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Senin, 01 April 2013

THE LITTLE GIRLS THAT RAISED $300 TO STOP SLAVERY

My Daughters Raised $300 to Stop Slavery

By Jeremy Myers

I am so proud of my three daughters… A daddy has got to boast a bit.
Each of them recently had birthdays, and for their birthday parties, they told their friends not to bring gifts, but to make donations instead to help rescue girls from slavery.
Altogether, they raised nearly $300!
The ministry we are sending the money to is Children’s Hope Chest. They work with children in many parts of the world, and one of the areas they specialize in is with rescuing children for the horrors of sex slavery. For example, they recently launched an effort in Moldova to provide a home and round-the-clock care for survivors of sex trafficking.
No, we haven’t told our daughters all the details about the girls they are helping to rescue, but we do talk about the history of slavery, and how there are more slaves today around the world than ever before, and how many of the slaves today are children and young girls. This is something they take quite seriously, and have been doing many things for the last four or five years to help in any way they can.
And they just gave up birthday presents, and raised $300 in the process. My girls are amazing.
To learn more about Human Trafficking and sex slavery, check out some of these posts:

Human Trafficking Posts

THE SCARF IT UP CHURCH

The Scarf-it-Up Church

By Jeremy Myers

In response to some of the posts on this blog about helping the homeless, a woman named Beth sent me the following message on Facebook. It was so encouraging, I asked her if I could share it with all of you as well. She said yes, so here is what she wrote:
Feed the Hungry Scarf it Up

It’s so refreshing to find out there are more like my family out there!
I was adopted by missionaries in the early 1960′s, and, in the following decade my Dad became a pastor. His degrees were in Theology, Philosophy, and Business. My dad was the type of man who would bring homeless folks home and sit them at our dinner table. As a teenager, I have to confess it embarrassed me. These folks smelled like urine, body odor, and booze. At some point, I grew up and realized that it was not about giving them a meal, he could have bought them a hamburger. By bringing them home, he gave them their dignity and treated them like any other guest.
As much as I adored my folks and their love for Christ, as well as the way they showed their love in how they treated others, especially those considered unlovable (or invisible) by most…the fact is, their religion — Pentecostal Holiness — was a huge turn-off and as a result, I struggled for 20 years over my faith.
In the Pentecostal Holiness church, one almost has to be perfect to make it to heaven. I wasn’t allowed to have my ears pierced, go to movies, swim with boys, dance, etc. As an adult, I attended various non-denominational churches, but so many of them were more about growing the congregation and offering entertainment choices, then about teaching folks to have relationships with Christ and each other. None of them taught how to treat one another.
The political in-fighting, constant pleas for more offerings, and competition with other churches was all too much. The clincher was when the pastor of a church I had attended for six years got in the pulpit and asked everyone to take out a cash advance on their credit card to buy some latest, greatest gadget the church just had to have.
Once I stopped attending, the senior pastor sent me a Facebook message telling me that I could be such a great cheerleader for God if only I would return to church. This is ironic because of what I did after I “left” church.
I started a group 5 years ago of friends and strangers called Scarf it Up. Here are some of the things we have done in the past three months alone:

We had a yard sale and raised over $3k for a veteran and his family facing foreclosure.
We bought and installed a water heater for a disabled woman.
We held a Valentine banquet for 150 homeless folks and gave each one a rain poncho, coat, and a small ziplock of home baked cookies in addition to a meal.
We feed homeless people monthly and are having a cookout planned for April 6th.
Every December we fill backpacks with socks, scarves, blankets, granola bars, toiletry kits, etc, and pass them out on December 15th… this year we distributed 250 kits.
We are also an emergency resource for our local Salvation Army and last Thursday they called to ask us if we could help a young mother of two who was short $275 paying her March rent after an illness put her in the hospital and out of work. Within an hour we had the money plus $100 extra for groceries. Over the weekend we discovered she had no furniture. None. So far, we have obtained a sofa, love seat, queen bed, twin bed & trundle, kitchen table/chairs, dishes, and other items as well.

