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Here is an easy way to help support Half the Sky’s Big Top Activity Center program. You just click here to go to American Express’s site and click on “Nominate this project”. There is only two more days left to vote. The top five winner’s will share a cash prize. Even if you aren’t a cardmember you can sign in as a guest to vote on this.
Half the Sky’s has already set up several Big Top activity centers and plans to set up 10 center in refugee settlements near the epicenter of the May earthquake. According to Half the Sky, “Each BigTop offers children a safe place to be children again – with preschool, afterschool / weekend art, dance,music, sports and games as well as training for caregivers in providing emotional support to traumatized children.” The American Express award will help to build and run 4 BigTop centers for two years. PLEASE VOTE!
The boys and I went to Nashville this past weekend. We had a great visit with Tommy’s sister and her husband. We went to a Dragon Boat Festival Saturday morning. It was lots of fun! Then Saturday evening we went to my nieces’ sixth birthday party (my sister’s daughter). My niece is an unusual little girl in that she is fascinated by dinosaurs and reptiles. So for her birthday some friends of my sister and her husband gave Mary Carsen a pet snake. (My mom and husband both had the same response–”Well, I’m not going to visit them anymore.”) It is a baby snake that eats frozen baby mice (if you feed it live mice, it makes it become aggresive–good thing to know). It will grow to be 2 1/2-3 1/2 feet long. They will eventually have to get a 20 gallon terrarium for it. Well, my sister called this morning to say, “Well, there’s a snake loose in my house.” I don’t think I’ll be going to visit anytime soon either!
Now for the big news–although we live in North Mississippi, Hurricane Fay renovated our house while we were away. My husband was here when a tree fell on our house at 4:45am Sunday. He called Sunday morning and said, “I have good news, and I have bad news. Good news is that we’re getting new carpet.” (something I’ve been begging for for a year) “Bad news is that we’re getting a new roof, too” The tree collapsed one side of our back porch and put a huge hole in the roof above our living room. Since it continued to rain all day Sunday, the living ceiling got wet and fell in. As Tommy put it, “Fay installed a skylight in our living room.” We have an eight-foot-wide hole in the living room. We also have a hole over our bedroom and a leak in there. We living with my mom for now. Insurance company has been extremely helpful. A contractor looked at it today and said it would take 3-4 weeks to finish the job. Good news is that we get new carpet and get to change the things about our living room that we never liked!
My poor doggies are so confused!
Hole in living room:
This has been one of the most amazing, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, joyful weeks of my life. But the NEWS I want to share is that we sent a letter of intent to China on Thursday to adopt our daughter!!!! She is five-years-old and has a congenital heart defect for which she has had one surgery. She will need additional surgery SOON after arriving home hopefully in November.
What we need now is prayers as we wait for official approval from China and major prayers for her health until we can get her the medical care that she needs. There’s so much more to this story, but that’s all I can say for now, except for God is SO AMAZING! YEAH, GOD!
While much of the world will be watching the Olympic events in China during the next 16 days, there are still many suffering the effects of the earthquake in May and then a more recent earthquake which affected the same area. Global Giving recently shared about a new project to help the children of China affected by the earthquake. The following is from an e-mail from Global Giving.
The BigTop Children’s Activity Center opened in June 2008 in a refugee camp in Dujiangyan, near the earthquake’s epicenter. The center provides support for the children and families. Complete with preschools, therapeutic after-school activities and emotional support, Big Top Children’s Center will operate for the next two years to support the children and families in their recovery and getting back on their feet.
Click here to see lovely photos of what is happening at BigTop #1 at Qinjian Refugee Camp. In addition to building and equipping these tents for two years, Half the Sky plans for the next five years to train doctors, teachers and caregivers in helping grieving children to develop resilience. The following is from an e-mail newsletter from Love Without Boundaries.
Each BigTop offers a preschool and afternoon and weekend activities for
school-age children: art, music, dance, sports, games. The idea is to
create safe spaces for traumatized children to just be children again. Our
partners at Huaxi Mental Health Centre of Sichuan University and at the
National Center for School Trauma and Bereavement tell us that this is a
critical first step toward healing. The children receive counseling at the
BigTop but it feels incidental – they come to play and to have a place
that is their own and to feel safe.
Down the long road to recovery, we hope we can further help the children
of Sichuan by creating permanent community centers in the hardest-hit
towns. We have learned that the healing from a disaster of this scale must
go on for years, some say generations.
It’s a really great time to spread the word about helping these families.
Steven Curtis Chapman’s family is very dear to the adoption world, so I want to help spread the word that Steven, Mary Beth, and their three oldest children are going to be appearing on Good Morning America on August 6th to share about the tragic loss of their daughter Maria on May 21st. They will be appearing on Larry King Live on August 7th and will also be featured in the August 15th issue of People magazine. Their faith throughout this seemingly senseless tragedy has been inspiring to say the least. And they continue to inspire by their desire to share how God has been there for them during this extremely difficult time.
Some of you may have heard the additional lyrics to Steven’s song “Yours” from his This Moment cd.
I’ve walked the valley of death’s shadow
So deep and dark that I could barely breathe
I’ve had to let go of more than I could bear
And questioned everything that I believe
But still even here
in this great darkness
A comfort and hope come breaking through
As I can say in life or death
God we belong to you.
Please continue to pray for this amazing family. The SCC e-mail newsletter suggested praying for them throughout this year of “firsts” by trying to remember to pray every Wednesday or every 21st of the month. I think that’s a fantastic idea not only for the Chapman family but for anyone you know who is going through a year of “firsts” without a loved one.
I love this quote from an article where Shane Claiborne was speaking of his Jesus for President tour:
Reporters often ask folks leaving our presentations funny questions like: “Young evangelicals are the swing vote in this election… has this evening affected how you are going to vote in November?” I heard one person say beautifully, “That’s the wrong question… the real question is how can we become the change we want to see in the world TODAY and not just hope that every four years we can elect politicians to change the world for us.” May it be so. May we continue to become the change we want to see in the Church and in the world. Enough donkeys and elephants – Long live the Lamb.
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