Bible studies, health and wellness resources, and a social worker to help people get the help they need. The Mission is constantly changing and adapting to the needs of the community, so please visit their website to see what new and exciting things they are up to.

What you can do: Donate, volunteer, give clothes, food, furniture, and whatever other resources you feel could be of value here. It would also be good to raise funds and awareness in your church or community. The Mission is tucked away in a little town in Florida, so the more people know about it, the more help they can give and receive. I know that they are low on many food items right now, specifically rice. Please consider making this mission a regular part of your giving this holiday season and in the coming year.

Days 1 and 2

If you have read this post, you know that I am promoting 24 different charities and non-profits between December 1 and Christmas Eve in order to encourage you to donate money instead of giving a lot of gifts this Holiday Season. I have to play a little catch-up today because I've been promoting them on my Facebook, but I haven't posted about them here yet, so here we go.

Day 1: Gospel for Asia

Gospel for Asia is by far the closest organization to Adam's and my heart. The mission of K.P. Yohannan, the founder of GFA, was singularly the strongest influence in our lifestyle decisions before and after we married. If you want your world to change, read Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan. (Found at the GFA Bookstore on their website).

Their Mission: From their website, "Our mission in life is to be devout followers of Christ and to fulfill the Great Commission among the unreached in Asia through training, sending out and assisting qualified laborers in partnership with the Body of Christ." GFA has Bible colleges that train native missionaries to teach their own people about the Gospel of Christ, which they can do for between $180-210 a month, as opposed to the $50,000 a year it costs to send a Westerner into the same regions.

They also provide valuable resources to the people in those areas, such as animals for food and profit, bicycles for the native missionaries, and church buildings, among other necessities. They can also build "Jesus Wells," which provide fresh water to the impoverished who are many times extorted by their leadership before they can have access to safe drinking water. 

What you can do: DONATE! You can give a specific amount to buy chickens, goats, Bibles, winter clothes, blankets and many other necessities to missionaries and the people they are reaching. You can also choose to sponsor a missionary for $30 a month, or just give any amount to their "Where Most Needed" option. They have made all of this extremely easy by creating a Christmas Catalog for you convenience.

Day 2: International Justice Mission

Their Mission: From their website: "International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that brings rescue to victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local officials to secure immediate victim rescue and aftercare, to prosecute perpetrators and to ensure that public justice systems - police, courts and laws - effectively protect the poor." 

"More children, women and men are held in slavery right now than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade: Millions toil in bondage, their work and even their bodies the property of an owner.
Trafficking in humans generates profits in excess of 32 billion dollars a year for those who, by force and deception, sell human lives into slavery and sexual bondage. Nearly 2 million children are exploited in the commercial sex industry. The AIDS pandemic continues to rage, and the oppression of trafficking victims in the global sex trade contributes to the disease's spread.In many countries around the world, pedophiles find that they can abuse children with impunity." 

What you can do: Donate, Volunteer, Campaign, etc. There are many, many ways you can get involved in this effort to end slavery world-wide. Human trafficking is despicable, and I pray that we can be a generation that is known for fighting it, and fighting it hard. 

24 Days: I have made a holiday decision.

What if, when someone asked you 'what you want for Christmas,' you asked for a donation in your name to a charity? What if you made an agreement with your family and friends to exchange donations in each others' honor instead of trying to 'come up with something' to ask for? What if you made a donation in the memory of a family member or friend whom you've lost?

We have a lot of thingies. We pile them in our garages and attics and closets and bag them up to get rid of them every few years to make room for more thingies. Instead of giving piles of toys and clothes and doo-dads to people who already have everything, we should really be spending a lot of that money on people who are hurting, starving, or oppressed this year.

For this reason, I'm going to promote some of my favorite ministries, missions, and non-profit organizations on my Facebook and this blog everyday from now to Christmas Eve and make it my mission to encourage people to set aside at least some of their Christmas excess for those who are in desperate need. I'll post the missions and non-profits on Facebook and offer more detailed promotions on this blog.

You don't have to choose to support anything that I post (although I would love it if you would), but I do challenge you to find something dear to your heart that you can promote with your wallet as well as with your words. Please don't think of 'being charitable' as optional. Think instead that this is our duty as one of the wealthiest societies in the world, and, for Christians, this is especially applicable. If you call yourself a follower of Christ, I urge you to put your money where your mouth is.

This doesn't mean you can't give your family members anything. Make something for them and wrap it and give it as a gesture of love. Spend time together. Start a new tradition. Cook and eat together. Build holiday memories that can bring your family or your home closer together.  

I'm not saying anything you won't find in every Christmas movie ever. 

So, really, people. Let's be serious about this.
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Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;  for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. [...] No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Matthew 6:19-24 (NASB)
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Humbug

The holidays are upon us. You know what that means - cookies, weight gain, lights, and the monstrous cancer of unresolved family drama bubbling back up to the surface of our repressed, oh-so-very repressed, psyches.

