What Can a Free $1,000 Do? Lots if You Use It.

No joke.  This post is about you and your friends giving away thousands of dollars of someone else’s money - $10 at a time.  I can’t tell you how many “thousands” (legal details blah blah blah) but its lots. 

What:

$10 free that you can invest in a humanitarian project of your choice.  Take our spare change and your spare time (its only 10 minutes) and give hope.  No strings attached.  No gimmicks. Just $10 free for you to invest in the world. No assembly required and its safe for kids.

Why:

 

About the time I started writing Humanitarian Jesus I also helped found The Glue Network – a new way of empowering people to impact need by finding new sources of funding like brands and companies to supply the money. 

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We now have 10 years between us and the events which re-shaped the U.S. forever. 10 years have passed and much has happened in between those years. The landscape and cultural structure of the U.S. has changed forever. Those events which scarred many Americans gave us a real life glimpse into the face of evil. Many lost loved ones, friends, family members, co-workers, and witnessed horrific sites of people jumping to their deaths and explosions in buildings where the implied reason made you conclude more deaths were occurring; contrast that with narrative of heroic acts aboard United Flight 93, people carrying the disabled down flights of stairs, brave firepersons giving their lives up for the masses, and the countless law enforcement officers who risked their lives to save people trapped below the rubble. Yes, lives and families were changed on that day 10 years ago. In a flash, it appeared that, the nation was united and coming together; but what unification was it? What were we actually coming together for? War? Peace? Revenge? Atonement?

Liz Sidoti in her captivating essay “9/11 Brought Us Together, But Was It Unity?” asks the timely question of national unity; moreover, she challenges the notion of “patriotism” in the context of violence and death. And, Sidoti places the idea of “unity” back in our faces 10 years after these events. She states, “We mourned together, raged together, resolved together. But it wasn't long before the perception of a united America gave way to the reality of division. Political polarization became the norm. And partisanship, gridlock and a loss of faith in institutions returned in force.” Are we that “together” and does patriotism always mean war and the ensuing deaths of our “enemies?” What is the “War on Terror?” And which “terror” are we actually fighting? Joseph Tuman reminds us that much of what we see communicated to us in the form of “terrorism” is socially constructed and he asserts that, “Terrorism today may seem like a relatively new phenomenon, but in truth, the practice of terrorizing for political, ideological, religious, and/ or economic purposes extends back many thousands of years and across many different cultures” (p.2 in Communicating Terror: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Terrorism. 2010.). Therefore, whose “terror” takes precedent? What does it take for the masses to take notice of “terrorism?” These are deep questions which lead to even deeper trails of thought in the realm of “terror.”

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Not long ago, I had occasion to observe a group of high school students serving a meal to about 200 homeless people in our city.  They had come to fulfill a high school requirement to complete a certain number of community service hours, which probably should have been my first clue.  I was floored by the complete disconnect between those students and the human suffering right before their eyes.  Many laughed or made jokes.  A man or woman who did not look nice or smell particularly good would draw odd looks and quips.  Serving the food looked like more of a game to them than an opportunity to help someone.

 

As the students prepared to leave, it did not seem as if they had been affected at all.  They were huddled in their little group, busily chatting about the next activity of the day, oblivious to the many who filed out into the searing summer heat, not sure where they might find their next meal. 

 

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What do you get when you bring together gum walls, skinny jeans, confetti, creepy mustache's on twenty-something’s, poetry, comedy, rock music, hipsters, rap music, any and all music really, Tenley from last seasons The Bachelor, time travel, 6 roach coaches and powerful speakers like Eugene Cho, Kay Warren, Mark Driscoll, Wes Stafford and Donald Miller, just to name a few?

Catalyst West Coast.

The two-day leadership conference came to a close yesterday afternoon as Andy Stanley taught leadership to the 3400 leaders present. He made comment like, "As leaders, you should be making as few decisions as possible" and "Only do what you can do." He also said "Leadership is about getting things done through other people."

Earlier in the day, Wess Stafford of Compassion International said, "I'm convinced the prayer of a child in poverty or in abuse is the most powerful force." Just before making that statement, he said something that really struck me. He said, "We may not be committing the sin of endangering a child, but we are committing the sin of omission by allowing a child to be endangered."

