Birthdays have cakes. Christmas has trees. Halloween has pumpkins. St. Patrick’s Day has green beer. Valentines Day has Tums disguised as heart-shaped candy. What does Election Day get? Besides hours of guys in suits talking on every major channel? Nada. Zilch. Not a thing.
So I wrote and recorded a little ditty for your Election Day enjoyment. Use it to celebrate.
Celebrate what? So glad you asked. Thanks for the set-up.
Celebrate that regardless of who becomes president, God is still King. And celebrate that he chose, for reasons I simply do not begin to understand, to plop you and I down in a country overflowing with gifts like food, water, and shelter. Celebrate that God is
using his people (and a lot of other folks too) to
give these gifts to the rest of the world also.
The song is called “Kingdom Coming” and it’s totally free. You won’t be asked for an e-mail address or anything else. Just click the image in this post and the song will download. You’re free to pass it on too - and please do.
To put the download image on your blog, in an e-mail or share it with your facebook or myspace friends, go here and follow the simple directions.
Please e-mail me if you have any problems getting the song. Thanks for listening. Enjoy.
A few days ago my son Gresham holed up in his room with a pair of scissors, construction paper, tape and a marker. He emerged an hour later, his room littered with hand scrawled signs stuck to all his stuff. All of them shouted the same message: OFF LIMITS.
So, you’d like to read a little about a cat who wears a hat? Well, all written material is OFF LIMITS.
A little chilly? Like to borrow a jacket from the closet? Sorry. Also OFF LIMITS.
I talked to Gresham about taking the signs down but he was scared. He was scared of books being drawn in by his little sister. He was scared of Matchbox cars getting lost or left outside. He was scared of his bed being trampled on by dirty feet. He was scared because all of these things have happened to him before.
I made a lot of promises to the bloggers before they agreed to take this trip to the Dominican Republic with me and Compassion International. I promised them safe food and drinking water, a quick internet connection, a hotel room. And I promised to take Compassion’s signs down. I promised that nothing would be off limits to them.
I promised they could look in any file cabinet. I promised that no door would be closed and no question would go unanswered.
A lack of trust is the biggest hurdle to sponsoring a child - or swinging a hammer for Habitat for Humanity, or dropping loose change into the Salvation Army bucket. We’re all too aware that a great many evils throughout history have worn the mask of good, that all isn’t always as advertised, that promises get broken. So, you and I, caring deeply for those in tremendous need, do less than we’d like to serve the hurting, prevented from doing more simply because we don’t know who we can trust.
No one can assume or demand anyone’s trust. It has to be earned. I watched an accountant hand over copies of financial records this afternoon - not to a member of Compassion’s board of directors, an employee, or auditor, but to a rancher from Oklahoma - a nice guy but still a total stranger. I watched bloggers ask a pastor/director of one of Compassion’s ministry locations question after question. I watched one of our trip’s leaders say, “I don’t know, let me find out for you.”
Compassion International decided, about a year ago, to take their transparency farther than ever before. Compassion Bloggers was born. It was a big decision. We were all a little scared I think of our read our posts, ask your toughest questions in the comments of our blogs, and ask God to speak to you. Nothing is off limits.
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
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.
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.
