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Archive for cool sites

The Underwear Fairy has bit the dust!

January 22, 2009 · Filed under cool sites, Jesus, nada mucho

For those of you that fondly remember the Underwear Fairy, she has gone. But do not be sad, because she is being replaced by the equally as cool Vitamin Fairy.

Ashley is a great gal that works in Liberia. (Go check out her blog www.loveinliberia.blogspot.com ) . Last time she went she asked for help with new underwear for the kids.

At the end of February she is going back to Liberia, this time with bags jam packed with kids chewable vitamins!! So here’s what YOU can do;

Go to www.pledgebank.com/vitamins4liberia
Sign the pledge
Go buy kids vitamins or send her a gift card to like Wal-Mart or Target and Ashley will go get them herself.
send to Vitamin Fairy.

See really easy.

liberian-kids

(this is one of Ashley’s fabulous pictures!)

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The Underwear Fairy

October 15, 2008 · Filed under cool sites, Jesus

Last winter I wrote about the Underwear Fairy that was collecting new undies to give out to orphanages in Liberia. Well the Underwear Fairy is back in Liberia, working with Orphan Relief and Rescue. Ashley (aka the Underwear Fairy) just updated her blog and she is handing out all those new undies to kiddos all over Liberia. Its pretty dang cool. So go check it out at, www.loveinliberia.blogspot.com.

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Learning Empathy.

August 15, 2008 · Filed under cool sites, Jesus, the fam

The other night, as kids were getting teeth brushed and ready to head off to bed, I was flipping through the channels I noticed that there was a great show coming on PBS. Wide Angle. It would be about 3 kids that were abducted and became child soldiers in Uganda. It would be their story. So I started watching it, and slowly my bigger kids started trickling into the living room. We get a little background on the rebels and how long this war has been going on, and then they dive into these 3 kid’s stories. As we are watching Mr. O and Mr. H start pummeling me with questions. Questions about the war, about the children in Uganda, are they scared?, why don’t they just not fight for the rebels?. And on and on. Really good questions actually. I am trying to answer as best as I can and watch the documentary at the same time. Then there is this scene where this 12 year old kid is walking, alone, on this road going to see his mom for the first time in a year. He ran away from the rebel army and was now at this rehabilitation type place that tries to get ex child soldiers back to some kind of normal life. So this boy is walking. Mr. H says, ” I would be so scared to walk”. Then Mr. O answers him, “I would never be able to sleep at night being worried that they would take me again”. And on and on my boys go. Imagining what it would be like. Putting themselves into this little Ugandan boy’s shoes.

WOW!!!! I sat there stunned. You see, my boys have lived most of their lives in an orphanage during a war. Both of those circumstances do not breed empathy or compassion. It breeds survival. Making sure that you are safe. And here these two boys sat, watching about other children in a country far away from Liberia. A country that they know nothing about. And they felt empathy and they felt compassion.

The following days both boys still continued to have questions. And finally, they landed on the big question, “what can we do?”. What a fabulous question! Now they live in a country, where not only can we know what is happening in the world, but we can do something.

Here are some of the places we have found-

World Vision works with former child soldiers in Uganda.
The International Rescue Committee
Childsoldiers.net

So, what can we do?

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Don’t you love getting mail?

July 28, 2008 · Filed under cool sites, Jesus

So we are just having lazy, hazy days of summer without a whole lot of excitement to blog about. I thought maybe kids are starting to get bored, and what better to help bored kids than writing letters! Old fashioned letters and cards……(Doesn’t it make you have all kinds of fun thoughts about getting mail….)

Being sick and in the hospital is way unfun! But getting cool mail while you’re in the hospital would totally rock!

Isaac is the cutest little guy!!! I’ve been following his mom’s blog all during her adoption of this little man and then life with him. He had a bump of sorts of his back. He recently had surgery to have it removed. And as you can imagine back surgery is hard and recouping from that is even harder. He will in the hospital for quite a while now. Go to www.bringingisaachome.blogspot.com and on the right hand side there is an address to send Isaac cards.
We heard about Cora through Mr.O’s soccer team. His cousin plays on Mr. O’s team. Cora is a cutie little 4 year old with kidney cancer. She had surgery and now will spend the next 20 weeks having chemo. I have Cora’s address so if anyone is interested email me at, tabitha_carr@yahoo.com.

I totally don’t want mom and dad left out….

www.prisoneralert.com is a ministry of Voice of the Martyrs. Its kinda like it sounds, you write letters to Christian prisoners all over the world. All the rules of writing are on the website. Seriously, once a week write a letter. So easy!

Happy Monday!!!

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Pray the Devil Back to Hell

July 11, 2008 · Filed under cool sites

How about that for the title of a movie? It totally caught my attention. It’s a documentary about the women of Liberia, that got together to demand peace for their country, for their children.

www.praythedevilbacktohell.com

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Frontline goodies!!

