Ministry Expands

An Expansion of Care Arises - “Building a Bridge of Change”

Mesquite, TX – Operation Care – Dallas, Inc. is a successful care program in full action since 1993 for the homeless community in the DFW Metroplex. So much so that Operation Care - Dallas has recently expanded a bridge of care to the Philippines.

Operation Care - Dallas, Inc. caters to the physical and spiritual needs of the homeless in the DFW Metroplex by facilitating services and sharing the hope of salvation through Jesus Christ. This ministry, birthed from a widow's grief, has enlarged as the mission has ventured to Iloilo City. Now adding another name to the organization, Operation Care Philippines: Changing the World, Changing Lives, an evangelistic movement will allow children in America to assist the homeless children, orphans, and street kids in Iloilo City through the project, Operation Adopt A Friend.

This is not another outreach were the adult community will come to the rescue, but rather our young heroes, our children will become responsible philanthropist as they will be Changing Lives, Changing the World. Imagine our American children stepping out to be missionaries for other children in a foreign country by raising only $15.00 to support their Philippine counterpart; their Adopted Friend across the waters of our world as Operation Care Philippines builds bridges for unity, hope and integrity amongst our youth.

Various churches are educating their children and members. Soles for Kidz and Buckner International are participating in the construction of this bridge by donating shoes. Operation Care Philippines' goal of catering to 1,000 homeless children subjected to living in cemeteries, railroad stations and garbage sites can be met as we lace up to walk together over this magnificent evangelical bridge.

Become a supporter of Operation Care - Dallas, in conjunction with Operation Care Philippines "Adopt-A-Friend" program by filling up the 20 ft. truck shipment of care kits, toys, Bibles, and provision for these less fortunate children. This shipment must be a float in the first part of April 2008 to make the official launch celebration by July 5, 2008. The day will hold a foot washing ceremony, evangelism, prayer, medical support, food, and entertainment for the adults and children along with the gifts from our children to theirs.

For more information please log onto www.OperationCareDallas.org. We are Changing Lives while Changing the World.

Compassion - It's Not Just For Children Anymore

Are you interested in helping a college student make a difference in the world? Do you want to make a difference in the world? Check out Shaun's entry about Moses. It has the information and links you need to find out more about Compassion's Leadership Development Program.

Bob Geldof, George W. Bush, Africa

My husband showed me this blog tonight. Very interesting. And not on the nightly news.

Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement.

Watching Girls 7th Grade B-Team Basketball is not for the faint of heart

My nephew went with me to the ballgame tonight. He is used to watching the college girls his dad coaches play. I asked him if it was as bad as he thought it would be or worse? He said, "Worse. It was like watching gladiators fight." Ouch!

I will never make you happy...

My 12 year old son expressed to me that he was not happy with a decision I had made. I told him that I will never make him happy, so therefore, I am not trying to make him happy.

Compassion gave me Jason

Well, actually, they didn't give him to me. That would be illegal and unethical. But, they did make it possible for me to sponsor Jason. We now write each other and pray for each other's families. I "found" Jason at a Planet Wisdom Conference. There were at least two tables covered with pictures of children that needed to be sponsored. As I poured over them Jason caught my eye. He didn't look like any of the other kids. And he reminded me of one of my favorite little guys, Joel. So, that is how my relationship with Jason began. He lives in the Dominican Republic with his mother. His father is deceased. He enjoys going to church. Recently he went with Compassion to the city. They visited the zoo and he rode a horse. I love getting letters from him and seeing his sweet thoughts.

This was not planned...

I'm a girl. Okay, I'm a middle-aged mother of five. Anyway, we girls do not like to wear the exact same thing at the same time. In other words, it isn't cool to show up to a shindig in the same outfit. Unless, maybe you're eight, and you and your BFF are wearing your matching Hannah Montana shirts. Now that we all understand the concept of not dressing alike you can understand my distress of what took place at a Student Life Conference.

Spur58 is on stage leading worship. Everyone is standing and singing along. Jimmie, playing his beautiful guitar, steps to one side and I see through the smoke what looks like a very familiar t-shirt. I squint. Is Bush really wearing the same thing as me? Maybe I'm seeing things. It is sorta dark with lights flashing around. A break comes along and I find my middle daughter.
ME: Are Bush and I...
DAUGHTER: Yes
ME: I thought so, but I couldn't tell for sure.

So now I know that Bush wears his shirt on Saturdays. I will not be wearing my shirt on Saturdays anymore. Just in case we end up at the same shindig again.

