11.03.08 Twittering From The Dominican Republic

Several of the Dominican Republic bloggers are Twittering.  So, if you just can’t wait between posts, you can read about what we’re doing all day every day.  Here are the links:

http://twitter.com/challies
http://twitter.com/bigmama
http://twitter.com/thepioneerwoman
http://twitter.com/owlhaven
http://twitter.com/keelymarie

11.02.08 Meeting The Blind Dates

This trip I’ve just begun is, in many ways, a blind date. I’ve talked to the Dominican Republic bloggers by phone, traded what feels like thousands of e-mails, read their blogs for many months, but we’re about to meet face to face for the first time.

I don’t know much about these folks, not as much as I should know about a bunch of people I’ll be spending an entire week with.  I know Tim and his son are Canadian so they probably like Keanu Reeves movies and bacon a lot.  I know Marlboro Man does something with cows.  I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he probably enjoys a chunk of red meat from time to time.  I know Mary has ten children.  Let me say that again. The woman has ten children. So I know she’s probably a little nuts and/or highly medicated. I know Jennifer is from Connecticut but is originally from Texas, and I know Melanie is a Texan.  So Jesus probably likes the two of them more than the others.  These are just best guesses of courses.

I’ll know the truth soon.  In a few minutes we’ll hug and shake hands in the Miami airport, board a plane bound for Santo Domingo, and spend the next several days watching the miracle of hope mingling with poverty in the Dominican Republic.  We’ll learn together about what exactly a sponsor’s $32 a month does to transform the life of a child in the developing world.  We’ll get our shoes dirty and our hearts filled up with memories of watching the kingdom come to earth.  And by the end of the week we won’t be acquaintances anymore.  We’ll be friends.

Nothing I’ve found on earth brings people closer faster than serving a cause greater than ourselves.  And that’s what this week is about: Spreading hope through the blogosphere and asking readers like you to give it to one child.  Thanks for reading.  Go here to read every post, and see every picture and video this week.  Or subscribe to the trip’s RSS feed.

10.30.08 Feathers and Phone Calls

I spent the morning scowering the city for feathers.  $2 for a package containing exactly two turkey feathers?  No way.  Not for one night of freezing my backside off while begging neighbors for candy with my kids.

Becky’s a cowgirl this year and spent last night making chaps.  Yes, chaps.  Which, by the way, the Pioneer Woman learnt me are pronounced shaps on account of them coming from the Spanish chapparal, which is thick brush.  I learnt that last little nugget on my own.  God bless those who built and currently maintain the internets.

I am the Native American to Becky’s cowgirl.  And there will hopefully be no skirmishes.  But there could quite possibly be wrasslin’.  I’m just sayin’.  She’s got chaps.

After assembling my headdress, I hopped on a conference call with the bloggers Brian and I are traveling with to the Dominican Republic.  Sophie, from the last trip, was kind enough to join us, so that the bloggers on this trip would know at least one blogger from last trip actually made it home alive - albeit it more than a little different from when she left.

Nw that we’ve all “met” by phone, I’m more at ease about the trip.  You know, you never know how people will connect, how easily, if at all, they’ll interact.  I was relieved when the conversation turned to Europeans in speedos and everyone laughed.  Thank God, these people have a sense of humor and seem to actually like each other already.  That is a huge plus when you’re rooming and traveling a new land together for an entire week.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for me and these bloggers and our trip.  We leave Sunday and more prayers are appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

One last thing.  My road manager/booking guy/friend is also a web and graphics guru and has worked very hard to build the Compassion Bloggers site.  He just finished building everything I need to upload pictures, videos and posts from the Dominican Republic on my own during the trip.  He’s invested many many hours into this project.  Please stop by and thank him if you have a minute.  Thanks.

10.29.08 Kingdom Coming Update

Shane Wilson did a spankin’ job mixing Kingdom Coming for us.  It’s being mastered today and will hopefully be uploaded to a server tomorrow.  Then it’ll be available for download election day - that’s November 4, in case you haven’t watched television, read anything or spoken to anyone in the last year or so.

With the Dominican trip starting Sunday and Halloween (my favorite holiday) coming up too, I haven’t had time to actually get the word out about it.  I slapped together a widget that will link to the song starting election day.  Here’s that.

Think you can come up with a better graphic? I’m pretty sure you can.  It needs to be a gif or jpeg, 150 x 250 pixels.  Send me your design and if I like it better than what I’ve already got, I’ll use it.  Thanks for the help.

10.28.08 Widgetized To Release Kids From Poverty

A lot of you have placed a Compassion Bloggers Dominican Republic widget in the sidebar of your blog.  Muchas gracias.  As of a few minutes ago I changed the look of those widgets and made them all link to the Dominican Trip page over at CompassionBloggers.com.  The widget has a little countdown on it ticking down to the day of our departure.

This widget makes it easy for you and your blog’s readers to spread the word about the trip (click the “share” button to share it on your blog, facebook or myspace profile, for example).  But it also allows readers all over the web to read all of our blog posts with one click.  Every post, video and picture will be archived over on the Dominican Trip page the widgets link to.  Easy shmeezy lemon squeezy.

If you don’t already have one of these widgets on your blog (all the cool kids are doing it) now’s your chance to help us out.  Just pick the size you need below.  And let me know if there’s another size you could use.

150 pixels wide:

200 pixels wide:

Thanks for the help, everybody.  Together we’re about to release hundreds of kids from poverty.