The Love Strand 3/28

There are few things I would trade for time one on one with my children. (A beach this time of year might win! But only "might!") One of the best decisions for our family has been choosing to homeschool during the preschool year.  I was really on the fence about whether or not to enroll Oliver this past year in our church's preschool program. When it all was said and done, I didn't do it.

I am so glad.

Now please don't pound me with comments about how anti-school I am. I'm not. I taught 3rd grade myself overseas. My older girls were also homeschooled for K, 1st and 2nd grades but are now happily learning in a local public school that we love. I think school is a really fabulous thing that our American children are blessed with and I don't take it lightly. [Enter a comment here about how unjust is it that children in poorer countries don't get to attend school because they are busy hauling dirty water. Or you could just go here.]

But, oh the times I have delighted in with my son this past year! It makes my heart overflow with gratefulness. I am so grateful that I chose to keep him home. His quest for knowledge is unquenchable! Today he has put himself on a self-led experiment with a large computer magnet. Some of the things he comes and shows me are crazy! Did you know that he can pick up a pack of 26 mini books with a magnet? We have played more Missing Match Ups then I can shake a stick at and he's learned to read and sound out words. His math skills blow me away and I think we can bank on him to take over the family finances.

Today we repeated a science experiment from last week. It was so fun then that he wanted to do it again. Why not? He wanted green food coloring rather than red. I see no problem. So please enjoy the expression of love we shared today:

I forgot, because there was no need to rush off to the school bus this morning (thank you 2-hour delay!), I started my day snuggling with him for about 20 minutes. Can you say heaven??? (I didn't get any pictures of that!)

Three Percent

It's after midnight and I've just woken up from a dream. Not a very powerful one, really, something about eating mushrooms and my mom returning an old childhood book on butterflies. So that's not it. It's the something that lies just under the surface of my conscious rolling around constantly all these deep truths about the world we live in. The reality that while I sleep in my pretty flanneled bed, people around the globe shiver on the streets. The reality that while I get up and stumble a few feet to my indoor bathroom and turn on the faucet and drink a small cup of water, this is impossible to a good percentage of the world. And then I remember.

3%.

And the actual number that it would take is lower. It really works out to be less. It's only 2.5%, but guessing that many Americans won't do it causes me to increase it a little. (My math skills are a little like my painting and cooking skills--I do A LOT of estimation. (Enter snickers from my brother.) So I'm really only guessing three percent.) Okay, back up, I'm in a half-awake state and no one knows what I'm talking about. Sorry. I'm typing quietly to not wake up my sleeping husband, but let me click a few more keystrokes to explain.

Americans spent $450 BILLION on Christmas. Yes, that's right. 450,000,000,000 hard earned dollars. And we're in a recovering recession!! And did you know that it would only take $10 billion to permanently fix the world's water crisis. That's right. Take just a minute here to let that sink in. {pause} If we took $10 billion of our $450 billion from one year of Christmas spending and gave it to a reputable water drilling organization(s), we could end the water crisis forever. {pause again} The 1 billion people who don't have access to it would require simply 2 1/2% of what we self-righteous "Christian" Americans spent on ourselves at Christmas. This makes my stomach turn. It keeps me awake at night! Since the number 2.5% would require every American household sharing their Christmas and I know that is unrealistic, I've bumped up the number to 3%. What if WE all gave a simple three percent of what we spend on our loved ones at Christmas to help stop the water crisis of our globe?

And then I wondered, does each American even keep receipts for what they spent at Christmas? Do we even realize what we are doing? It's only been 24 days since Christmas. Do we even remember the gifts we gave? Are they now a distant memory because we are so swallowed up in that project at work or the latest gossip? What if we had all given just 3% of our spending to an organization that could responsibly use it to help solve the global water crisis?

So I challenge you: this year in 2011, in another 11 months from now, I want you to give 3% of your Christmas spending to provide water to someone on our planet you'll never know. (Yes, I realize I'll probably have to remind you. I'm willing to do that.) I really don't care through which organization you do it, but I can certainly suggest a few that we use. Will you do it? Will you take this challenge? Will you step up to the plate in this way and allow me to fall back asleep this cold night in January? I've got four kids to be alert for in the morning you know! Seriously, this is true, but something deep within me compels me to write. (Just might be the Spirit of God!) I am literally compelled to motivate you to understand the real life-altering HELP you can be to these far off distant people.

Here's a verse I'm going to sign off with from Matthew 10:

"And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

Yeah, I know I already posted this picture from Charity:water...but it is perfect again and I want to go back to sleep! ;)

Christmas UNshopping!

Yippie!!! We have done something that will impact us mildly this Christmas and impact certain people on our planet MAJORLY over the next twenty years. That's a pretty lofty thing to claim, so let me unpack it for you.

Brian and I did all of our Christmas shopping for our family back in October. We were feeling mighty fine about that!! DONE! Smiling over a cups of hot coffee at Panera we felt so happy that we had made all our Christmas purchases in one morning and stuck fairly close to something I can loosely refer to as a "budget." And the kicker? The kids will LOVE this big gift and all the trimmings--for sure!

