At Inspired to Action, we understand the difference blogs can make in awareness and action.  That’s why I was thrilled to see one of more popular book bloggers, Natasha of Maw Books, start a campaign on her blog to bring awareness to and make a difference in the situation in Darfur.

She writes:

I’d like to announce that during the entire month of September I will be reading and blogging in an effort to create awareness and raise funds for the people of Darfur. There is a genocide going on right now in Darfur, Sudan. If you regularly follow my blog, I have written several times about it...Hundreds of thousands of people have died, many more are displaced. I can not sit idly by knowing that this blog has given me the opportunity to make a difference. Why choose Darfur as my soapbox of the month? After reading about Darfur and watching documentaries about Darfur, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Isn’t that reason enough to stand up and do something about it?

So what exactly is Reading for Darfur? During September every book I read, every post I write, every comment left on this blog, and every book that you read about Darfur will make a difference. How? The difference will be you. This won’t work if I’m doing it all by myself. So I ask for everybody to get involved. There are a lot of different levels on which you can do just that, so choose the one that you are the most comfortable with.

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED:

Commit to write a post (if you have a blog or website) dedicated to the Reading for Darfur campaign. Use the button shown here and link back to this page. For every person who does this I will donate 25 cents to a organization that makes a difference in Darfur (list of these organizations follow below). Put the button in your sidebar linking to this post during the entire month of September and I will donate 25 cents more.
Commit to visit my blog on a consistent basis during September. For each comment left anywhere on my blog all month I will donate 10 cents.
Commit to read any of the books or watch any of the documentaries listed on this page. For every book that you read or video you watch during September, I will donate 50 cents. If you have a blog and review that book or video I will donate $1. Leave me a comment on this post once you do, so I don’t have to hunt you down. I will link to your reviews during my weekly recaps.
Commit to donate a penny for every single page that I read during September (excluding picture books and easy readers).
Commit to donate 50 cents for every single post I publish during September.
Commit to donate a penny for every page I read AND 50 cents for every single post I publish.
And heck, if you want to write the post, put the button in your sidebar, comment on my blog, read a book, and sponsor me in my reading and blogging, then I won’t stop you!
The numbers may seem small, a penny here, ten cents there, but I’m hoping to make the donation reasonable for everybody involved.

Visit her blog at Maw Books to find out how you can get involved!

I can not imagine facing another hurricane after experiencing hurricane Katrina.  It must be a very scary and stressful feeling. 

*To read the official news story, go to CNN.

*To read a personal account of the recent hurricane, read this blog. 

Anyone out there have relatives or friends being affected by this, now? 

Forecasters warned Monday morning Gustav could stall over Louisiana and northeast Texas for several days, which would “exacerbate the threat of heavy rains and inland flooding.”

With hurricane-force winds extending 70 miles (113 kilometers) from the center, the islands and shoreline were already feeling the reach of Gustav’s fury.

Nearly all of the roughly 2 million people in coastal Louisiana and the New Orleans area had cleared out ahead of Gustav on Sunday night.”

READ MORE

“JERUSALEM (CNN)—Israel released nearly 200 prisoners into the West Bank Monday, a move it says is a goodwill gesture aimed at bolstering efforts to end decades of conflict in the region.

Speaking to CNN shortly after the government approved the deal, Regev said the prisoner release is “an important confidence-building measure” that Israel hopes will show the Palestinian people that Abbas’ government “can in fact deliver much more for their own people than the extremists, than the terrorists ever can.”

Full Story

THE PROJECT

The immediate goals of The Charis Project are as follows:

*Raise money to help take care of the children orphaned by the Burmese government who have managed to escape to Thailand alone. Their immediate needs are food and shelter.

*Establish a permant base in Chiang Mai to work from.

*Develop good working relationships with the elders in the Lahu villages and refugee camps.

*Research and lay the groundwork for establishing the long term goals.

Long Term Goals

*Clean water in the villages and camps.

*Seminars in sustainable agriculture techniques, and business management.

*Literacy

*Teaching English

*Social businesses that will work within the confines of refugee camps.

*Education, and long term care for orphans and placement in family groups.

*Generating income for the community through online stores that sell their handcrafts.

*Rebuild Burma.

*Transform a country destroyed by war and violence into a country governed by love and peace.

Find ways you can help, HERE.

Click here to read this amazing (and well written) story.

