disclaimer: my mac’s mic sucks. sorry. you’re gonna have to turn it up, baby!
here you go!
**also**
several of you mentioned wanting me to come out and speak to your church/students/college/staff/dog sometime. please email me here and let me know what’s on your mind!
we are SOMEWHERE close to hitting our 10,000th comment on flowerdust.net.
who will be the 10,000th commenter? i dunno…but…
*WHOEVER LEAVES THE 10,000TH COMMENT…I WOULD BE HONORED TO FLY OUT TO WHEREVER YOU LIVE, ON MY OWN DIME, AND SPEND A LITTLE TIME WITH YOU!! GET LUNCH, COFFEE…WHATEVER!*
now, after typing that, i realize how completely presumptuous that sounds…as if you would actually want a visit from me…
but, assuming you would like to hang out (as there are SO many of you i would love to meet!)…please comment…and we will get this ball rolling!
this blog is about YOU. it is YOUR community. and i cannot thank my lucky stars to have interacted with you all on some level. it would be SUCH a treat to get to meet more of you face to face. so…i can’t wait!!
so…to the 10,000th commenter…i will fly out to your hometown on my own dime at a time that’s mutually convenient and we’ll part-tay.
*a few rules:
-48 states…if someone outside the 48 states is the 10,000th comment, the next eligible person will be chosen.
-the guy rule…i don’t meet with guys alone, so, if a guy wins, someone else must be there!
-if you comment multiple times, you must wait at least 10 comments before posting again
-if you live in hawaii, alaska, or overseas…and you would really really really like to win…and you do…i’m willing to come…it’s just the cost of travel keeping me from you. if you can float the difference, heck, i’m there! :)
-just for a reference…we are somewhere between 0 and 200 comments from hitting 10,000…so, it’s anyone’s game!
-final approval will be made at my hub’s and my discretion (ie, if your blog is about killing small woodland creatures, or your obsession with chemical warfare agents, we’ll probably pick the next guy…creepy).
-i’ll announce the winner as soon as we figure out who it is!
have fun!!!
it’s been two years and i have been sans blogroll. it’s time to change…
if you link to me, let me know, and i’ll link you back…
also…if you don’t link to me, now is a darn good time to start.
ha ha…no really. you should start…
let me know you’re a link lover in the comments and make sure to leave your blog address so i can return the favor!
EDIT: Thank you! It appears that all three children have been sponsored. You can still sponsor children in Uganda by clicking here!
There are three children in Uganda who have been waiting over six months for sponsors.
last time when i posted two children who had been waiting over six months to be sponsored, you guys stepped up and both of them had sponsors within an hour! that is incredible.
i looked around on compassion’s site a few minutes ago, and found teddy. she lives in uganda. and she’s orphaned. with her two siblings, she lives with her uncle, who is occasionally employed as a farmer.
i LOVE the invaluable feedback you guys have provided when i ask little questions for mad church disease. so, here’s another…
what, in your opinion, makes an environment healthy?
from flibbityfluent…
“Serve the stranger not as a strategy but as an act of love.”
my book deadline is february 28 march 14.
i sent this letter to my agent a few moments ago.
Oh, my dear Beth.
I’m sure you have a calendar for each of us. And on that calendar, with all of your experience, you probably have certain days circled in red. These days would represent days like today when I email you and say I am having looking-my-deadline-in-the-eye-induced-panic-attacks.
Breathe in, breathe out.
My brain has locked up. My fingers have locked up. And (breathe) I (breathe) have (breathe) two (breathe) weeks?
I don’t know what agents do on these days. But you do.
Please send xanax, stat.
Sincerely yours,
Anne-Going-To-Hide-Under-My-Bed-Jackson
your role in this, bloggyfriends? pray…hard…for me! being sick/asleep twenty-one hours a day lately isn’t really helping my schedule.
i’ve been home sick today (not with infectious stomach parasites like some of my ugandan-travel-mates, rather what i have dubbed a “fire breathing demon baby” that has taken residence in my throat). i have left my bedroom once to get soup and that is it. no energy.
yet still needing to kind of function for a conference call at 4 pm today.
here’s what that looked like.
i can honestly say i have never had a conference call in sweats with a cat sleeping on me.
and i must be so overridden with ick that i am actually posting that photo….? with no makeup? eek.
anyway…
i’ve been playing around on twitter a lot today. so…if you tweet, add me!
shaun wrote an amazing post today. and i can promise you. he is so right. and your prayers are so needed. for all of us.
**HIS POST IS BELOW**
A few years ago in El Salvador I saw real poverty for the first time. At the end of the week we gathered just off the hotel lobby, circled up in metal folding chairs, and talked about how we were feeling. Diving so far, so quickly, into poverty can nearly drown the heart and mind of an affluent American and so this is the standard way of ending a Compassion International “vision trip.” Depressurizing a little in a group before the plane ride home is safer for the soul than being yanked to the surface alone by the sights and sounds of the O’ Hare food court.
When it was my turn to talk about my feelings all I felt was insignificance and so I vomited that emotion up everywhere. (With a lot more words) I said just didn’t care anymore.
About what? About what color we paint the den. About whether my song is climbing the charts. About who the president is. About the gig next week. About what kind of cheese I can get on my Subway sandwich. About seeing that new movie. About that new laptop I wanted. About telling the interviewer what kind of animal I?d like to be. About mowing the yard.
I just didn?t care anymore. It didn?t feel significant ? none of it – not standing back to back with feeding kids, teaching them to read, giving them life-saving medicine, teaching their moms how to sew, telling them they matter to God and to me. Nothing in my whole life back home seemed as significant as my week in El Salvador with Compassion International. Nothing.
I changed my job, politics, theology, church, closet, free time, budget, house, parenting, show. I sought, and am still seeking, to make my life here in America as significant as one week in El Salvador.
I tell you all this because it’s time now for the Uganda bloggers to fight the same kinds of emotions and weigh the same kinds of life changes. So, if you’re part of their life, try to understand they’re quite possibly morphing into something else. And pray that it’s something significant. Pray that we’re not so wrecked that we’re poor teachers, poor communicators and friends, repellant to those we desperately want to introduce to the children and God we’ve fallen in love with.
Pray for…
Shannon
Sophie
Doug
Phil
Anne
Chris
Randy
Heather
Carlos
David
Shaun