hope

Wrapping up this month on missions, I hope there was something for everybody. The one thing I took away from my mission trip was the importance of hope. Hope is what keeps you going when things might be momentarily hard. Hope gives you the strength to try one more time. One moment that stands out to me was our last day in New York. We went to a park that afternoon and set up tables to give away water, sandwiches, chips and donated clothes. It was an area the Dream Center hadn’t done a lot of outreaches in but they wanted to. Shortly before we left, we had sidewalk chalk and got to work leaving our mark. I remember pausing at one point and watching the others. Some were drawing flowers and writing “we <3 NY” and other fun things. At the entrance to the park, one of the leaders had written “keep dreaming” and intersected the words “love” and “hope” to make a cross. One of the girls was drawing with two little girls who had walked up while some of our other students were playing with kids on the playground. It was one of those moments that you want to never forget. The picture for this post is the heart I made that day. This trip definitely left an impact on me. I don’t want to be too busy to love others. I want to love without expecting anything in return. Mission trips wake you up and make it hard to go back to how things were before. And I think that’s how it should be. 

saturday spotlight: blood:water mission

I think I first heard about Blood:Water Mission through Relevant magazine. I knew their goal was to provide clean water for those in Africa but that was the extent of my knowledge. But then I looked at their website and watched a video from the founder and oh my gosh, I could feel myself filling with the same hope they provide through clean water. The original goal was to give 1000 communities clean water. They said 1000 because they knew it would be all God's doing when they reached that number. And they have. It's been seven years since they first started and it's amazing what they've accomplished! They're giving hope and that's something we all need.

soles4souls

Soles4Souls came about when Wayne Elsey saw the devastation of the tsunami that hit Asia in 2004. He says he felt God telling him to do something about it. So he made some phone calls and 250,000 pairs of shoes were sent to those who had lost so much. And that's how it all started. The goal? To change the world, one pair of shoes at a time. Through the site you can find out how to host a shoe drive, donate money, go with Soles4Souls as they deliver shoes and watch a video about the organization. 

"radical" by david platt

Radical is a book to challenge you. It's about moving away from comfortable Christianity and being stretched - my goal for the recent mission trip I went on. "In our quest for the extraordinary, we often overlook the importance of the ordinary, and I'm proposing that a radical lifestyle actually begins with an extraordinary commitment to ordinary practices that have marked Christians who have affected the world throughout history" (pg. 193).

I read Radical last year. It stirred me up and made me want to do more than just go about life as usual. It's a book to read more than once. You can learn more about the book as well as download banners for the book and and chapter resources for the book. 

saturday spotlight: reject apathy

Relevant is one of my favorite magazines. And it's from Relevant that Reject Apathy came to be. "At RELEVANT, we’ve recognized the movement of a generation restless to change the world. A generation anxious to use the abundance God has blessed them with to be a blessing to others. RejectApathy.com was borne out of that desire—a desire to live out true compassion and to embrace justice the right way. Reject Apathy is a voice for the movement—a place where like-minded world-changers can connect, dialogue and challenge one another as we work to affect change locally and globally" (source).

I'm not super familiar with the site but there's all kinds of resources and links. You can also look at the current magazine issue of Reject Apathy.

hot bread kitchen

"Hot Bread Kitchen preserves bread baking traditions from around the world while creating professional opportunities for foreign born and minority women." These words are on the back of their business card. While on my recent mission trip, a friend and I stopped by a tent Hot Bread Kitchen had set up along with other vendors in Union Square. Hearing the story behind the business - that they invest their profit into those who make the bread - was exciting for us because we felt we had something in common since we were there to help people as well. We were even more excited to find out we could order from their website after returning home :)

"crazy love" by francis chan

"Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn't working harder at a list of do's and don'ts - it's falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis describes it, you will never be the same. Because when you're wildly in love with someone, it changes everything."

I read this a few years ago and really liked it. It was before I started highlighting in books so I can't quote some great lines that stood out to me. It's one of those books I plan on reading again as well as reading more of Chan's work. In preparing for this post, I watched a video of him talking about one of his other books and there's a genuineness about him that is reflected in his writing. You can go to the Crazy Love site to learn more about the book as well as his other books.