can you hear me now?

The past two weeks have been, let’s say, frustrating. One of the reasons you have not seen as many posts from me…. is that our internet (and our home phones), thanks to Comcast, has been MIA for the better part of two weeks. I have learned how to live at Starbucks, how to squeeze in 3 hours of work into 30 minutes of online-time, and I am frustrated! Never before have I realized how much I depend on internet access. And how frustrating it is to not have it.

Christmas in July

A week from now, Offering will be spearheading the third annual Christmas in July marathon/food drive. Summers are always hard for Food Banks, but especially this year with the economic downturn and rising gas- and food prices. We’re playing two Christmas music concerts – one Friday July 25 before the Richmond Braves baseball game, the other a true marathon from 1-10 pm on Saturday July 26 at The Positive Vibe Cafe. Both places will be decorated to the hilt for Christmas, and we will be playing Christmas music. All day long. And encouraging people to bring non-perishable food items like peanut butter, canned tuna, canned vegetables, pasta, cereal, and pasta sauce. For $20 you can help a family that has a hard time feeding their children. If you live in or near Richmond, please do some grocery shopping and join us next week. If you don’t, consider making a donation to your local Food Bank.

Christmas in July logo

feed the children

Mandy blogs today about Feed the children. And Randel writes about Grace Home. The needs are so great – but at the same time it’s truly awesome to see people respond.

more 40 day fast

Yesterday’s blogger for the 40 day fast: Euphrony. This blog really hit home – it’s about hospice care, and my dad died because of cancer last year. He was a “stranger in a strange land” – a Dutch citizen who would spend the winter months of his retirement in Florida. He came to his beloved Sunshine State – primarily because I, his youngest daughter who lives in Richmond VA, could come spend Christmas with him – one last time, and he died there in January of 2007. The wonderful people of Hope Hospice in Fort Myers FL made those last gut-wrenching weeks a little more livable, a little easier.

what if

Today is my day in the 40 day fast and my team blogger is Jonathan. Click here to read his post.

I am not a mom. Yesterday I turned 41, my husband and I have been married for ten years, and so far we have been unable to conceive. These past few months, though, we have made the decision to try and adopt a little girl, possibly from China. And even though I still do not know what it feels like to be a mom, I am starting to look at children in a different way. What if this were my child? What if this was happening to my child and I could not protect it?

A true story:
“Panida*, a 14-year-old girl from rural Northern Thailand, had just finished her 8th grade studies and hoped to spend her summer break
earning some extra money. Panida thought that the potential earnings
from a summer job could bring her family some stability. Her family
needed the funds badly: Her father had died and her mother was
stricken with AIDS. When a local man approached her offering a wellpaying job that would last four months, she accepted. However, the man’s intentions were never to give her a job: He instead took Panida through a border checkpoint into Malaysia, where he sold her to a local brothel owner.
The brothel owner told Panida that he had paid an enormous sum for
her, and that she must reimburse him by selling her body to the brothel’s many customers. She was told that she would have to service five to 10 customers a night and that if she failed to meet her quota or refused customers, she would be beaten and abused.
Panida was locked in her new living quarters – a house crowded with
other trafficking victims, secured by guards, barred windows and doors
that locked from the outside. Terrified, Panida awaited her first rape.”

What if this were my daughter? What if I could not protect her?

My organization for today is the International Justice Mission (IJM), a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation, and other forms of violent oppression. They advocate for victims when they are left without one: little girls sold into prostitution, widows whose homes get taken away, people sold into slavery to replay small debts. IJM was able to intervene in Panida’s tragedy.

Here’s the rest of the story:
“However, on the very night on which Panida was to be sold for the
first time, Malaysian police, prompted to action by information
provided through IJM undercover investigations, entered the brothel and released Panida and 94 other trafficking victims.
An IJM caseworker contacted Panida’s mother in Thailand, who was
overjoyed to hear that her daughter was safe. IJM paid the cost to reunite Panida and her mother and to sponsor Panida’s continuing education. Panida is now home again.”

Today, I will be fasting and praying for children affected by injustice – war, slavery, oppression. For children like Panida, who could have been mine. For perhaps my daughter. I hope you will join me.

40 day fast: LifeStraw

A very cool post by Shawn about LifeStraw, a personal water purifier that is a great tool in fighting one of the world’s greatest problems: lack of access to clean drinking water.

Today’s other poster, Stephanie, wrote a moving post about child abuse. Read both. Stephanie, by the way, is a new mom!

family

My family lives in the Netherlands (my mom spends the winter months in Florida, but even that is far away). So on many “typical” family holidays, we spend time with friends. Who in turn become family. Case in point: Chris and I spent the Fourth of July with Mark and Susan, Offering’s cellist and his wife, and their two teenage daughters (who ROCK!). We had 4th of July-themed appetizers, an awesome dinner (BBQ chicken, the best baked beans I have ever had, made-from-scratch potato salad, and watermelon), the girls and I hung out upstairs and played guitar, sang, and talked about books and music, and to top the evening off we worked our way through ten boxes of sparklers. I could not have wished for a better Independence Day!

sparklers in black & white

pretty!

40 day fast day 12: water aid

I am behind again….. but I want to make sure you catch yesterday’s post by Leslie about Water Aid. Lack of clean drinking water, sanitation, and irrigation for crops is one of the world’s greatest tragedies. And it’s one that we, in the Western world, seldom really think about. Because water, well, that’s just….. there, right? Open the faucet, flush the toilet, turn on the shower, hook up the garden hose. For a lot of people around this world that is the farthest thing from reality. And it can kill them. So read the post, and watch this.

40 day fast: day 10

Day ten: Laura. Please read her post about rape in the Congo. There is too much heartache in this world, and the first thing we can do about it is know about it.

40 day fast: day 9

Ambre was blogging yesterday about one of my absolute favorite organizations, the International Justice Mission.