Let’s get over that.

I’ll be writing more (possibly exclusively) to encourage sponsors here in the future, but in the meantime, I want to encourage you stop putting it off and offer a relatively painless plan for getting back on track, starting today.

I’m making some assumptions for the sake of brevity, so feel free to tailor these ideas to your needs.

1. Find one or two digital photos of you or a family member doing something that your sponsored kid might find interesting. You don’t have to find it especially interesting (I’m sending photos of my toddler eating). Start with just a few photos so you don’t get overwhelmed. You can always do more once you get in the groove.
2. If you’re already planning a trip to someplace like Walmart in the next day or two, plop those photos on a USB stick (or with Costco, you can upload them online) and get them printed while you’re there. If not, upload them to a service like Snapfish that will print them and mail them to you. The key here is convenience… don’t pick a method that will let you put it off. And either way you go, you’ll only pay a few bucks.
3. Today, write your letter. Make it easy on yourself and write about the pictures you’re sending. Explain any background information and talk about what you like about the photo. You don’t need to wait for the photos to be in your hand because you already know what photos you’re sending. If you know of specific questions your kid has asked, go ahead and answer them, but if not, don’t put off writing. You can always write another letter if you later realize you forgot something. It’s more important to get it sent than to get it perfect.
4. Get the letter ready to send. Fold it up, make sure any relevant sponsorship details are on it (Compassion wants the child’s ID along with the sponsor’s), address and stamp the envelope. The goal is that when you have the photos, you can write the sponsorship details on the the back, stuff them in, and get this thing moving.

I’ll write more in the future about what to put in a letter and other ways you can be a good sponsor, but my fondest hope is that if you’re a sponsor with a letter-starved kid, you’ll take action today. I did.

Breaking down their mission explains why some of the reasons I like them.

• Indigenous: they empower local people to help other local people, which is both more practical and more effective than “shipping in” people from other regions, meaning that money I give goes a long way
• Christian: the mission is more than just physical health, but is also concerned with eternity (because what’s the point of being healthy now only to miss out on eternal life and health for, you know, infinity?)
• health professionals: their ministry is more than just words, however powerful they may be—they also help relieve suffering in the here and now

One of the other things I like about the Luke Society is that they seem to genuinely value prayer, and not just cash. I originally started working with them when I saw they were looking for people to pray. They have a monthly newsletter that talks about answers to prayer and prayer requests. I’ve received the newsletter for a couple of years, and it’s neat how I’ve gradually “gotten to know” the various doctors.

The prayer aspect is important to me, because while many Christian organizations encourage prayer, it’s rare that they seem to truly believe it’s more important than money. Being on the Luke Society mailing list has shown me over and over that when they are facing a crisis (for instance, the current persecution in Pakistan), they look for prayer first.

Further evidence of their belief in prayer is found in the current ministry of Dr. Peter Boelens, the former Executive Director. He and his wife now spend their time researching, reporting, and applying healing prayer to hurting people.

One of the other strong points, which I’ve already alluded to, is they are excellent communicators. Many organizations mean well but forget to ask for help and, probably more importantly, to follow up after they are given help.

The Luke Society sends regular updates in a variety of appropriate formats (a PDF or print newsletter for the monthly news, with occasional emails with urgent prayer requests relayed from their doctors). They don’t waste my time (or money!) with gimmicky “gifts,” either, which I consider a big plus.

Even if you’re not a Christian, I believe the Luke Society offers a great ROI thanks to their willingness to serve people who really need it in places very few others will venture. If you’re so inclined, you can sign up for their mailing list or donate online.

Compassion is a Christian organization that takes a holistic approach to helping children. They operate in 25 countries and are currently helping over 1 million kids. They work with local churches (I’m a big fan of working with local folks who already have a burden to help) to provide the kids in the program with food, education, and an introduction to the Gospel. They also help parents with everything from parenting skills to vocational training.

Uwitonze Sarah

I first started sponsoring Sarah in the summer of 2005 in response to an invitation by Caedmon’s Call, one of my favorite bands. Their Share the Well album is very focused on social justice, so it wasn’t a surprise that they support Compassion’s mission of “[r]eleasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name”.

I picked Sarah because we share our given name and because she was one of the kids who had been waiting a long time for a sponsor. Compassion strongly encourages sponsors to write to their sponsored children, and it’s been very cool to see, even from such a great distance, how she is growing up. She used to just color the pictures that were pre-printed on the stationary, and now she’s writing her own letters in cursive.

A couple of years ago, a local Christian radio station did something unprecidented and asked their listeners to sponsor a whole Compassion project in Honduras (usually when a radio station does this kind of sponsorship drive, the kids come from all over the world, but KTSY wanted one project where they can go visit—they’ve been down there twice and have a third trip planned for next spring).

Lauren Yohana Monje Tróchez

At the time, I wasn’t in a position to sponsor another kid, and when they were all sponsored, I was a little sad that I wasn’t able to be involved. The following year, though, some of the younger kids who had previously been too young joined the program, and the radio station sought sponsors for them. That’s when I started sponsoring Yohana.

I haven’t had a chance to go visit my kids yet, but hearing the stories from my friends at the radio station is both awesome and heartbreaking. The incredible poverty that these kids suffer through only emphasizes the incredible love and hope that they have.

Now that I have a son of my own, I want to start contributing to the Child Survival Program to help babies his age. I can’t imagine the universal challenge of childrearing with the added stress of poverty, illiteracy, unsanitary birthing and living conditions, and a lack of knowledge about parenting. Becoming a parent has made me more empathetic in general, but I’m especially moved by the plight of other, less fortunate mothers.