But I’m not a cheerleader for God because I don’t “attend” church.
Recently a well-meaning friend told me I needed to get my family in church. I’m a Realtor by profession, but I also home-school my three younger sons (two are grown). My 14 year old son and I read the bible together daily and are currently in the book of Mark. My younger children and I also read stories from the Bible daily, pray together, and discuss the kind of people we need to strive to be. All of my children help in our efforts to help others.
I may not be physically in a church building, but my husband and I put 10% of our earnings into our “blessings fund” from which we have helped a family with nine children keep their home when facing foreclosure, paid $1800 for a family to have a broken axle repaired on their only vehicle. From this fund, we regularly buy groceries for needy families, make chicken soup for our sick friends, watch the children so a deployed soldier’s wife can get a few hours to herself, take blessings baskets to folks who need a smile after life’s tripped them up, and numerous other ways of blessing and loving others.
We hug our homeless friends, and they know that if they need anything — from shoes to mosquito repellent — all they have to do is ask. To me, many churches are run like businesses and too many pastors are making too much money. The average home price in my market is $160k and yet we have pastors living in million dollar homes in our small city!! I don’t understand it. I don’t agree with it.
So, no, we don’t “go to church,” but we love God and we strive to make Jesus “smile” (that is how we explain it to our 6 year olds). I’m so tired of folks judging my family and thinking we’re “not living right” just because we don’t attend church in a building.
I’m glad there are folks like you telling us that we, in fact, are not doing it wrong and it’s OK for us to worship and serve Him in our own way. Though our service in the name of Jesus may look different than those who “go to church”, it is no less sincere.

Thanks, Beth!
And thanks to all of you who read this blog and who write about similar things on your own blogs and on Facebook. All around the world, people are beginning to see that it is possible (and maybe even easier) to follow Jesus outside the four walls of the church and do so in a way that takes His love to the neediest people in our towns and cities.
Sitting in a building on Sunday morning is not the only way of following Jesus!
If you appreciated what Beth said, go “Like” her Scarf it Up page on Facebook! Maybe you can start something similar in your own town. If you do, let us know!

HELPING THE POOR AND HOMELESS - START SMALL

Helping the Poor and Homeless – Start Small

By Jeremy Myers

Based on some of the recent posts from Sam Riviera about helping the poor and homeless in our communities, many people have emailed me about how they can begin doing this in their own communities.
Here is one example of a message that was sent in:

I have been following your posts for some time. You present a freshness to “Christianity” that I rarely see.
The blogger who said that he had quit going to church but it still hurts I am afraid I share that same sentiment. My husband and I stopped late last year. He for different reasons than myself but both are the reasons you and this blogger mentioned. We are older believers and have seen much.
Since I was a little girl, I have been saddened by the Church’s response to those less fortunate. Today I am deeply disturbed by how much it has become a house of hate instead of love. I don’t presume to say that all Christians are like that. I only know that one is way too many.
I would appreciate any help you can give me on gaining the courage to do what you and your family does. How do I get others involved? Thank you for your daily inspiration and love.

I think that this is a question many people have, so I decided to write a post about it.
First, I am encouraged by emails and comments like this because it shows that many people are taking the courageous step of following Jesus wherever He leads. I am convinced that “leaving church” so that we can “be the church” is one of the most difficult–but important–steps a person can make in their life of discipleship. This step is not for everyone, but I think it is becoming more and more important for people today if they want to see Jesus at work among those in our communities who are truly needy.
Second, as to how to start, Sam included many practical suggestions in his blog series about how to get started, but let me share a little bit about what we are doing in my family.
My recommendation is this:

Begin small. Very small.

How small? The biggest small way you can start: with prayer.
Pray for opportunities to present themselves. Pray that Jesus would open your eyes and ears to see where He is leading.
Then, begin looking and listening.
Listen for things people say which might allow you to have conversations with them. Or as you are reading the newspaper, look for opportunities to serve somewhere in your town. Or as you are driving around, look for shelters or organizations where you can volunteer.
So this first step is just to pray and then keep your eyes and ears open.
Then, take another small step:

Take Action.

Based on what you see or hear, begin to get involved in small ways with the things you saw and heard.
Here are some examples:
As you drove around, did you start noticing homeless people? Think about putting together some “gift bags” for them which you can quickly and easily hand to them. Get some cheap bags from somewhere online, and fill them with some non-perishable food items, a cheap tarp, some new socks, and some single-use basic hygiene items, and then put 2-3 of these in your car to pass out whenever you see someone who might need one.
Poor and homeless

Or maybe while you were running errands, you saw a homeless shelter. Call them up and see what volunteer opportunities might be available, and then talk with your husband about going down to help out one time per week.
Or maybe one of your friends said something in passing about helping the poor. Call her up and mention to her that what she said really stuck in your mind and ask if she would be interested in getting together for coffee and brainstorming about how to help the poor in the community.
So basically, helping those who are less fortunate begins with believing that Jesus wants to lead you to help them, and then praying for eyes to see where He wants to lead you, and then looking for these places or people that He brings to your attention. It will be different for everybody, so don’t necessarily think that the ways I talk about on my blog are the ways Jesus will lead you. It might be similar, but it also might be very different.
In fact, Jesus might not lead you to poor and homeless people at all. He might lead you to your neighbors or to the family down the street. Just keep your eyes and ears open as you pray to Jesus to lead you to the people He wants you to love. In the near future Sam Riviera will begin another series of posts about how to do this in your neighborhood. So keep checking back!