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Andy and Jill Lehman family

Entries in poverty (16)

Monday
Jun282010

Equip Yourself to Take a Stand - Pt. 2

As a follow up to this post introducting Red Card Kids, we'll be highlighting the first 2 lessons in the Red Card workbook!

Lesson 1: God's Heart for Children

-If everyone embraced the idea that children are created in God's image, how would this change teh way children are treated?

-Memorize Mark 10:14b. Use your prayer card to review God's heart for children and pray for them.

Lesson 2: Poverty

-How would your daily routine change if you spent 4-5 hours fetching your family's water each day? Knowing that your nearest source of water is 4 miles away, what would you do to reduce your water usage?

How will YOU respond? CHECK BACK SOON... we'll be sharing about each lesson over the next few weeks!

Tuesday
Jun152010

Equip Yourself to Take a Stand!

We are excited to introduce you to Red Card Kids... and we'll be highlighting their program over the next several weeks!

Red Card Promo video from Tami Snowden on Vimeo.

Overview: 

Red Card is an 8-week family class on children at risk. Lessons raise awareness of their situations, provide a biblical view of God’s heart for these children, challenge believers to pray for them, and offer practical steps for involvement. The material is designed to provide eight 75-minute lessons for use in churches.

The unique feature of the curriculum is our target audience… families. We want to encourage and empower children to become advocates for the largest unreached group in the world – their own peers. Lessons will allow parents and children (4th grade and up) to learn, process, pray, and take practical steps together.

Testimony from the Donels family, who were impacted by the Red Card class and recently brought home two children from Ethiopia -

The Red Card class opened our eyes to the devestating needs of children around the world. Each week had such an impact on our family because of the hands-on activities.

How will YOU respond? CHECK BACK SOON... we'll be sharing about each lesson over the next 6 weeks!

Monday
Aug242009

Dad, how do you get rich?

"all" the money from an 8 yr old girl's piggy bank

A Lifesong giver recently shared this story with us...an example of how we get to advocate WITH our children!

I was driving home from bible study one evening when my 8 yr old daughter asked, “Dad how do you get rich?” I asked her why she wanted to get rich and she said that she didn’t really know but when pressed she wanted to buy another American Girl doll. I explained to her that many children didn’t even have one doll, let alone two.

She wanted to know why some people were rich and some were poor so I answered because God makes some rich and some poor. I explained that if we are rich we should not use it for ourselves but we should give it to the poor to help them…this makes God happy. I very thoughtful little girl asked if I know some poor people. I told her that I did and she asked if I could take her to meet them so she could give them the money she has in her piggy bank.

Over the last few months she has asked me several times if I can take her to some poor people so that she can give them her money. Well, the other Friday night my wife and I were talking about an orphanage in Honduras that has some needs. We were trying to narrow down how many of the needs we could help with when our 8 year old asked if the people there are poor. We explained that they are poor and she promptly declared that she wanted to give them all the money in her piggy bank, except the dollars she has gotten from losing teeth because she wants to keep track of how many teeth she loses…but when she’s done losing teeth she will give that money too. Well, she and her 4 year old sister pooled their piggy bank change and came up with $15 dollars. She is excited to give the money and never wavered in her decision.

The ironic thing is that my wife and I wrote the single largest donation check we have every written but in Jesus eyes our daughter has given more because she has given nearly everything she has. I praise God that he has given us a heart to share and that we have the opportunity to influence our children’s hearts for the poor.



As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."   ~  Luke 21:1-4

Monday
Mar092009

Stephen King, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Angelina Jolie: What unbelievers are discovering about giving

Just in case we've ever thought that what we do with our money is our own business...apparently God also considers it His business...


A great blog post by Randy Alcorn below...

-------------------------------------------------

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

A few years ago, my wife Nanci showed me an article she had found in her Family Circle magazine. The article was titled "What You Pass On." It was written by author Stephen King. He's not a writer known for his theological insights, but what he wrote echoes the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 5:15 in his assessment of the futility of materialism. Buffet, Gates and Jolie will weigh in afterward. Here's what King has to say:

A couple of years ago I found out what “you can’t take it with you” means. I found out while I was lying in a ditch at the side of a country road, covered with mud and blood and with the tibia of my right leg poking out the side of my jeans like a branch of a tree taken down in a thunderstorm. I had a MasterCard in my wallet, but when you’re lying in a ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one accepts MasterCard.

