Sacred Mundane: The Blog

Several of you have asked, “Why were you up with World Vision last week?” It’s a fair question, and honestly, I wondered the same thing myself (How did WE get to be here?) Here’s the quick scoop, and a sneak-peak at the fabulous book to be released May 7, 2013.

About 2.5 years ago, God began taking us on a journey. For me, it was a journey of Filling In My Blank. Although I had long been seeking to follow Christ and shape my life around His mission and truth, I’d somehow missed the part about loving the WORLD. That portion of my life Mission Statement had somehow remained blank. We found ourselves living a comfortable life–a great salary, a brand new house of our dreams, a great big thriving church and everything we needed. Slow, however, God started poking holes in our dream life. I still remember driving home from Lowe’s after buying the materials for our sprinkler system, and being overwhelmed by the reality that we were spending almost $400 to automatically spray drinking water all over our lawn, while millions of people are dying because they have no access to clean water. We returned everything the next day.

Then we read The Hole In Our Gospel. Even though I was dreading it, I read it. It was the tipping point for us, the thing that tipped us from our self-serving “Christian” lifestyle into seeking a more globally-minded life living our Christ’s great commission and seeking to make everything part of God’s glorious gospel mission. We certainly haven’t arrived, that’s not what I mean, but the book is what tipped us over into taking our life that direction, instead of going our own way.

Because of that, we put our dream house on the market. It took a year to sell, but when it did, we were thrilled. We lost $50,000 but knew we’d save and be able to give 10 times that over the course of our lives, by choosing to live simply and give more.

When the house sold and we were preparing to move, KATU Channel 2 contacted us about doing a story on the Downsize and choosing to live frugally. A lot of people downsize and a lot of people live a lot more frugally than we do (!) but we were thrilled at the opportunity to talk about Jesus on TV, so we went for it. A fabulous crew came and filmed our move, and we were able to talk about The Hole In Our Gospel. Channel 2 did a great job sharing our heart in the clips they showed, thanks to Shelley Bailey-Shah.

Well, World Vision saw the news clip. So, when Richard Stearns wrote his new book, they decided to film a DVD curriculum to accompany it. Although our story is certainly not as dramatic as MANY others, perhaps ours is “ordinary” enough that it will connect well with people, so they asked if we’d be part of the DVD by sharing our story.

Um…go to Whidbey Island and meet Richard Stearns and the World Vision crew and be part of a DVD talking to people about Jesus? Yes please!!

So, there you have it. I have no idea what or how they will use it, so who knows, it might come out and we won’t be in it at all! No guarantees. But it was such a joy to just be a tiny part of it, to meet everyone and get to be a fly on the wall watching the filming and all the work that goes into producing something like this. We came home refreshed, renewed, and encouraged more than ever to keep living this adventure of faith.

So that’s the deal. The book and DVD come out May 2013, and you can pre-order your copy here if you wish. I’m hoping to snag some early-release copies and do a giveaway! The book is fantastic and I’ll post more about it as the release date gets closer. The book/DVD together would make a great discipleship curriculum for a church. Check it out!

Thanks for caring, and for joining us on this life-adventure of faith. I know you ALL are taking risks and following Christ’s story throughout the world. I always love hearing from you, so drop me a line when you have a chance. Thanks for reading.

• Playing My Little Ponies and addressing Christmas cards … at the same time.
• Road trip with my man.
• Time alone.
• Rest.
• Unfinished.
  
• Baking pumpkins.
• Roasted pumpkin seeds–yum!!
• Them, crawling all over me, all the time. Thankful to be alive and enjoying this, even when I sometimes feel like I’m going crazy!
• Working together.
• My best friend–my husband.
• Prayer, lots and lots of it.
• Learning.
• Conviction. Even when I hate it, it’s so good.
• People who don’t like me. Yes, we can be grateful for them too because how would be know our weak spots unless people pointed them out??
• People who do like me. Really grateful for them! 😉
• The kitten and puppy-breath of my kids that makes me melt! There is nothing in the world I love more than the smell of my kids’ breath!
• That He’s given us breath.
• His grace that’s amazing.
• Encouragement from high up.
• Happiness sitting down low.
• Amazingly blessed by the World Vision crew.
• Richard Stearns.
• Girl’s Night. Oh those girls are life to my soul!
• Volviendo. As horrific as it is, it’s worth seeing. There’s hope in the gospel!
  
• Blessed saints who care.
• RENEW. Growing together.
  
