A COMPASSIONATE HEART, REACHING OUT: January 2012

1.24.2012

{Break my Heart til it Moves my Hands & Feet}

I’ve been restless on the inside
wondering about this heart of mine
I’ve been desperately trying to find
a way to prove that I’m still alive
Has the love I speak so loudly of
quietly grown cold

Is my life been an empty voice
what I sing needs to be seen
I need to step out and make the choice
to let go of everything

Would you reignite this heart spark here in the dark

Bring your love to life inside of me
Why don’t you break my heart ’til it moves my hands and feet

For the hopeless and the broken
for the ones that don’t know that you love them
Bring your love to life inside of me

The generation you’re calling out
living everything we sing about
The revelation right here and now
love beyond the shadow of the doubt
Love that is greater than our own
won’t remain unknown

When you bring your love to life inside of me
Why don’t you break my heart ’til it moves my hands and feet

For the hopeless and the broken
for the ones that don’t know that you love them
Bring your love to life inside of me

love to come life
love to come life
bring love to life inside me

Bring your love to life inside of me
Why don’t you break my heart ’til it moves my hands and feet

Forthe hopeless and the broken
for the ones that don’t know that you love them
Bring your love to life inside of me

Bring your love to life inside of me
Why don’t you break my heart ’til it moves my hands and feet

For the hopeless and the broken
for the ones that don’t know that you love them
Bring your love to life inside of me

love to come life
love to come life
bring love to life inside me

The phrase {break my heart, til it moves my hands and feet} has really impacted me lately. That's my prayer right now!

1.23.2012

The Daily Good

I don't know how I came about these emails, The Daily Good but I'm sure glad I did. Everyday {hence The DAILY Good} I get an email from this "organization" about one-good-thing-a-day. In a world that can be so depressing and sad, it is wonderful to hear good and positive things.

I love finding organizations that are incorporating products and/or services with helping those less fortunate. Probably the first one that comes to mind is Toms Shoes. The company is FABULOUS! {I'm actually wearing a TOMS sweatshirt right now. To be honest I have worn it about EVERYDAY since I got it-a week and a half ago. It's just so soft and cozy.} If you aren't aware of TOMS, it is a one-for-one organization. It started with shoes. For every shoe that was purchased, another shoe was given to someone in need. The company has grown like crazy and has now branched out to helping those who need glasses or eye-surgery.

In one of my Daily Good emails, another company was mentioned, Sevenly. A very simple idea; every week Sevenly works with an organization/charity and designs a shirt for that charity. The t-shirts are $22 and the hoodies are $35 and $7 of that money goes to that weeks charity. Sevenly wants to raise capital and awareness of the world's greatest causes. Last week was autism and this week it is clothing for the children of Bolivia through the organization Clothes4Souls. I have a deep passion for the less fortunate across the ocean, so I bought a hoodie this week=) Sevenly's goal for the children of Bolovia is $5600 or 800 t-shirts/sweatshirts sold. Can you help make it happen this week?!

I highly recommend checking out TOMS Shoes and Sevenly if you are interested in making your purchases count for something!

1.22.2012

January: Thailand and Malaria

A couple months ago I went and saw a movie called 58: The Film. 58 is a global initiative to end extreme poverty by living out Isaiah 58.

The Church will end extreme poverty is a clip that is very interesting and shows that progress is happening and ending poverty is within our reach.

This month 58: Global Impact Tour is focusing on Thailand and malaria. Malaria is a preventable, treatable disease and yet a child dies of malaria every 30 SECONDS! This can happen when malaria is not treated, as cerebral malaria can develop in just two days. Once this happens, a child may slip into a coma and eventually die. With some financial help and some education on malaria and mosquito nets, families in poverty can deal with this potentially fatal disease. All they need is a little compassion and a little help.

Thailand Population: 69,122,234

At Risk of Malaria: 32,000,000

Living in Poverty: 5,600,000

Malaria is the world's leading killer among infectious diseases in many developing countries, including Thailand. Compassion intervenes by providing households at risk with treated mosquito nets, educating family members on malaria prevention, and treating those who suffer from malaria, chagas disease or dengue fever.

For this project, Compassion International will be distributing insecticide-treated malaria nets in 9 provinces of Thailand highly effected by malaria: Chiang Rai, Mea Hong Son, Prea, Lampang, Surin, Chiang Mai, Ubon, Tak, and Phisanoluk.

58: The Global Tour is asking for us to donate, pray and fast for this country and for this issue. The website is awesome and definitely excites me to get involved and to be part of the solution and the hope for these people. For as little as $10, you are purchasing a mosquito net and saving lives. Not a bad thing at all.