We all know that life is ephemeral, but on that particular day and in the months that followed, I got a painful but extremely valuable look at life’s simple backstage truths. We come in naked and broke. We may be dressed when we go out, but we’re just as broke. Warren Buffet? Going to go out broke. Bill Gates? Going out broke. Tom Hanks? Going out broke. Steve King? Broke. Not a crying dime.

All the money you earn, all the stocks you buy, all the mutual funds you trade—all of that is mostly smoke and mirrors. It’s still going to be a quarter-past getting late whether you tell the time on a Timex or a Rolex. No matter how large your bank account, no matter how many credit cards you have, sooner or later things will begin to go wrong with the only three things you have that you can really call your own: your body, your spirit and your mind.

So I want you to consider making your life one long gift to others. And why not? All you have is on loan, anyway. All that lasts is what you pass on. ...

[World need, especially in Africa and Asia] is not a pretty picture, but we have the power to help, the power to change. And why should we refuse? Because we’re going to take it with us? Please.

...Giving is a way of taking the focus off the money we make and putting it back where it belongs—on the lives we lead, the families we raise, the communities that nurture us.

A life of giving—not just money, but time and spirit—repays. It helps us remember that we may be going out broke, but right now we’re doing O.K. Right now we have the power to do great good for others and for ourselves.

So I ask you to begin giving, and to continue as you began. I think you’ll find in the end that you got far more than you ever had, and did more good than you ever dreamed.

Okay, thank you, Stephen King. I know Christians, sadly, who haven't yet discovered what you've at least caught a glimpse of. Now let's hear from Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Angelina Jolie.

It’s nice to know that the money will be utilized in a way that helps people's lives. …I get these letters from people thanking me and telling me what a difference it makes…. It's a good feeling to feel that perhaps a million people won't get malaria who would otherwise, or even, on a very small scale, thatsomebody's individual problems have been solved.
— Warren Buffet

Until fairly recently, my plan was to wait until later in my career to begin extensive giving, to allow time for a lot of focus. But I’veaccelerated my philanthropic plans. Melinda and I are convinced that there are certain kinds of gifts—investments in the future—that are better made sooner than later.

— Bill Gates




If I decide to go visit a school in the middle of Kenya, or Russia, the kids will be excited. That's better than having an Oscar.

I went through a depression when I was first famous, because what was I famous for? I didn't do anything great. And I didn't discover anything wonderful.

When I'm in a refugee camp, my spirit feels better there than anywhere else in the world, because I am surrounded by such truth, and family. I feel so connected to just simply being a human being. In these countries, they don't know who I am. I am useful as a woman who's willing to spend a day in the dirt. Maybe it was important for me to know that.

—Angelina Jolie

Okay, this is Randy again. If people who don't personally know Christ, who have never been transformed by God's grace, have learned this much about giving, shouldn't we who are Christ's followers have learned a great deal more?

Let me finish with a giver who wasn't famous, the poor widow. Yet in another way, Jesus made her more famous than all.
Mark writes, “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury” (Mark 12:41). Notice that it doesn’t say, “Jesus happened to see . . .” No, he deliberately watched to observe what people were giving.

How close was Jesus to the offering box? Close enough to see that some people put in large amounts. Close enough even to see two tiny coins in a shriveled old hand and to identify them as copper (Mark 12:41-42).

Jesus was interested enough in what people were giving to make an object lesson for his disciples (Mark 12:43-44).

This passage should make all of us who suppose that what we do with our money is our own business feel terribly uncomfortable. It’s painfully apparent that God considers it his business. He does not apologize for watching with intense interest what we do with the money he’s entrusted to us. 


If we use our imaginations, we might even peer into the invisible realm to see Jesus gathering some of his subjects together this very moment. Instead of discussing the poor widow, perhaps this time you can hear him talking about your heart and sacrifice and joy in giving.

The question is this: What would He be saying about you?

Saturday
Mar072009

An ear of corn....or a corn field

For all of you agriculture folks out there...

I think you'll enjoy seeing how Lifesong for Orphans is helping develop crops for the children at the Lifesong-School in Zambia, while teaching them work ethic at the same time...

Borrowing from the old adage: 

Don't just give a man an ear of corn, give him his own corn field!

Why can't we do this in more places in Africa?