Shoes Shoes Shoes :: Revisited

As of yesterday, you all got some shoes onto the feet of those who needed it...
You got their number to grow from...

...to...


Way to go!!

Keep it up!!

Get involved!!

Go here...

Shoes Shoes Shoes

How many pairs of shoes do you own?

I was curious, so I counted my family's shoe collections...

(and he can't even walk yet...)

What if your shoe collection looked like this...



...can you imagine?

300 million people can.

300 million people walk everywhere they need to go in bare feet, tough bare feet. They are forced to walk on dirt, rocks, glass, mud, disease, and anything else that falls on the ground. I mean, we are so spoiled, we even have shoes to wear in the house and shoes to wear when we swim in the lake.

How can you help make this ratio a little more even? How can you provide shoes to everyone of those 300 million barefoot people?

Well, YOU can't...but WE can.

Go here and donate a measly $5 for 2 pairs of shoes to do your part in making that 300 million number disappear into a zero.

This organization is great. They have done so much good in so many people's lives and they want to do more. And they can't unless they have your help.

Talk about this to your kids, your parents, your friends, your co-workers, your church family. Get everyone involved. Get involved yourself.

The goal of this campaign is to get 50,000 pairs of shoes in 50 days for those 300 million people who need shoes.

That's a lot of shoes but a very obtainable goal. But it is unattainable without you. So get involved.

Blessed to Bless Others

God told us to one - love God, two - love others. It all boils down to that. And what is the greatest example of that? He gave it too us in the form of another commandment...to take care of the widowed and orphaned. The greatest thing we can do for the Kingdom, for the world, for Christ, for ourselves, is to love. And here is the greatest example of just that seen through someone who has the means and uses it for good things.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been very blessed, both financially and through their growing family. Angelina first adopted a 7 month old baby boy named Maddox Chivan Joli-Pitt from Cambodia on March 10, 2002. She then adopted a six-month-old girl from Ethiopia named Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt on July 6, 2005. After beginning their relationship after doing a movie together, Brad Pitt adopted Angelina's two adopted children, Maddox and Zahara. On May 27, 2006, Angelina and Brad welcomed their first biological child, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt in Swakopmund, Namibia. People Magazine paid $4.1 million for American rights of the first pictures of baby Shiloh, while Hello! Magazine paid $3.5 million for the same photo rights internationally. Jolie and Pitt donated all the profits from the photos to an undisclosed charity; they realized they didn't need the money, instead gave it away - beautiful. Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt was added to the family from Vietnam on March 15, 2007 when he was just 3 years old. On July 12, 2008, the newest members of the Joile-Pitt family were born, biological twins, a boy named Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt and a girl, Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt. 

And with the twins only 3 months old, Brad and Angelina are talking about bringing another child into their family to love and care for. Because it is law that the youngest members of the fmaily must be at least 6 months old, the Jolie-Pitts have to wait until the New Year, 2009, to adopt again. But they are planning on adopting another African baby to bond with Zahara. They want to adopt from the same birthplace as Zahara, Ethiopia. The couple plan to travel there as soon as the twins are 6 months old.

I am so excited that they are growing such a beautiful family in the spotlight that they find themselves in. I love that they get it. They understand that they are so blessed, so that they have the means to bless others; and they do. They do it well. Angelina is involved in so much humanitarian work as well. With all the resources, time, money and influence that she finds in her hands, she uses it for others. Beautiful. 

Angelina's eyes were first opened to the poverty of our world while working on a movie in Cambodia, a poverty stricken third world country that is covered with mines. Beginning in early 2001, she visited many refugee camps around the world to gain a better understanding of the happenings of the third world, including Afgahanistan, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia. She began to work with the UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to raise money for refugees worldwide, meanwhile, she insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits. She became a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR on August 27, 2001 and said this of her motives, "We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us." She visited internally displaced persons and refugees worldwide and when asked what she hoped to accomplish through her travels and visits, she stated, "Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon." In 2002, Jolie visited the Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand and Colombian refugees in Ecuador.[46] Jolie later went to various UNHCR facilities in Kosovo and paid a visit to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya with refugees mainly from Sudan. She also met with Angolan refugees while filming Beyond Borders in Namibia. 

