Birthday Business

Hi Friends,

My birthday is one month from today, and my mother has begun asking about celebrations. These largely center around food in my family, but you may recall that a few years ago I decided to "donate" my birthday to a different organization every year. Here's how it works: no presents, no presumption, and no pressure! "No presents" indicates that I have more than enough "stuff". "No presumption" is included because I feel awkward assuming that people are going to be turning up beaming at my door, arms overflowing with gifts. "No pressure" summarizes that I am going to take advantage of social convention to let you know about causes I consider worth supporting but I don't expect you to contribute. Deal?

So...for 2013 I am participating in a fundraising walk with Zoe, an organization that works to rescue and restore children who have been sex trafficked in Thailand. I'm brand new to a relationship with this organization but have been invited to be a part of the Hope Rising team. Hope Rising is a burgeoning organization in Ventura that will provide a much needed role of training service providers and faith communities to work with survivors of human trafficking. Click here to go to my fundraising page and read more.

Thanks for your time!
Katie

August Adventures

Building Houses

And where does a wise man build his house?

When choosing our crafts for a recent Haiti trip and purchasing supplies, we estimated at about 50 children in attendance. Surprise! We had closer to 150 and soon scrambled for replacement craft ideas. One morning I partially revised our lesson to talk about the parable of the wise man and foolish man who respectively built their houses on rock and sand. We taught the children and translators the song (falling over at the end was a huge hit) and used one of our few remaining craft supplies to construct popsicle stick houses. Well, the children couldn't quite grasp that glue is not instantaneously adhesive, and the popsicle sticks were too large to fit on the curved plates. Plus, we only had a couple of bottles of glue and a handful of glue sticks, so we had to individually glue every child's house. There was confusion and consternation in the ranks! As I was dashing about spurting five dabs of glue onto strange geometric configurations, I doubted the wisdom of this particular theme. Maybe I should have spent more time and come up with a better idea? The craft seemed more frustrating than fun. Then a sweet boy walked over to me beaming and handed me his house. His roof was perfectly angled. He had drawn three windows and a door with a handle. Most importantly, he had the patience and wisdom to let his glue dry! He knew he had completed the assignment well and wanted to gift me with his creation. Friends, I left the church with that plate in my clutches, carefully crammed it into my carry-on, and carted it back to my room in Southern California where I took a picture to remind me of this verse:

Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. 

Psalm 127:1

The generous builder on the previous day