June 30, 2008 · Filed under cool sites

The other night I caught Frontline on PBS. My best bud turned me onto Frontline a while ago, and its not kinda a good show, its a fabulous show. Imagine Dateline….but interesting. So the show had two separate topics, one was titled Jesus in China. It was all about Christianity in China today. They had interviews with government officials, church officials, and house church preachers. It’s only about 30 minutes long, so click here and watch.

The second part of the show was about this organization called Architecture for Humanity. Here is part of who they are (from their website),

“By tapping a network of professionals willing to lend their time and their talents to helping those who would not otherwise be able to afford their services, we support community development, help communities rebuild after disaster and provide pro bono design services to community partners around the world.

Through the power of professional design, we build safer, more sustainable and highly innovative structures–structures that become assets to their communities and ongoing symbols of the ability of people to come together to envision a better future.

Our vision is one of a world where designers innovate globally to build housing, schools, clinics and other essential infrastructure locally. We believe that this can be achieved not by replicating a design that was successful in one situation in another, but by encouraging locally-inspired designs and by enabling these solutions to be shared and freely adapted by all.”

Happy Monday to you guys!

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Let’s not forget.

June 13, 2008 · Filed under cool sites

When I turn on my computer Yahoo is my homepage. I always like to read over the big news of the day. Then from the big stories I can chose to read local, world, or US stories. A couple of days ago I was trying to find out about what was happening over in Burma. Is crazy junta man still being…well..crazy? Is aid getting in? Ya know the basics after a huge natural disaster has hit a poor country with a nutty man in charge. And I could find nada. I had to leave Yahoo and search elsewhere just to find some news on Burma.

And unfortunatley crazy junta man is still being crazy. He’s still being a poo about international aid helping. I read not too long ago that he spoke on the radio. Basically he told all the folks that are now homeless and hungry to buck up and enjoy their rotten rice that he is handing out(ok, so crazy man did not actually say enjoy your rotten rice, but he was handing it out).

So as we all get ready to enjoy our weekends, let’s take a sec and just remember Burma. World Vision and Free Burma Rangers are both on the ground and giving aid.

www.worldvision.org

www.freeburmarangers.org

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You really, really will love this…..

June 3, 2008 · Filed under cool sites, nada mucho

Ok, go to this link and watch this short film called The New Boy. It’s about 10 minutes long, but seriously its worth every minute. So take a minute, relax, and enjoy…..

http://www.responsibilityproject.com/films/new-boy/

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How we can help.

May 6, 2008 · Filed under cool sites

I know that we’ve all heard of the cyclone that hit Myanmar. We’ve heard the death tolls, the houses that are now gone, rice fields destroyed. I keep thinking what if that were me. Me and my little clan living out lives. And now its gone. So here are some places that are extending a hand to the people, the families, of Myanmar.

Through World Vision you can donate $25, and that will give one family a survival kit which includes clean water, food, blankets, temporary shelter, and cook sets.

Save the Children

Gospel for Asia

Doctors Without Borders

Red Cross

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What do to with all that income tax moola

April 17, 2008 · Filed under cool sites, Jesus

Income tax returns are one of my favorite things! In honor of all that cash that will be flowing, here are some uber cool places to spend that cash.

Up here in Seattle, folks are going green crazy. Recycle here, hybrid there, eco friendly everywhere. So how about instead of using those plastic grocery bags that I have heard take about a zillion years to biodegrade, use an Africa Bag. These are cloth grocery bags that provide sustainable income for villages in Malawi. Africa Bags’ goal is to provide a long-term solution for the people of Malawi. By creating a sustainable economy in the poorest villages, Africa Bags can give the Malawians an opportunity to provide for themselves.

www.africabags.org

Learning, learning, learning!!!! I am a book/learning nut. For $100 a year you could send a kid to school in Rwanda. That $100 covers tuition for 3 quarters and their school uniform through Think Compassion. On their website there are pictures up of all the kids that still need scholarships to go to school. Think Compassion is all about supporting education and schools in Africa. If $100 seems too much, you can buy one of their super cool t-shits for $35 and that money goes towards a teacher’s salary. How freakin’ rockin’ is that?

www.thinkcompassion.com

One of the beauties of the USA is the ability to stay well, however we chose to do that. Whether we are all natural or all medicated we have the power to chose what medicines we take and how we will take them.

I talked a while back with a nurse that works exclusively with HIV/AIDS patients. I was intrigued and we talked for quite a while. She was telling me that now most HIV patients here in the U.S., with medications, have normal life expectancies. With their medications they can live to a ripe old age. Amazing! And yet we all know that this is not the norm all over the world. I mean you got folks that die of very treatable diseases in most third world countries. There is a clinic in Jos, Nigeria called Faith Alive. They treat, for free, HIV/AIDS patients in Jos. And guess what is the horrific amount that it takes to give one person anti-retroviral medications? I guessed thousands of dollars. But I was wrong. It costs $183 per year. I pay more than that for my kids to play soccer. Here is a video with the director of the clinic in Nigeria.