In 2003, Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania where she traveled to western border camps, hosting Congolese refugees and she paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka. She later concluded a four-day mission to Russia as she traveled to North Caucasus. Concurrently with the release of her movie Beyond Borders she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions (2001–2002). During a private stay in Jordan in December 2003 she asked to visit Iraqi refugees in Jordan's eastern desert and later that month she went to Egypt to meet Sudanese refugees.

On her first U.N. trip within the United States, Jolie went to Arizona in 2004, visiting detained asylum seekers at three facilities and the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix. With the humanitarian situation in Sudan worsening, she flew to Chad in June 2004, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. Four months later she returned to the region, this time going directly into West Darfur. Also in 2004, Jolie met with Afghan refugees in Thailand and on a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays, she visited UNHCR's regional office in Beirut, as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital.

In 2005, Jolie visited Pakistani camps containing Afghani refugees, and she also met with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz; she returned to Pakistan with Brad Pitt during the Thanksgiving weekend in November to see the impact of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. In 2006, Jolie and Pitt flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean, and while filming A Mighty Heart in India, Jolie met with Afghan and Burmese refugees in New Delhi. She spent Christmas Day 2006 with Colombian refugees in San José, Costa Rica where she handed out presents. In 2007, Jolie returned to Chad for a two-day mission to assess the deteriorating security situation for refugees from Darfur; Jolie and Pitt subsequently donated $1 million to three relief organizations in Chad and Darfur.[47] Jolie also made her first visit to Syria and twice went to Iraq, where she met with Iraqi refugees as well as multi-national forces and U.S. troops. With increasing experience, Jolie became more involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. She regularly attends World Refugee Day in Washington, D.C., and she was an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2005 and 2006. Jolie also began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital, where she met with members of Congress at least 20 times from 2003.[44] She explained in Forbes: As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball. In 2005, Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon, where she announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation which Jolie personally funded with a donation of $500,000 for its first two years.[49] Jolie also pushed for several bills to aid refugees and vulnerable children in the Third World.[44] In addition to her political involvement, Jolie began using her public profile to promote humanitarian causes through the mass media. She filmed an MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on a trip to a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. In 2006, Jolie announced the founding of the Jolie/Pitt Foundation which made initial donations to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders of $1 million each.[50] Jolie also co-chairs the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, founded at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2006, which helps fund education programs for children affected by conflict. Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In 2003, she was the first recipient of the newly created Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association, and in 2005, she was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA.[51] Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country on August 12, 2005; she has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there. In 2007, Jolie became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she received the Freedom Award by the International Rescue Committee.

Source Wikipedia

I am thankful that these people and many others such as Bono, use their positions and time and money to better our world and to simply bring awareness to the right things to normal people like us who are living our everyday lives in our own little world. It is a great thing to open people's eyes to the bigger world out there.

I say all this to remind you that we are blessed only so that we can bless others and thank God for it all.

Ethiopian Orthodox Church

I often read a blog that updates the current happenings in Ethiopia pretty accurately. And every once in a while they will post a blog pertaining to Ethiopian culture or history and I learn something. So I decided to share this one with you.

Did you know that the Ark of the Covenant was located in the church in Ethiopia at one time? Me neither. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church can trace it's lineage back to the Queen of Sheba. She married King Solomon, of Israel, whom we all know from the Bible, and together, they had Menelik, a son. Menelik, as an adult carried the Ark of the Covenant to and from Jerusalem and the ethiopian church.

Did you know that Ethiopia was mentioned in the Bible, more than once? In Psalms Chapter 68 Verse 31, it states, "Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God." Other versions say, " Cush will submit herself to God." In the Bible and at different times in the ancient world, a large region covering northern Sudan, modern day southern Egypt, and parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia were known as "Cush". The Hebrew Bible refers to "Cush" on a number of occasions, though various English translations translate this as "Nubian", "Ethiopia", "Sudan", and "Cushite" (Unseth 1999). (source: wikipdia)You remember Zaporiah, Moses' wife, the daughter of Jethro, the Priest of Midian; She and her family were described as being Kushites in Numbers 12:1.

