If anyone needs me in the next few weeks, I shall be cavorting among the Hawaiian and Marshall Islands.
Be back the end of October. See ya on the flip side…
More numbers
15,000,000: The number of children who will die from starvation this year.
160,000,000: The number of children under 5 who suffer from malnutrition.
1 out of 6: The number of elderly in the United States who don’t get enough to eat.
1/2: Of all children under the age of 5 in South Asia who suffer from malnutrition.
70%: Of all starving people are children.
$0.15: The amount of money it takes to feed a starving child one meal.
10,000,000: The number of people 1.5 million dollars could feed.
statistics
What does $700,000 buy?
It depends on who you are.
If you’re a college, it will build 1/3 of a new chapel.
If you’re a church, it will buy ½ of a large, state-of-the-arc organ.
If you’re a radio station, it will buy the construction permits for 2 new stations.
If you’re a businessman, it will hire an average of 14 new employees.
$700,000 will expand the borders and increase revenue, just like Jabez prayed.
What is $700,000 worth?
It depends on who you are.
If you’re a child with no sneakers, it will buy 35,000 pairs.
If you’re a child who will only get breakfast at school, it will buy 560,000 breakfasts.
If you’re a child who needs tutoring, snacks, and a safe environment after school, it will pay for 16 fully funded after school programs.
If you’re a poor child in a foreign country, it will pay for you and 1,821 of your peers to be sponsored through Compassion International for a year.
If you’re a poverty-stricken child in rural Appalachia, inner city America, or living on an American Indian reservation, it will pay for you and 2,082 children like you to be sponsored for a year through Save the Children, Inc.
If you’re a parent who doesn’t know how you will buy presents, Christmas dinner, and the heat bill, it will help your family and 9,332 others.
If you’re a child without adult role models, a safe place to hang out, and a place to learn life skills, it will pay for 5 fully funded and staffed youth centers.
If you’re a child who can’t afford school supplies, it will pay for 14,000 backpacks, notebooks, packs of pencils, rulers, calculators, and other essentials.
$700,000 will feed the hungry, comfort the sick, and help the poor, just like Jesus commanded.
Let’s discuss right vs. wrong today, as it appears that a number of people have forgotten the difference. So here’s the skinny. Right is when you put others ahead of yourself. Right is when you ask for money nicely, without lying. Right is when you use the money that people donate to you wisely, showing good stewardship and frugality. Right is treating other people respectfully and lovingly, regardless of whether they are as pretty, intelligent, wealthy, succesful, or professional as you. Here is wrong: I hope I’m right in the front lines for it.
And so.
Wrong is when you choose results over people. Wrong is when you choose image and neglect lives. Wrong is choosing beautiful, grandiose buildings over helping kids in need. Wrong is pushing a small, unprofessional radio station out of the way so you can have yet another(and uneeded) translator. Wrong is promising mentorship to a small college radio station, and then making sure they are not on the air because they interfere with your new station.
Chris Stanley was not far off the mark with his last Xanga entry blasting Houghton College. Yes, the administration did lie to us, did misspend our money, did misrepresent what they’re doing with it. And sooner or later, people are going to realize what is going on, and they will have had enough.
I love this poster.
The single, solitary pawn, moving away from safety in order to win something worthwhile. You know what’s going to happen, if you’re at all familiar with chess. The pawn is going to be captured. It is going to be taken out of competition, left out far away from the playing field, removed from home, security, friends.
But the king is going to be saved.
When checkmate is called, this little pawn is going to be on the sidelines, watching from afar, knowing that it was her sacrifice that enabled the game to be won. She left, sacrificed herself, was taken captive and imprisoned, only to silently turn and watch the king win.
I hope she whispers the words I would do it all over again.
Tonight, at 10 p.m., NBC is unveiling it’s latest sitcom, the much-heralded Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
(Yet another example, emails the always-ever-knowing-what-I-should-do Jason, of why it pays to be nice to people. Not that you’d know.
Dance with the one that brung ya, I emailed back.
And then made a list of people I should be nice too in order to advance my career. Most of them are my enemies now.)
I hope everyone’s watching it tonight. Call me afterward and tell me what you thought.
Sometimes I think there must be a limit on the bad things that can happen to one person in her lifetime, and that I have to be pretty close to the limit.
Regular eye appointment today; I needed new contacts and it had been a year.
Discovered I am now legally blind in my left eye. Corrected it is slightly better, but not much. Right eye has worsened, but not as dramatically. Tests showed that the tumor on my pituitary gland is growing rapidly and is pressing on the optic nerves, thus decreasing my eyesight. If it continues to get bigger, and it isn’t removed, I’ll go blind.
Two days ago they did bloodwork on my thyroid and I should hear back soon. Evidence seems to be suggesting that the tumor on that lovely gland is growing as well…meaning the medications aren’t working.
Thus back to the surgeon I go.
Yes, to all my friends who are calling and leaving irate messages on my cell phone about how I have fallen off the face of the planet, I have.
I’m sorry. I’m working sixty hours a week plus trying to finish up the last three weeks of school before I leave. It’s a madhouse, and I’ve retreated socially. Check back October 2nd, and we shall all be friends again.
~~~~
I heard this song yesterday….not well known, it was mostly released over the internet. But it said a lot to me, and maybe it will say a lot to you, too…(by Chely Wright)
I’ve got a bright red sticker on the back of my car,
Says: “United States Marines.”
An’ yesterday a lady in a mini-van,
Held up her middle finger at me.
Does she think she knows what I stand for,
Or the things that I believe?
Just by looking at a sticker for the US Marines,
On the bumper of my S.U.V.
See, my brother Chris, he’s been in,
For more than 14 years now.
Our Dad was in the Navy during Vietnam,
Did his duty, then he got out.
And my Grandpa earned his Purple Heart,
On the beach of Normandy.
That’s why I’ve got a sticker for the US Marines,
On the bumper of my S.U.V.
But that doesn’t mean that I want war:
I’m not Republican or Democrat.
But I’ve gone all around this crazy world,
Just to try to better understand.
An’ yes, I do have questions:
I get to ask them because I’m free.
That’s why I’ve got a sticker for the US Marines,
On the bumper of my S.U.V.
‘Cause I’ve been to Hiroshima,
An’ I’ve been to the DMZ.
I’ve walked on the sand in Baghdad,
Still don’t have all of the answers I need.
But I guess I wanna know where she’s been,
Before she judges and gestures to me,
‘Cause she don’t like my sticker for the US Marines,
On the bumper of my S.U.V.
So I hope that lady in her mini-van,
Turns on her radio and hears this from me.
As she picks up her kids,
From their private school,
An’ drives home safely on our city streets.
Or to the building where her church group meets:
Yeah, that’s why I’ve got a sticker for the US Marines,
On the bumper of my S.U.V
It has come to my attention that the “Dove shoot” is being held just a few houses down from my aunt and uncle’s in South Carolina. Apparently, they live in an area where people shoot birds that symbolize peace.
Especially Republican people shoot birds that symbolize peace.
Hmmm.
(Erica, do you think this is for real? Are they actually going to shoot birds? What kind of people shoot doves?)
In other news, please check out the MP3s of “Real Men of Jesus,” presented by the one and only Righteous Insanity Productions.
You might have to click on it to see it properly. Wow. And I thought my town was weird.
(Thanks to the always observant Dan Perrine for this)
Sara 