#38 "sponsor a child through World Vision"

When I originally wrote this on the list, I had written, "Sponsor a child through Compassion International," however, through the Hole in Our Gospel study that we're continuing at my church, I've had the opportunity to learn a great deal about World Vision since the book The Hole in Our Gospel is written by the president of World Vision, Rich Stearns.

I knew this was something that I'd want to do when I got a stable income, and since I have been substitute teaching every day since the beginning of this semester, I figured it was time!  All last week I looked on the World Vision website for a child to sponsor. Since I had taken a mission trip to Valencia, Venezuela in high school, I had hoped to be able to sponsor a child from the same country, but apparently World Vision is not currently active in Venezuela.  This isn't too surprising considering the political state of affairs down there, however it made me sad because I was able to witness first hand the poverty and devastation there and wanted to do something to make a difference.

Instead, I searched on the World Vision website through various other South American countries all week, looking for the child that I was supposed to sponsor. I didn't find him on the website, but I basically wanted to bring every single child I saw home with me and could quickly see myself becoming a MUCH classier version of Angelina Jolie (ha ha).

Anyways, at church on Sunday (3/27/11), we had representatives from World Vision come and bring hundreds of pictures of children that needed sponsors, and there were people all over the Atrium of the church digging through these stacks.  I felt sort of awkward about it because it seemed weird to be picking and choosing these kids based on a photo, however, I quickly snatched a stack of cards from El Salvador and began flipping through them. It was pretty overwhelming to see all those kids, and honestly made me feel a little helpless...like "what's me picking ONE child going to do for all these other ones?" As I continued to flip through the stack of El Salvador photos, one little face kept pulling at me, so I "claimed" him and brought his picture home! I don't know how much is okay to say about him online but he is the cutest little four-year-old I've basically ever seen. I'm so excited to begin this relationship and to get to help him attend school and help his village get clean drinking water, and a whole host of other things you can read about here.

If you've been considering sponsoring a child, I would definitely recommend going through World Vision because I feel that it is one of the more trustworthy organizations out there. If you want to do more of a one-time donation, they have many opportunities for those as well.  Some are listed here along the left sidebar. 

Probably my favorite thing about sponsorship is that you get to form a relationship with the child and can send him letters and packages...since his description says he loves to play with toy cars, I've already gotten Hot Wheels and Disney's "Cars" stickers to send the minute I get an address to the El Salvador World Vision office!  I am so excited to begin this process and am looking forward to getting my sponsorship kit in the mail in a few weeks!

#35 "create a bag of nonperishable foods to keep in the car and give out to someone in need"

I've had this idea in my head for a long time, and I really should have done it much sooner because every time I pass someone holding a cardboard sign or pushing a cart with what looks like all their belongings inside I mentally kick myself for being so unprepared.  While I know this won't "cure" homelessness, it is something that I hope can be encouraging and helpful to at least one person I have the opportunity of meeting. 

The contents of the bag are as follows, along with the prices I paid to show just how simple and inexpensive it was to complete this project:

• 2 cans of tuna fish (Protein) $1
• 2 cans of sardines (Protein) $1
• 1 can opener $1
• Mandarin oranges (Vitamin C) $1
• Spoon $.50
• Liter bottle of water $.89
• Toothbrush, toothpaste, and holder $1
• Washcloth $.50
• Bar of Dial soap $.50
• Rain poncho $1
• Bible $1
• Playing Cards $.50 (my apologies to all the devout Southern Baptists for putting the playing cards on top of the Bible. Oops.)
• Wal-mart "green" bag $1

Total: $10.89 


I did most of my shopping at the Dollar Tree, and found many things packaged in sets of two. 

I know some of the food stuff seems disgusting, but it has many nutrients that most impoverished people don't get enough of.  As far as cost-effectiveness and nutritional value, those food items really are the best option. 

I am praying for an opportunity to be able to help someone with one of the bags soon!

#68 "...3 Charleston things..." Part 1

On Saturday, March 26, 2011, Andrew and I headed out to Wadmalaw Island to view the only place in the United States where tea is grown.  On the way there, Andrew's truck, Betsy Rose, reached 90,000 miles, and he had to basically stop in the middle of a 55 MPH highway so I could take this picture:

Betsy Rose, and the picture that almost got us killed!

Factory and Gift Shop

Once you enter the tea plantation, you can see all sorts of varieties of tea plants growing.