"and I got it..."

I love this blog entry by my friend, Lori, about an African grocery store in Nashville.

Sex scandal rocks Hong Kong...

and the public reacts just like Americans. Lovely.

In places like Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, where the hunger for celebrity news is ravenous and invasive, the daily leak of new images has kept the story on the tabloids’ front pages, alongside breathless updates on the stars and ongoing legal proceedings.

I Like Dreamin'

Actually, I don't. Crazy dreams attack my sleep almost every night and I hate it. They never make sense and each leaves me exhausted. Waking up after each one is a pain in the hiney. They are so bizarre that most of the time I can't even begin to describe them. They are vivid, detailed and in full color. Every once in awhile there will be one that I can actually vocalize, but that doesn't mean it will make a lick of sense in any way, shape, or form. The latest involved a rock band, a private railroad car circa 1800's,three band member's maternal grandmother, band's manager, band member's girlfriend, band member's fiancee, a crouton, chapstique, a cupcake with thick white frosting, a baby and his mother.

See what I mean? It's just wrong. I don't even know if there is a maternal grandmother still living. I don't know if a certain band member has a girlfriend. I have met the lovely fiancee, and know the crouton is married. I've never met the wife, but we have discussed the joys of chopping onions. I know that they don't travel in a railroad car. I mean, what band does? See what I'm dealing with? Insanity, plain and simple!

I wouldn't have found Jesus...

Read Anne's blog and then change a life, change a family, change a community...you get the idea.

Ditzy at its best

It took me a few tries to get out the door today. Actually, I made it out the door. Three times. I got into my van and realized I didn't have my glasses on. I sat and debated on going back in to get them. I really didn't feel as if I needed them today, but my eyes have become used to seeing them on my face when I look in the mirror. So, I went back in and got them. While inside I decided that I needed to change my shirt because it was chilly outside. I took off my shirt and stared at the clothes in my closet. I determined that what I had already put on was the only choice. That shirt went back on and I grabbed my 60's vintage coat that I picked up at Goodwill for $12 (just had to throw that in here, has nothing to do with this blog) and threw it on, buttoned it up, and proceeded out the door. Once back in the van I realized that I was almost out of gas. And, for once, I remembered that the credit card was in the back pocket of my blue jeans. The ones on the floor of my closet. Back inside. Got the credit card. Back outside.

Now, some may say that I need to keep a list to help me get out the door. I would lose the list. Some may say make a mental list. With what? Don't you have to have some sort of mental capability to make a mental list? If it just took being mental then I would have that covered, yet it takes more. Some may wonder why the credit card was in my back pocket and why I didn't put it in my purse. That takes time and usually when I am getting gas I am in a hurry, because of things like forgetting my glasses and changing my shirt and grabbing my coat and forgetting my credit card is in my other jeans. See, it is just a vicious cycle. A cycle set on high heat that burns away more brain cells daily.

Pocket Full of Rocks

When you sponsor a Compassion child, it is not a “symbolic” sponsorship. Your money is not going into some generic slush fund and doled out to a random group of children. There is only one Dissan, and he is ours. If we didn’t sponsor him, he wouldn’t have a sponsor unless someone else signed up. If you’re a child sponsor, and you want to visit your child in his home country, then they will arrange it.

Because there’s only one of you, and there’s only one of them.

Now read the rest of her blog. I mean it. Do not make me have to hurt you.

You need to read this...

it will do something to your insides and if it doesn't, well, then you are dead.

HOPE shows up...

What would you do if your child wanted to be a doctor? Would you have a plan to put into motion to make that happen? Would HOPE show up for your family?

Help HOPE show up for others.

Last minute Valentine's gifts from the heart...

Okay, you are down to the wire. You need a gift, a gift from the heart, not from the tent in the Kroger parking lot. So, here are my suggestions for meaningful Valentine Day gifts.

Sponsor a child at Compassion International.
Buy a pair of shoes from Toms
Send some love through LOVE 146
Show a little heart with Operation Care
Give a drink through blood:water mission
Pick a t-shirt with a message and much more at Two-Five

Send The President To Africa

I just signed a petition to the 2008 presidential candidates urging them to commit to visiting Africa during their first term.

You can help by taking action here: http://www.one.org/visitafrica/

Let The Games Begin...

except it really isn't a game. How can life be a game? Thousands upon thousands of children are in dire need of basics every day, every moment. These people have partnered with Compassion International to see that something is done for those hurting children in Uganda. You can click on the widget at the top of my page or you can click on the following. These bloggers will see things daily that will break their hearts. They will also see hope. They will see places that provide that hope. They will see children for whom you can provide that hope. Don't just sit at your computer reading and nodding and thinking how horrible it is. Do something. Change a life for $32 a month.