Did you also know these facts? I just learned them.
Ethiopia was among the first nations to have Christian converts.
The church in Ethiopia was officially established in 340 AD.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church followed the leadership of the Egyptian, Coptic Church, until the 20th century when the Emperor Halie Selassie pushed her to greater independence. But then in 1974, Marxist revolutionaries overthrew the bishop and began greatly persecuting Christians in Ethiopia. When that communist government fell in 1991, there was a great division in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Many Ethiopians around the world, still argue over which form of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is better.

Coptic Orthodox Ethiopian Church in Gondar, Ethiopia.


Ethiopian Church in Jerusalem

This Ethiopian icon shows St. George, the Crucifixion, and the Virgin Mary.

Ethiopian Priest, circa 2005

The Church of St. George is a monolithic church in Lalibela. Lalibela is a town in northern Ethiopia. Lalibela is one of Ethiopia's holiest cities, second only to Aksum, and is a center of pilgrimage for much of the country.

The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion allegedly houses the original Ark of the Covenant.

(pictures source: wikipedia)

Saddening Statistics on Ethiopia

1 IN 4 - Only one in every four people in Ethiopia have access to clean water while just 13 percent have access to basic sanitation.

WATER AND WALKING - Collecting water is a back-breaking chore. Many women walk up to 3 hours, carrying 40-pound jerry cans filled with polluted water that is likely to make them sick.

WATER AND EDUCATION - Many girls never get an opportunity to go to school because the responsibility of collecting water takes precedence.

FACT - There are more people in Ethiopia without clean water than any other country in Africa. 75% of the country lacks access to clean, safe drinking water.

WAY DON'T THEY BOIL THE WATER? - Ethiopia has lost much of it's native landscape, and cutting down trees is illegal in many parts of the north. Firewood is a precious and expensive commodity that's mostly used for cooking.

LOW RAINFALL AND FAMINE - The country's persistently low rainfall is a major factor in the extreme poverty that exists in rural areas as well as periodic famines that affect millions of people.


I got this information from charity : water. It is a great organization that is seeking to get clean water to as many Ethiopians as they possibly can. This month they are working on 333 wells for the founder, Scott Harrison's 33rd birthday. It is a great cause and you can donate just $33 to be a part of it.

water

I just got an email from scott@charityis.org who is in Ethiopia digging a well today, on his 33rd birthday. He has an amazing charity called charity : water. He raises funds to build wells in African villages so that they people can have clean drinking water and water to bathe, clean and cook with. It's amazing how much that can change lives. The people struggle and die everyday simply because they do not have clean water and water is such a necessity to sustain human life. So Scott is providing access to that rare comondity for as many people as he can. Here's what the email said...

"A few hours ago, water came shooting out of the ground from 184 feet deep at the Abenea school in northern Ethiopia. More than 2,000 people looked on and cheered, knowing their kids would soon have clean water to drink.
Please take 2 minutes and watch the drilling video."

It seems like it costs us so little to make a HUGE impact on someone else's life.

Get involved. Make a difference.

Plumpy Nut

I read a blog of a young mother in Iowa. She has 6 children. Her youngest 2, boy and a girl twins, "The Wonder Twins" were born in Sierra Leone and recently joined the Landers Clan here in America. Their story is inspiring.

Recently, she wrote a blog that was truely inspiring to me.

And today I share it with you and today I challenge you the same way she challenged me.

After reading her recent blogpost, I read this and this, two links that she noted in her blogpost.

If you would like more information and would like to help donate, go to her blog, leave a comment and she will surely send you her address so that you can send her a check! Every single penny counts.

And I am inspired. Will you be?

Decide for yourself.

Plumpynut is a remarkably simple concoction: it is basically made of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and enriched with vitamins and minerals. It tastes like a peanut butter paste. It is very sweet, and because of that kids cannot get enough of it.

Sahia Ibrahim has already lost four children to malnutrition. Now her six-month-old twins, Hassana and Husseina, are malnourished and she’s worried they might die too. So she’s been coming to the hospital for Plumpynut. Hassana, at six months old, weighs only seven pounds. While that's what a newborn should weigh, the little girl has put on a pound in just a week thanks to Plumpynut.