1.21.2012

Two Percent of Two Percent

{If charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists}

Jewish Proverb

I love the book The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns. He has been the President of World Vision since 1998. If you aren't familiar with World Vision, it is a Christian Humanitarian organization helping all over the world. I sponsor two children; a boy from Malawi and a little girl from Armenia with World Vision. My monthly contribution helps these children have food, shelter, clothing, medicine and an education. It is a wonderful way to help those less fortunate and to give someone else hope. I not only help the children but also their families and communities.

One of my favorite chapters in this book is titled Two Percent of Two Percent. Here are some of the things I learned in this chapter:

You're rich, we're rich, and the Church in America is rich.
If your income is $25,000 per year, you are wealthier than approx. 90% of the world's population!
If you make $50,000 per year, you are wealthier than 99% of the world!
Of the 6.7 billion people on this earth, almost HALF of them live on less than $2/day.
93% of the world's people DON"T own a CAR!
Our American lifestyles are not normative.....they are grossly distorted compared to the rest of the world.
It is important to put the American church in perspective b/c it is the wealthiest community of Christians in the history of Christendom!
The total income of American churchgoers is $5.2 TRILLION {That's more than five thousand billion dollars}
It would take just a little over 1% of the income of American Christians to lift the poorest one billion people in the world out of extreme poverty. Stated another way, American Christians, who make up about 5% of the Church worldwide, control half of the global Christian wealth; a lack of money is not our problem.

Tithing should be 10% of your income. So as the wealthiest nation of Christians in the world, how do we do on tithing our income?

If we define tithing as giving 10% or more of our pretax income to the church or to nonprofit ministries, only about 5% of American households tithe.
If we look at "born again" Christians in America {those who claim to have made a personal commitment to Christ}, the number of tithers improve to 9%.
For "evangelical Christians", those who claim their faith has the greatest influence on their life and conduct, still only 24% tithe.

If we aren't tithing 10%, then what is the American Church giving?

The average giving of American church members in 2005 was just 2.58% of their income, about 75% less than the biblical standard of 10%.
Sadly, as our incomes have increased, our giving has significantly declined. In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, giving averaged 3.3%, 27% more than we gave in 2005.

Okay so now where does that money go once we give it to the church?

2% of it goes to overseas missions of any kind, whether evangelistic or to assist the poor
The other 98% stays right here, w/in our churches and communities
Bottom line is that the commitment that American Christians, the wealthiest Christians in ALL HISTORY, are making to the world is just about 2% of 2%--actually about five ten-thousandths of our income.
In simpler terms, that amounts to about six pennies per person per day that we give through our churches to the rest of the world-------SIX CENTS!

What would happen if we ALL paid our tithe--10% of our incomes instead of the 2.5% we actually give......it is amazing......we would have an extra $168 BILLION to spend in funding the work of the Church worldwide!

To put this in perspective:

$705 billion--amount Americans spend on entertainment and recreation
$179 billion--amount spent by teenagers ages 12-17 {2006}
$65 billion---amount we spend on jewelry {2008}
$58 billion---amount spent on state lottery tickets {2007}
$39.5 billion-total U.S. government foreign assistance budget for the WORLD
$31 billion---amount spent on pets {2003}
$13 billion---amount spent by Americans on cosmetic surgery {2007}
$5 billion---total overseas ministries income to 700 Protestant mission agencies, including denominational, interdenominational, and independent agencies{2005}

If every American churchgoer tithed, we could literally change the world!

$65 billion {less than 40% of the extra $168 billion}--could eliminate the most extreme poverty on the planet for more than a billion people
Universal primary education for children would cost just $6 billion
The cost to bring clean H20 to most of the world's poor, an estimated $9 billion
Basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world, $13 billion

This next part I'm going to write really excites me and encourages me. I love it.

"Imagine how stunning it would be to the watching world for American Christians to give so generously that it:

brought an end to world hunger;
solved the clean water crisis;
provided universal access to drugs and medical care for the millions suffering from AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis;
virtually eliminated the more than 26,000 daily child deaths;
guaranteed education for all the world's children;
provided a safety net for the world's tens of millions of orphans.

Think about the statement it would make if American Christian citizens stepped up and gave more than all of the governments of the world combined b/c they took Jesus seriously when He said to love our neighbors as ourselves. Terrorists might have a harder time recruiting young men to attack a nation so compassionate. Other wealthy nations might be ashamed--or inspired to follow our example. Adherents of other religions would surely wonder what motivates the Christians to be so loving and generous. The global social revolution brought forth by the body of Christ would be on the lips of every citizen in the world and in the pages of every newspaper--in a good way. The world would see the whole gospel--the good news of the kingdom of God--not just spoken but demonstrated, by people whose faith is not devoid of deeds but defined by love and backed up with action. His kingdom come, His will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven. This was the whole gospel that Jesus proclaimed in Luke 4, and if we would embrace it, it would literally change everything."

{The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.}

Luke 4:18-19

Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:16

Want to learn more about World Vision or Child Sponsorship? Go to www.worldvision.org