i get paid every two weeks at my work. this is almost always 2 times per month. but 2 months a year, the days of the week fall so that i get three paychecks in one month. it's not like i am actually getting paid more, but it feels that way since i do our budget on a monthly basis. the end result is an "extra" paycheck which also amounts to some extra tithe money.
september was one of these months. add to it the fact that jesse has been giving tons of guitar lessons and all the orders that people have been requesting from me for sewed stuff, and we had a tidy little surplus to give away this month on top of the regular ministries that we support. it was like christmas. and i am santa, baby. i went on a giving spree.
to start with, one of the things i knew i wanted to do with this money was to support this girl, katie, a single, early-twenty-something year old american girl who has moved to uganda and adopted 14 (yup) orphaned daughters. her ministry feed and sends to school 350 ugandan children and runs a feeding program for 1200. what she does blows. my. mind.
through her devastating post here, i found another young american girl being jesus in uganda, and so some of our september money went flying out of "our" pockets and straight there too.
and then finally, katie wrote this post about a group of 20 grown women (she helps EVERYONE of all ages...seriously, she is jesus) who had formed a group that would get together and make paper bead necklaces as a way to try to earn a legitimate, sustainable living in seriously horrific conditions.
these necklaces cost $20, which pays the women who roll each individual bead by hand and then half of the profits go to supporting katie's ministry. i bought 2 of these. i am keeping one and giving one away as our giveaway 90 (for reaching 90 followers).
colorful? yup. since they have every color of the rainbow, they go with everything. and they are suuuuuper long so you can double or triple them up
sitting on my counter
this one is actually going to require more from you than a normal giveaway might and it's on the honor system. to enter you need to read the 3 things i linked to above as well as this one and this one (which actually links to background stories on this little boy that you'll wanna read).
so, yeah, that's a lot of reading for you just to enter a blog giveaway. but that's not even all you have to do. and seriously, after reading that stuff, you'll want to do more.
after you have read these stories of real, live, hurting people please pray for katie and the people she encounters and consider donating something to her ministry (there's a paypal link on the sidebar of her blog). considering that 42 cents gives a kid in her program two solid meals a day, it is not an overstatement to say that literally anything you can give would help them.
so yeah, that's a lot to do to win a necklace. but i am pretty sure it will have way cooler and farther-reaching ramifications than anything else i've ever given away on here if just one person enters.
i hope that someday soon i will have the courage and faith that she does to be jesus in incredibly real ways in incredibly dark places.
so to enter:
1. read the posts i have linked to above on katie's blog.
2. pray for or donate to her ministry.
3. leave a comment saying that you did both (you don't have to say how much or even if you gave money, just commenting will signify that you did 1 and 2).
extra entries for (leave a comment after you've done each one, for up to 3 total comments/entries):
-becoming a follower of her blog
-tweeting or blogging about her ministry
the computer will randomly pick a winner to receive the necklace on friday morning.
y'all are awesome about supporting me and the random stuff i write about on here so i know you will show up big time for something truly awesome like this and spread the story and the love even farther. and i know there are tons of other amazing people and ministries out there who are literally being jesus' hands in some tough places on this earth, and i would love to hear about any that y'all are passionate about.
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