i hope, i hope!

so i just got off the phone with a staffer from world vision. we are hoping to host the African Experience Exhibit which focuses on a day in the life of a child affected by the AIDS pandemic. i went a few months back to one of these exhibits and i can’t even come close to explaining how huge it was. i was brought into steven’s life. a little boy who was kidnapped from his family to be used as a child soldier in the 20 yr war in Uganda. he was forced to do horriffic things, witness horriffic things at such a young tender age. i can’t even imagine a world like he lives in on a daily basis.

i am not trying to be all doom and gloom on ya, but i do feel there is power in stepping outside of your own daily life to live in someone else’s even if it is just for a minute. even if it is in the comfort of your own city, to hear and see some of what stephen deals with is just so crucial. we can’t forget about children like him. just because he is not on your local news doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. it’s easier to ignore that there is a problem than it is to stand up and do something, but seriously… wwjd?

so that is why i am crossing my fingers we will be able to host this at our church

waiting

Pastor Theo, who my church has partnered with, is joining us from Rwanda. he was supposed to fly in today, but due to some unfortunate flight delays and visa issues he will be flying in tomorrow. his wife, Miriam, was supposed to join us as well, but looks like she won’t be at this point in time. her visa has not come through i am so stinkin’ excited to see Pastor Theo though!!! we get along so well he started calling me his daughter when we were over in rwanda. so as you can imagine, i can’t wait to pick him up at the airport!!!

we started a Trade As One Trading Post at my church. the Trading Post is a place where people from our church and community can use their buying power for good. all of the products we sell are fairly traded, meaning the producers have been paid a living, sustainable wage. plus they are given the chance to compete in the global market which without organizations like Trade As One, they could not have. it’s so cool to see my fellow MCC-ers shopping for Christmas AND helping women rescued from sex trafficking, or genocide orphans in Rwanda. it’s amazing. to think that if we are more conscious of what we buy and where we buy it from, we can be helping someone on the other side of the globe. helping what Jesus calls, the least of these.

today we opened up the Trading Post to the women of CBS (Community Bible Study). they meet every thursday in our church so we extended the offer to shop and they were thrilled! it surprises me though, as not everyone is on board with the Trading Post. for various reasons, it really bothers people. it is a challenge for me though, to see where they might be coming from. i only see this as a way for fellow Christians and non-Christians to be able to lift people out of poverty by giving a hand up, not a hand out. if Jesus was here today, would he want us to be handing money to a corporation who suppresses people or would he want us to be handing money to individuals who are barely making it day to day? would he want me to deepen the pockets of wall street or to help a women stay out of prostitution? i pretty much believe it’s the latter