 

We took a 40 minute trolley tour of the plantation. Our guide, John Kennedy (ha) gave us a lot of interesting information about the plantation, which has been around since 1967 when the Cold War frightened the Lipton Company that they may not be able to import tea from the third world countries like it usually did.  In 1987, Lipton sold the plantation to two business partners, one of whom still owns the plantation today, and narrated our little tour over a CD.

 

 We then took a 15 minute walking tour of the factory. Since tea season hasn't started for the year yet, the factory wasn't functioning, so I imagine it would be a little more interesting if there were actually tea leaves being processed, however, the video tour reminded me of something from Mr. Rogers's Neighborhood when they toured a crayon factory. 

We had a lot of fun, and I can't wait to go back in November to see the tea plants in bloom!

Me with my free sample of raspberry iced tea, grown and brewed right here!

#6 "join and participate in a small group regularly"

Two Sundays ago, our church embarked on what I anticipate being a life-altering experience for everyone who completes it.  The study we are doing is called "The Hole in Our Gospel" and is based around a book written by Rich Stearns, who is the president of World Vision.  The study focuses on what he percieves as the "missing piece" in Christianity today, or what he calls The Hole.  This Hole is something that is mentioned in the Bible literally THOUSANDS of times and yet most churches ignore it completely or throw some money at it every now and again to check that box off the list.  That Hole (or the brief, blog-length version of it) is the poverty and injustice existing in our world today that we aren't trying hard enough to combat.

I am so unbelievably excited about this...our church gave out copies of the book two weeks ago, and I was so into it that night that I had to force myself to go to sleep at 1 AM because I couldn't put the book down.  This Sunday was the first night of a"young singles/college aged...whatever else you can call us" group at my house.  After completing the first session I am just so blown away that I never saw Jesus's ministry to the poor in terms of something we should be doing...and I think most churches have missed this important fact as well.

Churches today often have an inward focus...sure we try to bring people into church, but that seems like a competition sometimes, so when preachers go off to their yearly conferences they can boast the most members or the greatest number of converts or whatever.  Churches tend to focus mostly on discipling their members, offering new Bible studies and having more workers for the nursery, but when it all boils down, what good are those things accomplishing? There's nothing wrong with Bible studies or nurseries or church fellowships or spaghetti dinners, but there is something wrong if that's ALL we do as a church. The church has a whole other purpose, one that Jesus modeled during his earthly ministry, and that we are quick to ignore. 

Jesus didn't do his ministry from a church home-base.  He traveled around. He healed, He fed, He preached, but mostly, He accepted.  He ate with the poor and the sinners, and society's underdogs. The people that everyone else overlooked or even looked down upon.  And its fine for us to read those stories and discuss them in church, but our response seems to be just to throw some money at the hungry or the homeless, pat ourselves on the back for how much we raised, and go on with our comfy lives without ever being affected. I think until we wrap our minds around the fact that not only did Jesus help the hurting, but he commanded us to do the same, we're going to be missing an important piece of God's plan for us, and we're being disobedient as well. Throwing money at the poor in Africa is not going to fix the AIDS pandemic.  Its going to take education and medical care, and people going over there, loving them, and saying "there's a way to live differently."  Its going to take us getting up out of our comfortable homes and spending time with people who are different from us and getting really uncomfortable, but it will have a lasting effect on the world that will last long after we're gone from it.

I am so excited to see where this study and new understanding of scripture are going to lead both me and the church as a whole. I can't wait for session 2!

#94 "stick to Weight Watchers for one month"

Since graduating from high school, I have gained a total of 40 pounds.  I haven't been satisfied with the way I look since probably my sophomore year of college, and I finally decided it was time to do something about it!  After two unsuccessful attempts at doing the old Weight Watchers system, I've finally seen some success with the new PointsPlus system they just unveiled this year. Within one month of sticking to the program (plus exercising every day) I've lost a total of 11 pounds! I couldn't be more excited to be able to fit into clothes I haven't worn in so long and to finally feel good about wearing shorts this summer. While I still have a little more to lose before I reach my goal, I feel like this has gotten me off to a great start and I am excited to see the pounds continue to fall off as I keep sticking to the program.

And, by the way, since I am super cheap and have yet to accomplish goal #13 (getting a real job), I didn't actually pay the money to join Weight Watchers and get all the "equipment". I paid $1.99 to download the PointsPlus calculator onto my iPod touch, and just went from there!