Those people who are not afraid to risk themselves for the greater good of humanity.
I try my best at this but fail all too often.
Today, I am proud of my eight year old daughter who raised $105 on her own so that the people from the Pokot tribe in Kenya, would have a chance to have clean drinking water.
As parents, this is one of those monumental moments that will forever stick with us and with her. I can’t wait for the day when she is old enough to go visit the people who she was able to impact. I know that she will continue to impact the world, and this is only the beginning.
If you want to join her in this, you can help with one of 12 projects too. CLICK HERE to find out more about Christmas Revolution
You are always proud of your own kids. The moment that you realize that they are making decisions on their own, you can often feel nervous about the decisions that they are making. We have recently been extremely impressed with our kids and what they are doing. We showed them a video from our church where they are challenging people to spend a little less on ourselves this christmas and take that money to give it to those in need.
We shared this video (see it above) and they made their own decisions on where to send some of the money that would normally be spent on them. We were proud of them for their decisions, but they were not done yet. Our middle daughter set a goal to raise more money than just her Christmas money, but to pull in her friends. She has set the goal to raise $200 to give fresh, clean water to the Pokot people of Kenya.
She is collecting money from her friends who want to help, and when they do, she gives them some duct tape bracelets that she made. It is truly awesome to see people rally around her. Her teacher gave her money today and her principle said that she would be helping out too. And of course, her family is jumping on board, but I’d like to ask you all to help her get to her goal. On the right side of this blog you can see a widget that will give you the chance to give. If you can that is awesome, but if you can’t it isn’t a big deal but I always carry the mentality of “you never know unless you ask”.
When is transparency bad? When is transparency incredibly good?
Yesterday at Kensington, I heard Steve Norman teaching about transparency in our lives with God. As we enter into a prayer life with God, are we truly transparent with where we are in life? Now when you really think about it, we shouldn’t have to be transparent with an all knowing God, but I think that the transparency has more to do with us than Him.
Steve took two different types of prayers and unpacked them in a way that struck everyone in the room (and online) in a great way. He said that when we pray we do it in one of two ways.
1. “Dear Jesus, thank you for being awesome. You are great! Can you help me with…..”
2. “God, I’m falling apart and I don’t know what to do. Without you, I am destined for doom”
Granted this is not the word for word re-inactment, but a “gist” of what I took from this teaching, but it sets the scene nicely! We went through Psalm 31:1-24. This passage of scripture is incredible depiction of the second type of prayer. This is a completely transparent view of oneself towards God.
This makes me think about the first step in recovery where you admit that you are powerless. If you can’t admit that you are in a bad spot, have a problem or whatever it is; then are you truly seeing repentance or are you just running through the motions to feel better? So, this begins to beg the question, are you transparent just to feel better or to truly get to the core of your situation (or of who you are or what the problem is?)
Think about that for a while! I am still figuring this out too!