Compassion Blog
Ragamuffinsoul
Chris Elrod
Doug Van Pelt
Whittaker Woman
Phil Ware
Ethos
Shaun Groves
BooMama
Flowerdust
Rocks In My Dryer
J-Walking
Compassion - Christian Child Sponsorship
Spence Smith
Queen Anne's Lace
Brian Seay

Now go: read, sponsor, change a life.

Check out time is ...

Have you ever felt the need to escape? Nothing stressful is going on - or at least not major, but this overwhelming urge to crawl into bed for a few days comes over you. I start thinking of movies with happy endings I can watch and fluff books I can read. Nothing that requires thinking. I don't like when I want to go to this place. It feels as I'm wasting a lot of time, but I'm also not in the mindset to accomplish much. Maybe there is some stress under the surface that needs to be dealt with, but part of my brain doesn't want to acknowledge it is there.

Wisdom For The Ages...

Do not forget that you are using an electric toothbrush and pull it out of your mouth while the power is still on. Especially when you are wearing black.

He is arguably the worst president in the history of the United States...

states Frank Schaeffer in his interview with John W. Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute. The following is a very small part of a very interesting conversation.

JW: What do you think of George W. Bush as the Christian president?

FS: He is arguably the worst president in the history of the United States. He is unfit for the office of president of the United States. He has trouble speaking the English language and articulating a point of view. Second, he has led us into a war—in which my son, by the way, fought—on false pretenses. That is a terrible thing. Bush is personally responsible for the displacement of the Christian minority in Iraq. It was the last large Christian minority anywhere in the Middle East, and it has been destroyed. It is ironic that someone who proclaims he is a Christian president has single-handedly started a war that has undone the last Christian minority in the Middle East. Now it is wall-to-wall Islam from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean with the exception of Israel. There is not one place outside of Syria that still has that intact Christian minority now.

JW: Are you opposed to the war in Iraq?

FS: Absolutely. We had a legitimate cause to go into Afghanistan, and it was the right thing to do. It was the only logical response to 9/11. But Iraq was a completely misbegotten fiasco from the beginning. It was unnecessary and will only make our world situation worse.

JW: Do you think it is ironic that the Christian Right supports the war and has raised very few moral questions about it?

FS: Yes. Because of my son’s service in the Marine Corps, I’ve written on the subject of who serves in the military and who doesn’t. There is no question about the fact that when you have the Religious Right, the neoconservatives and others supporting the war, it is hypocritical when you discover that there is no preponderance of their own children who volunteer and serve. This is a fundamentally immoral situation, especially when you have someone like James Dobson who could use his prestige to call for his followers’ children to volunteer and serve. They typically make the moral case for the war without anybody having to actually sacrifice for it. It puts an immoral blossom on the whole enterprise. Also, it would be something that I would think Christians would want to talk about, as well as the fact that a Christian minority in the Middle Eastern Islamic country has been destroyed.

Craigslist Nightmare

Evil never sleeps. It is constantly looking and finding news ways to destroy and exploit.

Children For Sale

With a bit of research, one can realize just how much of a problem this has become. In one recent case, two Chicago women were charged for selling girls as young as 14 years old on Craigslist. The girls were forced to have sex with 10-12 men per day, and the traffickers made tens of thousands of dollars. A Boston man and his niece were charged with plotting a child trafficking operation with teenagers as young as 13 by selling them on Craigslist to predators from Massachusetts to New York. These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, law enforcement efforts to fight trafficking nationwide are consistently reporting a spike in online Craigslist ads, and how sex trafficking has “moved online” lately.

Katherine Chon Executive Director & Co-Founder Polaris Project
Read more.

Pizza with a Purpose

I was at the Dallas Zoo recently having lunch with my son. He was munching on a personal pizza and I was watching the Golden Lion Tamarins groom each other and play chase. I'm the weird kind of person that reads everything around me. Cereal boxes, fast food bags, menus, pizza boxes...and that is how it happened. I began to read Clay's pepperoni pizza box. My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I read:

Help Us Make A Difference!
Share Your Compassion - Sponsor Needy Kids From Around The World With Compassion, Int'l
Compassion
1-800-336-7676
www.compassion.com

WOW! A pizza with a purpose! I believe their slogan: Noble Roman's The Better Pizza People