• Christine.
• New friends.
• Laughter.
• People who give you space to be imperfect. People who just cover all your faults with love. Oh Father, thank you for such people!
• Learning to be one myself.
• Melody’s popcorn.
• A new sewer line for our new-old house!
• One day at a time. 
• Computer math-games for kids.
• Mary Auxier.
• Bailey Bremer.
• Parents who put life on hold to help us.
• My dad, amazing beyond words, caring for mom, my kids, everyone. Words can’t convey how grateful I am for him.
• A full week, a good week. Thank you, Father.

{Continuing Kris Zyp’s Gift-Giving Guide from last Friday … enjoy!}

Malaria Prevention: Save Lives, Proven, Short Term

Let’s consider one of the simplest objectives of giving: save lives. Protecting lives is one of the most obvious ways to help others. Rescuing others when we can is clearly Biblical, and certainly there is nothing in life as tragic as losing a loved one.

One group that has done extensive research on various charities, with a focus specifically on how efficient an organization saves live with their funds is Givewell. Givewell has done extremely in-depth reviews of a number of organizations and activities. While they are continuously researching and revising, they have consistently recommended malaria prevention through bed nets, specifically the Against Malaria foundation.

Nearly 750,000 children around the world under the age of 5 die from malaria each year. Bed nets cost about five dollars a piece. It is estimated that one life is saved for roughly every 400-600 bed nets. This means $2500 donation is basically equivalent to literally saving some one’s life. This is quite simply a remarkable impact (who wouldn’t give this to save a friend or loved one’s life?)

Recommendation:

World Vision partners with Against Malaria, so if you want to contribute to a Christian organization to save lives, you can give directly to World Vision’s bed nets fund here.

Education: Improve Lives, Proven, Long Term

For the long term poverty reduction, education is key to a productive and thriving next generation. While health services save many lives, education is necessary for the next generation to be able to sustain health services without relying on western aid. The downstream impacts of education are numerous. Children grow to take higher paying jobs, girls are able to become mothers who can focus and do more for their children, and they are able to become greater contributors to society. This economic increases and health knowledge ultimately also lead to lives being saved.

One of the great injustices of today is sex slavery and other oppression of females. Many fighting these battles have turned to education as the best tool to protect women from a life of prostitution or ills that beset those trapped in the economic bondage of poverty.

Recommendation:

There is more to education that simply getting children in classes. In fact we are increasingly in situations where most kids have access to education, but that education is sub-par. One organization I have read some great reviews on is Pratham, which has been doing some very innovate work with remedial, community-based education: http://www.pratham.org/

Alternately, you may want to consider a health-based approach to improving education. Deworming not only has immediate health benefits, but is considered to be a critical part of school attendance (many children miss school due to health). This is also a recommended initiative by Givewell and Innovations in Poverty Action (http://www.poverty-action.org/deworming), both major sources of information for this article. Here is the Givewell recommended charity.

Or you can go with a Christian organization, WorldVision has an assortment of health services that have high levels of matching/multiplication, and include deworming, here.

Clean Water: Save and Improve Lives, Proven, Medium Term

Water-borne diseases are known to be one of the greatest plagues of poverty. More than 1 million children under 5 die each year from diarrheal disease. Consequently, there has been a lot of focus on safe water initiatives, generally focused on building wells. However, the cost effectiveness of building wells, in terms of saving lives, doesn’t seem to be as good as buying bed nets to protect against Malaria. But, there is an approach to ensuring safe water that does seem to show similar high levels cost efficiency: communal chlorine dispensers. These chlorine dispenser, strategically positioned at water sources, appear to have a similar life saving rate as bed nets. And of course, ensuring safe water has benefits far beyond just saving lives. Safe water provides better nutrition, resistance to infection, growth, and improved performance at school.

Innovations in Poverty Action is leading this innovative approach to safe water. You can donate or learn more here.

Contraceptives: Reduce Deaths, Proven, Long Term (and controversial)

If one’s goal is defined specifically as reducing deaths, I would be remiss to not include the intervention that has shown by far the highest rate of death reduction per dollar spent: improving availability of contraceptives. I am certainly not unaware of the controversial nature of such a recommendation. Many have strong objections to supporting organization working on population control. And we can’t rightly say that these efforts are primarily “saving lives” in general, since the principle means by which most deaths are reduced is by avoiding the birth of those bound to die in the first place. But, the well established and spectacular efficacy of birth control access in reducing abortion rates, childhood deaths, and even maternal deaths (which does fit the more narrow category of “saving lives”) means that a dollar spent on access to birth control in developing countries, reduces death more effectively than any other aid effort, on the range of $7 to $177 per death averted. Nothing else comes close.

The most broad and concerted efforts in the area of access to birth control for developing countries have been undertaken by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). You can donate to them here.

{Lots to consider, yes? Thank you for thoughtfully weighing these different giving options and committing time to pray, asking God where He would have you devote His resources. More to come; Have a great weekend and thanks for reading.}