Beam Africa

This morning at church I saw a table set up to sponsor children through Beam Africa, a community ministry we served with while in South Africa two summers ago! They had cards with different kid's photos and names on the front. I've always seen cards like these for compassion international and other organizations but I had never seen cards with pictures of kids I actually KNEW and recognized! It was crazy to look through the cards and recognize faces of the mischevious boy, the girl who always sang, the baby I held all afternoon one day, the kids we played duck duck goose with....

It's so neat to be able to still be a part of Beam Africa and the work they are doing in South Africa through sponsoring these kids! I'll find out if there is a way to sponsor a child for Beam online and write more when I find out!

This is Lerato, a sweet six year old girl who comes to Beam's development center every afternoon for food, a safe place to play, help with homework, care and encouragement.

"He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump. He sets them among princes, placing them in seats of honor. For all the earth is the Lord's, and He has set the world in order." 1 Samuel 2:8

They die namelessly...

I'm reading this great and challenging book by Jeffrey Sachs called The End of Poverty. Sachs is a part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and has an incredible economic mind, balanced outlook, and passion to see the end of extreme poverty.

With each page I turn, I learn more about how people are climbing out of poverty and the viscious cycle of extreme poverty in the world. Sachs also explores the role the rest of the world can play in meeting needs and in turn, I face my own greediness, ignorance, and love of things that, pathetically, I still don't even realize the depths of.



Here's a little blurb from the intro...



Every morning our newspapers could report, "More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty." The stories would put the stark numbers in context- up to 8,000 children dead of malaria, 5,000 mothers and father dead of tuberculosis. 7,500 young adults dead of AIDS, and thousands more dead of diarrhea, respiratory infection, and other killer diseases that prey on bodies weakened by chronic hunger. The poor die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that lack antimalarial bed nets, in houses that lack safe drinking water. They die namelessly, without public comment. Sadly, such stories rarely get written...


Read it!

rain, bananas and fire

where's your bonnet?

This is the picture that pops up on my brother'si-phone when I call him.

a. Can we talk about the bonnet?

b. I look like I'm about to punch him!

human trafficking: modern day practice of slavery

I remember listening to the news when I was in highschool and hearing about a sex-trade ring that had been busted in a small town a few hours away from San Antonio. Men who smuggled illegal aliens from Mexico promised women they would take them safely across the border. Once arriving in the US, they told the women they needed more money to let them go and that they would have to "work off" the rest of their debt to the smugglers. These women were found locked in bedrooms in a house and no one new how long they had been held as prostitutes there. I can't even imagine sneaking across the border in hopes and excitement on a new life and second chance to only find myself locked up to be raped and abused by men at their whim with no glimmer of freedom on the other side. This was the first time I ever realized that human trafficking and modern day slavery was a huge problem right here in the U.S. and is the second largest criminal industry in the world.

My friend Jaya recently went to a human trafficking conference here in Denver and she was blown away by how widespread this problem is and how many people are entangled in it.

Here are two things to check out...

Polaris Project- for facts and info on that state of human trafficking in the U.S.- the facts on the first page are really eye-opening. They are also looking for volunteers to help hang posters and pass out info for their Slavery Still Exists awareness campaign on August 23 in Denver.

Street's Hope- a way to be involved right here in Denver. Streets Hope is a ministry that serves and provides an escape for women who have been involved in the sex for sale industry.

jazz in the park- denver