Erwin McManus talked about how Solomon got it wrong when he said "there is nothing new under the sun." Erwin said "God created us for originality; not just effectiveness. Everything God does is new. He is constantly creating the new. Only in the new do we find the beautiful. Live lives of story and meaning and create new beauty."

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 For the past two weeks, I’ve been riveted by the stories coming out of Haiti. I’ve read stories that bring me to my knees, stories that make me shake my fist in anger, and stories that make me feel incredibly hopeful. It’s been interesting to watch different responses to the disaster. Between the Haitian government, NGO’s, foreign governments, the UN, independent churches, and missionaries in Haiti, everyone seems to have their own unique take on how to best help the Haitian people. At times, it has seemed that there is no clear leader, no clear entity ultimately in charge of the relief effort.

I think it’s crucial for us, as Christians, to evaluate the church’s response to the crisis.

In the days following the quake, the biggest needs were clearly recovery, search and rescue, and serious medical help. All the organizations mentioned above flew in almost immediately with these resources. But, the runways were clogged. Too many planes, not enough space. Our church partners with an organization called Medical Teams International. MTI immediately sent two planes filled with medical personnel and supplies to Port au Prince but, were unable to land. There was no space for them to touch down. Two planes, filled with life saving supplies and doctors, were diverted to the Dominican Republic.

(Durban, South Africa)

At first glance, the Zulu children we met on the bus en route to Ithemba Lethu’s leadership camp were just like any other seventh graders we had ever met. They boarded the bus with tremendous enthusiasm. They were full of life and noise and a certain pre-teen angst. They were excited to be with their friends, armed with bits of junk food, slightly insecure and were chatting about celebrities and rappers. If one didn’t already know that the children were from one of Durban’s poorest townships, that most lived in tin shacks, or that many were being raised by siblings just a few years older than them, it wouldn’t have been immediately obvious that these kids differed from suburban American youth.

As the weekend progressed, we began learning more details about their lives. One child’s parents had just died. Her mother died of AIDS and her father was murdered by human hands. She was now living with an aunt who didn’t want her.  Several of the children were being physically abused on a regular basis. School was not a safe place for the kids because teachers hit them with pipes.

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Zach Hunter is a teenage abolitionist and activist, spending much of his time working to end modern-day slavery around the world and fighting other problems in the world. When he was 12, he started a campaign called Loose Change to Loosen Chains to raise awareness and money to free people from slavery. The author of Be the Change, Zach speaks to hundreds of thousands of people each year, inspiring them to find their passion and make a change in the world.

ConversantLife: We were very excited to hear about the release of your latest book.  What is ‘Lose Your Cool’ all about?

ZH: It’s my attempt to help readers discover a life of passion.

I wanted to hug his mother, but I refrained.

Her son immediately caught my attention while we were standing in line to ride the kiddie roller coaster Wednesday evening. His small fingers traced the decorative carvings in the fence separating us from the ride’s controls and controller. Though crowded, he had created a space to explore, to think, to be hidden in the shadow of his mom. 

Her stance was familiar: loving and on alert. She was giving him guarded freedom, at ease with herself and her child…in a society that stares. 

Then Jonathan drew me close and whispered, “Mommy, is he deaf? Is that a hearing aid? Is he hurting?” 

This was a huge step for Jonathan. Years of coaching through somewhat sensitive situations (e.

Some girl in the fifth grade yesterday called my ten-year-old son hot.

Yup. Hot.

Okay, so I think the word hot means, like, sexy and attractive and all that. So when I, his mother, hear that a little vixen uses that word to describe my baby-faced son, I’m ready to sign up for recess duty. I might need to check this out.

And then I realize that fifth-grade hotness is really something else entirely. It really means, from what the locals tell me, that she called him crush-worthy, a boy with some perceived value, a boy who won’t pull her ponytail. This is, in fact, a very good thing. It’s really not about being hot after all.

As his mother, I am caught in the unenviable position of interpreting an elementary school lexicon, which I can access only from a distance. I hear a word, a phrase, in solitary confinement and I botch the interpretation. Such linguistic investigation is teaching me a lesson, namely that unless I hang out on your playground and speak your language, I’d best not try to interpret it. It will only make me look foolish.

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