Enter a few chapters from The Hole in Our Gospel sprinkled in with a few podcasts by Erwin MacManus and another chapter or two from a book called Radical. The undoing of our lives had long ago begun, but it was about to unravel a bit more.

I would like to say that we decided to go Christmas unshopping because God had just moved our hearts and we obeyed, but that wouldn't be the whole story, and I feel pretty certain it should be told accurately. We became painfully aware that we really didn't have money for these gifts that we so jubilantly tucked away in their hiding place. Several times over the next weeks Brian suggested we simply take the whole kit and kaboodle back. I wasn't married to the idea of giving it to the kids, but certainly did NOT feel like starting all over again! What would we give the kids in its place??? Brian boldly suggested nothing in it's place. "WHAT!?! We can't do that to our kids!! They wait all year for Christmas!" He suggested maybe we take Christmas morning and serve someplace so we are busy rather than feeling the loss of presents. A good idea that I really liked. We prayed and God indeed did provide the $ to cover the gifts. We had them paid off by the time the credit card bill came due. Hooray! Keep the gifts! But the idea of serving on Christmas morning really appealed to me.

Well, because of this discussion, we realized that perhaps we could go and serve somewhere on Christmas morning and then give our children these gifts in the afternoon (God had provided, after all!) We began to look for places to serve. It wasn't looking good. The kids have to be 14 to serve in a soup kitchen, men are not allowed in the battered women's shelter, the elderly in the nursing home do not wake up early on Christmas (or any) morning and wouldn't be available for a Shaw production until the afternoon. Something wasn't quite right.

I am so blessed to know some really amazing sisters in Christ, one of whom has gone before me in international adoption and is blazing trails left and right. She had just blogged about her own family giving up their Christmas tree and giving the money to purchase a flock of ducks for a needy African family. You can read her inspirational blog post here. That in the back of my mind, I went to pick up my children from the bus stop. We got into a discussion about body fat. "Some people are fat because they eat more food than their bodies need at the time, so their body simply stores it for later. The problem is that when "later" comes they have plenty to eat and so they do. More and more gets stored on their bodies and they become fat." (You didn't expect a Beachbody coach mom to not teach her children this did you?!) "Compare that, " I continued, "with a person living in Africa who only manages to eat one meal a day. Their body, if they had stored extra food for later would have used it up when no food was eaten. They are not fat. In fact, their body is so hungry that it eats away at the muscle and they become very malnourished." From that comment I kid you not, my 10 year old says, "You know what would be great? If people had chickens! They could eat the eggs and also grow some up to be meat chickens!" And *BLING!* an idea suddenly sparked in my mind! I immediately asked them, "Okay, what if we had a dramatically smaller Christmas this year and we gave chickens to families in Africa who really needed them?" I had not even gotten the question out of my mouth before my 8 year old piped up an enthusiastic, "Oh YES!!!" Then two more enthusiastic affirmations followed. (Darrah Kate remains wordless at this point!)

I spoke with Brian on the phone once we got back to the house, "The kids are willingly choosing to have a small Christmas so we can bless people on the other side of the planet!" He too was thrilled. We made plans and the next morning I drove the 45 minutes to the back to the store and returned all but a $20 gift that we'll give to all the kids together. I was Christmas unshopping and it felt SO GOOD!!! We decided later that night to give to a group called Charity:water that is bringing clean water to people who are literally dying for lack of it. Our donation is going to give people clean water for TWENTY YEARS!!! WOW! How is that for an excellent trade? :)

{I am inserting a paragraph to illuminate why we chose to go the water route rather than the chicken route as a family. Feel free to skip over this if you don't need to know every detail!} Incidentally, I came down with the flu while I was out returning the gifts. After I was home, I was lying on the bathroom floor between heaves and thinking, "If I lived in Africa as an impoverished person, I would have no clean toilet, no clean floor and I would feel like this often without much hope for getting better." Later as I thirst for water while I was in bed and some family member graciously delivered to me a whole Nalgene full of clear, filtered water I thought, "Now what if the only thing to slake my thirst while I was this sick was contaminated, dirty water? I would have very little hope of getting well." It was like a very practical, personal wake up call to the need for clean water around the world. This pushed our decision to give to a non-profit to build wells in places that desperately need access to clean, unadulterated water.

Jensi (our 10 year old) has decided to take on the chicken giving project on her own. I'll probably come back and write more about her venture later. We also are still planning to do something on Christmas morning, even if we simply wait until the elderly wake up to bring them some kid-hearted Christmas cheer. For now, I am just feeling so thrilled to have gotten an idea, allowed God to tweak it just right and then to have moved on it!

Jesus said to His disciples, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambitions, shoulder your cross, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life." Matthew 16:24-25

It will be a small Christmas that will be remembered...for many reasons. Hopefully it's just the beginning of us all learning to give our lives away for the sake of obeying Jesus.