For me, the impact was not in the organizations. I’ve known about - even talked about - many of these same (or similar) groups in the past, and so know them well.  It wasn’t in the grouping of such a number of people devoted to this purpose of prayer and sacrifice as devotion to those in need, in the name of God - though this is truly an awesome thing.  It also was not the words of any one participant in the fast, though many of the posts affected me deeply.  The lasting impact in me is the beautiful portrait of hope painted over the past 40+ days.

God calls us to hold on, in faith, and to hope in Him.  This is too easy for those of us sitting in recliners in climate controlled rooms; but for those for whom we’ve been fasting and praying, hope is a tangible necessaty of life.  As much as water or food, as much as medicine or freedom, people need hope.  Hope that there is more than the bonds of this mortal life, hope that relief from pain and suffering may come, hope that someone will care enough about us to lift us from our pit of despair.  Hope, even when there is no reason to have hope.

My lasting thoughts for this 40 Day Fast are this: I cannot save the world, I cannot even begin to help all the people who are out there trying to save the world.  No matter what I do, what any of us does, there is evil in the world that will result in the suffering of others.  What I can do is my best to bring hope to people.  Hope that someone cares, hope that someone wants to help them, hope that God hears their pleas, and hope that He will answer their cry.  Part of how I will do this is through some of the groups that have been highlighted the last 40 days, but part of it will be my personal effort.  Not hiding behind the auspices of some other group, I must show people God’s love, personally, and let them know of His hope for us all.

What can we all do to spread the hope of God - the hope of His provision for our needs and of our salvation - to those around the world?

I’m going to be totally honest here and tell you that I don’t particularly enjoy fasting.  I like food.  I have a hard time relishing the joys of delayed gratification.  The blood that runs through my veins is all too American.

This year, I was sort of nervous about my day of fasting because it’s a particularly difficult day of the week at work for me.  I tutor adults in reading improvement and I had a day crammed with students that exercise my patience muscle.  Being hungry didn’t seem like a good ingredient to throw into the mix. 

But God, in the way only He can do, surprised me.  As I wrote my post, my thoughts and my heart were re-centered on the privilege of what I get to do.  That the moments that make up my day are tiny building blocks to improving another person’s life.  People who are loved by God.  As my stomach growled, I rejoiced in the fact that I was choosing to go without food. 

Choosing.  While others in the world struggle to even find food, I had the luxury of choice...today I will go without food.

That realization is changing me.  I want to fast more often now, and I want to do it to set aside the time to pray for the sort of causes we fasted for during the last 40 Days.  And I want to do it to remember that God is the One who provides the food.  Not my job.  Not the grocery store.  God.

How was your day of fasting?

But the thing from this year’s fast that has impacted me the most is something I believe God has been dealing with in my heart for a long time now:  a concern that the church is not fulfilling our mission to care for the poor.  I cannot reconcile the fact that, as the American church, we spend billions of dollars on ourselves while other people live in abject poverty.  I can’t justify multimillion dollar church facilities when we neglect children who die from hunger and diarrhea and other preventable causes. And I think that because of this, God calls us to live our lives - both in the church and as the church - more simply. 

As Ronald Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger puts it, “It is not because food, clothes, wealth, and property are inherently evil that Christians today must lower their standard of living.  It is because others are starving.”

I do not know how to reconcile what God is teaching me with my lifestyle, or the way my church spends money, or the popular teachings of the American church.  I’m pretty sure that that’s the point.

My sister likes to say that God works through broken vessels.  I believe she’s right about that.  I also believe that there’s a reason that there are more verses in the Bible about how we treat the poor than there are on any other topic - including evangelism, church growth, and engagement in the political system.  God has a serious concern for the poor, and God expects us to be the hands and feet of Christ in doing something to end the needless suffering of innocent people.  But if that’s going to happen, something has to change in my life, and something has to change in your life, and something has to change in the church.  In a big way. 

So that’s how I leave this year’s fast:  deeply unsettled and unable to continue with the way things have been in my life up to now.  I am grateful for a world where it’s harder and harder for us to live in ignorance of the suffering so many others must endure.  And I am challenged to dig deeper into this process of losing my life to find it, and learning how to love more fully.

Change Comes One Step at a Time

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” - Mother Teresa

Two of the most significant statements that I read during this year’s 40 Day Fast were from Natalie Grant and Liz Seay.

Natalie was talking about the modern day sex slave trade and she said:

“We are all called to be abolitionists.”

Wow. That line stopped me in my tracks.

