Butterfly Circus

If you have not yet seen The Butterfly Circus, sit down, relax and watch it. It is only 20 minutes long, but is something you will not want to miss. While there is so much that I can say about this film (and I really want to say a lot), I don’t want to ruin it for anybody. While the video is shown below, I highly recommend you click this link and watch it in fullscreen.

The Power of Social Networking

For those that didn’t know, I am a geek to the core. Having said that, one of the most fascinating phenomena for me to watch is the rapid growth of social networking and the power it has to get the word out to a large audience quickly. Today was another perfect example of that. Long story short, in a matter of hours, $4000 in donations were gathered to get a group of neurosurgeons on planes to Haiti. You can read more about it here.

So what does this mean for me? It means that we can leverage technology in a way today that can help us be God’s hands and feet here on Earth quickly and effectively. Thanks to everybody that donated to this effort and for those that put it together. Because of a few people acting quickly, a group of much needed medical professionals are on their way to help those in need. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what it’s all about.

Cracked Pots

I’m sure some of you have seen this before, but I hadn’t and thought it worth sharing. It is a story from India, though I don’t know the original author. Enjoy!

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishment, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only lf half of what it had been made to do. After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. “The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.

“Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it is the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are, and look for the good in them.

I think this is one of the hardest lessons for us to learn; so often we are trying to be perfect before God when He can – and more often than not, does – use our brokenness to do great things. Thank God for crackpots… err – I mean cracked pots!

Community

I am now in my second class at Rockbridge Seminary and am loving the experience. The class I am taking now is called The Theology and Practice of Fellowship. Its focus is on the reason for and the how-to of biblical community. In reading a book, called The Connecting Church: Beyond Small Groups to Authentic Community, I found a story that sounds so truly American that it hurts. It talks about a family that desires true relationship so bad, yet for all that they are involved with are unable to find it.

Then, I had a strange desire to watch Rent the other night with Ginger. While I have seen the Off-Broadway show and seen the movie already, something really struck me watching it this last time, curled up on the couch. What I was seeing in the lives of these friends was real community. One shared money they had.  Another shared what food (okay, and drink) they had. Sounding familiar yet? Not only did they share what they had, but they were there for each other in the good and the bad. In other words, it wasn’t a relationship of convenience.
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Feed the Forgotten

I run into people all the time that have a desire to reach out and help, but have no idea where to get started. Well, there is no one right way to get started – but any help you can give anywhere is doing something. The point is to help wherever and whenever you can. My wife and I started with sponsoring a child through Compassion International. That has been a huge blessing not only to the girl in Haiti whom we sponsor, but also to our family in seeing how we are able to positively impact others’ lives through organizations that are out there in the field. We love hearing about how with the extra gifts we sometimes give, the family is able to buy goats to support themselves.

I ran across another organization today that is helping to feed starving people in Uganda. The organization is Children’s HopeChest and they have a campaign called “Feed the Forgotten” that they are pushing hard to try and get donations for. Their goal right now is to be able to provide food for 3-4 villages that they are currently tareting; they are hoping to expand that to more villages based on the donations given. Did you know that for $20 you can feed a family for 20 days? A lot of us spend at least that much money feeding ourselves for just 1 day. I encourage anybody reading this to visit the site and donate today! Here is your opportunity to do something today!

Amazon Bookstore

All right, so this is a shameless plug, but hey – I’ve got to pay for school somehow, right? On the top menu bar, you will see a link entitled “Bookstore”. From there, you can purchase books that I have read and recommend; the plus side is that you are really purchasing from Amazon, but I would earn anwhere between 4% to 10% of the purchase cost. In addition to the store, you will find a couple of widgets in the sidebar that list various books on Amazon that you might be interested in.

Why do all of this? Well, I do have to pay for my seminary education somehow, which is going to cost quite a bit. I would really love to be able to do that without incurring any additional debt, so I’m look for ways to make some additional money to put towards tuition and books. So, while this may be a shameless plug, I hope that anyone out there looking to buy anything from Amazon would help me out in this effort and buy it through me. After all, it won’t cost you a thing!

* Not looking for a book? Use the search box in the sidebar to find anything else you might be looking for.