Fa la la la... ah, whatever.

I was reading this article about Andy Stanley and his father, Charles Stanley. I had no idea who these people were before reading the article, but apparently they are Southern Baptist giants of one kind or another. Basically, the father was a big Baptist preacher, and his son looked like he was going to follow in his footsteps. After a divorce that caused an earthquake of controversy in their church, the father felt like his son was not being supportive of him, so the father responded by being combative in a passive-aggressive, work-his-personal-problems-into-his-sermons kind of way. The son wound up leaving the church and starting his own, and their relationship was wounded for years.

It saddened me that, first, they were both so childish. Neither of them would talk to the other and explain himself. It was also sad that this had to be performed in such a public way, with the whole church looking on.

I was impressed that, later in the article, the father and son began to meet each other for meals. They were both extremely uncomfortable (the article calls the meetings 'excruciating'), but they kept meeting for them anyway and forcing themselves to talk to one another. They did this regularly, almost religiously, until they began to have a relationship again and find the love they used to have for one another.

Family drama, especially from the outside, looks petty and unnecessary, but from the inside, it's incredibly real, painful, and cosmic in its significance. No one can hurt you like your family. No one knows all your tender places, all your weakest points, like the people whom you have grown up with or lived with. From the outside, people think, 'Oh my gosh, just talk to one another,' or, 'Um... you guys are saying, like, the same thing,' or, 'Does that really matter that much to you?'

People are walking away from their marriages, from their siblings, from their children, and from their parents, and ripping holes in themselves that are so very, very hard to mend.

I guess that, in all this diatribe, I'm trying to say, 'Talk to your family members. Get in the habit of good communication. Then, the holidays won't be so awful, because you have good habits. Call your parents. Call your brother or sister or son or daughter or aunt or cousin or spouse or meet them for an excruciating meal and just talk*. Take the high road. Listen to each other. Forgive each other. Go to therapy, if you have to. This is not how you want to live your life. The weight of this will sink your heart, and the holidays will remain dark, dark times, growing darker every year until that year when, finally, someone has died and you can't fix it anymore.'

I pray everyday that we protect this little unit with unbridled aggression

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*Disclaimer: if you are a victim of violent abuse, please don't contact whoever that is. You should probably be in a controlled environment, like a therapy session, before you ever get in contact with that person directly. I'm talking about relational issues, not violent crimes. I have many friends for whom this is the case, and I don't want my statements to be misleading or dangerous for them (hahaha, I flatter myself that anyone takes my advice... but seriously, don't do anything dangerous).

Maybe I'm Crazy

So, the first three nights of Elijah in his own room have gone pretty well, but something happened last night that really unnerved me.

I have his baby monitor on my nightstand so that I can hear him cry when he wakes up to eat. He woke up at 1:00, and I woke up when I heard him cry on the monitor. I went into his room and fed him, then went back to bed and right back to sleep.

At 3:30, I heard him crying in the other room, only more loudly and urgently than before. I looked at the monitor and it wasn't showing that he was crying, so I wondered as I rushed to his room if maybe I had switched the channels by accident and maybe it wasn't picking up his signal. After I burst into his room, I stopped short because he had suddenly stopped crying as soon as I opened his door. I tip-toed to his bed to see that he was completely sound asleep.

I had imagined the whole thing. He was never crying, which was why the monitor 'wasn't working.' When he woke up to  eat at 4:30, it was on the monitor just like usual.

Now I'm wondering if I have lost my mind.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I moved Elijah to his own room last night. I missed him pretty badly for the first ten minutes, but then I fell asleep.

Thus we begin adventures in sleep-training. We're off to a good start. I think last night was the best night's sleep I've had since he came home from the hospital. He only woke up twice, which is a huge improvement over 5 times the night before.

I have decided the 'cry it out' method is simply not for me. There are ways that don't traumatize me. I don't know what effect such a method has on the baby, maybe nothing long term, but I know that crying alone cannot be pleasant, even if it doesn't have some kind of long-term psychological impression. I have been told to read this book, so I'm going to give it a try. It looks like exactly what I want.

All that to say, I am venturing into a new phase of parenting, and I'm kind of excited (mostly at the prospect of actually getting some sleep).

We had the most incredible vacation with Adam's family. Adam sorely needed a break, and I got to hone my Halo skills, so it was a great deal all around :-) Now I have SO MUCH work to get done this week, so I'm gonna get off Blogspot and go do some of it.

105 - A Song of Thanksgiving

From March 27 to July 10 was 105 days that Elijah spent in the hospital before coming home healthy.

This year, I have a lot of things to be thankful for, but 105 stand out.


I am thankful for:
The car that drove me to the hospital 105 times.
The nurses who gave me 105 progress reports.
The hospital that gave me 105 meal trays.
The body that pumped milk for 105 days.
The baby who won 105 battles.
The husband who held me for 105 meltdowns.
The God who answered 105 prayers.

Yes, I have a lot of things to be thankful for, but 105 stand out.