Somehow it brought home my responsibility to do something. I’d often wondered why good Christians didn’t do more during the years of slavery and civil rights violations here in America. Natalie’s statement turned my self righteous finger back around to me. There are thousands of people, today, right here in America who are in slavery and now that I know that, I am responsible to do something about it.

But I began to think, “What can I do? Where do I start? I’m just one person...”

Then I read what Liz Seay said in her post:

“One is just the starting point, the springboard that hope jumps off of.”

That gave me such encouragment that I don’t have to start off grand. I can just do one small thing and then another small thing and another…

All those small steps will change my habits and my life and along the way, they’ll inspire and challenge other people too.

This year’s 40 Day Fast inspired me to incorporate these small changes into my life, trusting that with prayer they’ll grow into something bigger.

Have you taken any small steps as a result of this year’s event?

This week, the Inspired to Action team is going to reflect on the 40 day fast, and what inspired or moved us personally.  We want to encourage you to join in the discussion, and let us know how these 40 days have changed you.

For me, personally, this year I read every single post.  (I can not say that I did that last year.)

After spending 40 days of reading posts about people in need, and the organizations and people that are doing things, it has made me become literally more ”inspired to action.” I’ve begun to feel like I’m talking about these issues, and listening and reading about these issues, and now I’m ready for “the action” to become a part of my every day life.

I want to pray daily for people aside from myself.  I want to remember to actually drop that food off at the food bank, and the clothes off at good will.  I want to remember to write my sponsored children back, when I get their letters instead of allowing them to sit there for a few weeks. 

Spending this time, thinking about these posts, has made me complain less about the home, food and things that I have, and I’ve been a more grateful person in general.  I am grateful when I am able to give my kids a cup of clean water at bed time.  I am grateful to be able to think about what I want to feed my family, and that I have all kinds of choices.  I am grateful to live in a safe area of the world where I can give my kids good nutrition, a good education, and have religious freedom. 

My heart has become more broken for the women that are not able to provide these things to their children.  My heart has been broken for the people that are treated so unfairly- abused and used.  My heart has genuinely been stirred to want to do whatever I can to help.  I don’t know exactly what that is just yet, but I’m educating myself, and I’m praying, and I’m ready to take action. 

The topic that hit me the hardest was the topic of human trafficking and the child sex trade industry.  The numbers literally made my stomach hurt.  I really didn’t know that all of that is going on all over the world.  It’s a heavy and hard topic to digest, but it’s sinking in, and I want to get involved in an organization that is working to stop these horrific things from happening, and helping these poor people recover from the things they’ve been through. 

*Your Turn*
~Which topic, affected you the most? 

What isn’t pictured here, is all of you, who are daily making choices in your homes, your neighborhoods, your communities and throughout the world, to spread the love of God, to help people, and to do what is right. 

The community aspect and combined efforts of many, is what this 40 day fast is all about.  Working together, we can make a bigger difference.  Thank you so much to all who have been participating, whether by writing, reading, praying or doing. 

Today is the last day of the 40 day fast. 

Blogging today is, Tressa, speaking about Licia and the Haiti rescue center.  She says an amazing quote by Elizabeth Eliot, saying, “Prayer lays hold of God’s plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit’s prayer.”

Also blogging today isToby who is “eating less, to give more.”

~Over these past 40 days we have seen so many needs and injustices.  It starts to feel as if there isn’t much we can do about it.  However, it’s the small things that build up into big things.  Small things help us change our mindset, and start the ripple effect of kindness, love and good deeds. 

Today’s Inspiration is:

“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”
~James 2:26

We want you to participate today too! So, go and take action today.  Do something small or do something big.  Link here, and blog about it so we can read and be inspired too! 

Blogging for team 1, is Jessie, speaking from personal experience, about the foster care adoption system in the United States.  She states that if “only 7% of the worlds Christians adopted 1 orphaned child, the world’s orphan population would disappear.” There’s some really great information on her post, go and read!

Also blogging today is Jane, telling a wonderful story about a group of women in a foreign land, finding ways to show the love of God. 

“I had the idea that there were two worlds. There was a real world as I called it, a world of wars and boxing clubs and children’s homes on back streets, and this real world was a world where orphans burned orphans.... I liked the other world in which almost everyone lived, the imaginary world.”
~Norman Mailer

Also blogging today is, Kristi talking about Kiva. 

Today’s Inspiration is:

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” ~Dalai Lama