That's what happened to Mansour Miko and Maroufee Mazoo. Less than a year old, they had stopped eating and became listless and weak -- so weak that when their mothers brought them to get Plumpynut, the nurse put them in a van and sent them straight to the hospital. Three days later however, they were smacking their lips on Plumpynut, almost ready to go home.

Have you seen kids who were on the brink of death brought back by Plumpynut?" Anderson Cooper asks. "Oh, yeah, for sure. Again and again and again and again," says Dr. Susan Shepherd, a pediatrician from Butte, Mont., runs Doctors Without Borders in Niger.

Current Events :: Ethiopia Marketplace Explosion

Video Parlor Blast in Ethiopia - BBC

There has been a large explosion in the Ethiopian capital's crowded Merkato business district where people gather socially after work.

The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa says the blast happened in a video parlour where customers were watching a film.

A local radio station says four people died and 24 people were wounded. The police have not released any figures.

Sporadic attacks in Addis Ababa are usually blamed on Eritrean-back rebels.

Our correspondent says the explosion happened at around 1700 local time (1400 GMT).

Lots of ambulances have rushed to the scene - between the main Friday Mosque and bus station - and the whole area has been cordoned off by police, she says.

Merkato is full of teashops and places where young men and boys play table football.

(HT: BBC)

UPDATE:

4 People Killed in Explosion in Ethiopian Capitol

AP) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — An explosion in the Ethiopian capital on Wednesday killed four people and injured 24 others, a federal police spokesman said. .

The explosion is believed to have occurred in a house inside Addis Ababa's bustling Merkato market at around 4 p.m. (1300GMT), said spokesman Demsash Hailu.

He said police sealed off the area and were investigating, but the cause of the explosion was not yet known.

There have been several unexplained explosions in Addis Ababa over the past year that have killed several people.

(HT: AP)

This Saddens Me :: Sudanese Troops Attack Darfur Refugee Camp

I go to this site every morning when I get to work, usually to find no new news stories from Africa, but today was different. There were several new articles to read up on. Now, I do get frustrated in the fact that I don't know what is the truth or not and who to trust in a particular conflict. Africa can be very complicated with so many tribes, governments, groups, rebel groups, and countries within it, but I try to make sense of what I read and figure it out for myself and do a little continued research on a subject.

Today, I read this.

And I don't know what to make of it. It seems to me that there are 2 scenarios that may have occur ed in this refugee camp...#1) the government backed military attacked a refugee camp in hopes to rid the camp of illegal weapons or #2) the refugees within the camp fired on some Sudanese military men who retaliated. I don't know where I see truth in these stories, they conflict one another and I don't know what to think. I just know that God knows what REALLY happened and I pray that H"is hand is involved in good and truth and beauty in the lives of those affected that day.

Either way, innocent lives were lost and innocent people were wounded. Why do the Sudanese government need bazookas, rocket-propelled grenades, and machine guns in a refugee camp? The military is supposed to protect its citizens, not be a threat to them.

I don't know what else to do besides pray for the innocence to continue to stay innocent and for safety and God's protection on those He desires to give it to.

And awareness. I am not in a position yet where I can go and make a difference, and maybe I will never be there the way I think, but I can open people's eyes to the happenings on that beautiful continent. So here I go, I tell you what I read,. learn and understand about Africa and I pray that you feel for them as much as I do, because if enough of us know what is going on and desire deeply to do something, amazing things can happen.

So join me.

This Should Not Be :: World Food Programe Aid Worker Killed in Somalia

This should not be.

Abdulkadir Diad Mohamed was only 33 years old and was living his life to help others. He worked in Wajid, Somalia, Africa as an administration and finance assistant for the World Food Program and took a vacation to visit his family back home in Dinsor. But he wouldn't make it back.

He and his driver were abducted and killed as they tried to escape their captors. This is the first violent death of a WFP staff member in Somalia since 1993, according to the organization.

The Red Cross warned earlier this year that Somalia faces the worst famine since the early 1990s. The country's continual armed conflicts in central and southern Somalia have aggravated the situation, hindering people from accessing shelter and medical attention

My friends, this should not be.