When Benjamin is a little older, we will sponsor a boy his age. My hope is that, in addition to helping someone who desperately needs it, sponsorship will also help develop empathy, compassion, and an awareness of the world in Benjamin.

I’m planning on featuring a child who needs sponsorship as part of this site in the near future, but don’t wait for me! If you want to share the blessings, you can sponsor a child today.

The statement does make me think, though. I give little bits to a lot of causes, but only a few consistently receive my dollars (and my love). Clearly, I have some kind of criteria, even if they’re mostly subconscious.

First, the easy one: I give because of who’s asking. This isn’t a strong enough factor for me to commit to ongoing or long-term giving, but when one of my friends asks me to sponsor their charity walk or tells me about organization they care deeply about that needs a one-time gift, I’ll usually bite.

For bigger or longer commitments, I weigh a few more factors:

• Is the organization effective? This goes a lot further than just having low administrative overhead. I want to see great results.
• What kind of impact do they have for eternity? There are so many needs in the world that many charities can all work to meet them without overlap, but my money isn’t unlimited so I give preference to those that address spiritual needs as well as physical, mental, social, and emotional needs.
• Am I needed (and do I know it)? There are charities who may be doing great things, but if they feel impersonal or don’t seem like they need my gift, I don’t give again. I’m not looking for a big public awards ceremony or anything—just a sense that my contribution matters.
• How far does my money go? Thanks to radically different costs-of-living around the world, the same dollar amount can go much further in other countries. I do give money domestically (for instance, to my local church), but I like how much my money can accomplish when given strategically. I especially like projects that are self-sustaining—projects where today’s successes set up tomorrow’s victories.
• How urgent and important is the need? Again, there are so many real, important needs in the world that I have to prioritize. I usually go for concrete projects rather than abstract ones as a result.

These are just guidelines, obviously, but they help narrow down the vast field of good charities doing good work in areas that need good solutions.

I’m going to write about some of my favorite charities over the next few days, but in the meantime, I’m curious: what makes you give to one charity over another?

I use the term “Christian” pretty loosely in the case because I really only consider one of the shirts to have a message that actually represents Christianity accurately, but the other two are funny to me and would have a good chance of sparking conversations, which is my primary goal in wearing unique t-shirts.

First, the funny ones:

I find this particularly amusing as I’ve attended “church with cookies” since I was about 14 (with a 4-year exception while going to college; I still went to church, they just didn’t offer cookies). One of my favorite things about The Experience is that there’s a meal after each service; it makes it a lot easier to get to know people better, since that seems to happen naturally over food. But it’s not the whole point!

This one has an angel on one sleeve and a devil on the other. The concept makes me smile because in our culture that’s almost universally recognized (though more likely from cartoons than anything else!). I’d probably get the cookie one first, because though this one could land me in a conversation about influences, etc., more likely it would just get smiles. I could get this for my friend, Cindy, though; she claims I’m her conscience.

And the more serious one:

Humans fail, though. Interesting point, and one of the better-designed shirts I found (the downside of “crowdsourcing”: the crowd often has appalling taste… in my hardly-ever-humble opinion).

If I win one of the gift certificates, you may see me sporting one or more of these in the future.

There’s something that Brian, our pastor, says about the word “believe” and the way we use it now versus the way Bible writers used it. I’m going from memory here, but the idea is that when we say we believe something, we mean it kind of as an acceptance of a fact; after thoughtful consideration (in some cases!) we decide we agree with a premise.

In contrast, in Bible times, the connotation was a little bit different. To believe something was more of an action, or an understanding from which action couldn’t be separated. You couldn’t “believe” something without being physically changed. Really, this perspective makes a whole lot more sense. If you don’t live differently as a result of a belief, then it’s questionable whether you really believe it. Brian’s standard example here is fire: if you believe that the building you are in is on fire, you’re going to do something (whether it’s escaping, or helping others, or whatever). You’re not going to just sit there “believing.”

This brings up a lot of my questionable “beliefs,” particularly the things I say I believe in my head but my heart isn’t convinced. In the ancient context, there’s no way those could be considered beliefs; I think a more appropriate word would be “doubts” (and that’s really pretty depressing).

One of the most concerning things I “believe” but don’t act on is the Bible’s clear indication of what will happen in eternity. I “agree with the premise” of heaven and hell, but I’m doing next to nothing to encourage people in the right direction.

I guess the big question is, “If I really believed that there is someone actively trying to lull people into an eternity devoid of all joy, happiness, comfort, and meaning, wouldn’t I try to prevent that?” Because if I had someone right in front of me who was suffering from some physical trauma that I could help with, I would, no question. Or if I could prevent someone from being injured in the first place by quick action, I’d do that, too. So why do I take the much more serious, much more important threat so much more lightly?

I’ve read that somewhere around 27,000 children die every day, mostly from preventable causes. If I really believed that their (and their parents’ and neighbors’ and friends’) eternal fate was hanging in the balance, wouldn’t I do something to give them a better chance to experience God in this life? If I believed Jesus’ exhortation to care for the orphans and the widows, how is that I could sit here in my nice American house and ponder the meaning of words?

So by now it’s clear that I don’t believe in as many things as I’d like to think I do. The question I really need an answer to is, “How do I ‘keep the vision of eternity continually in [my] mind and the value of it in [my] heart’?” How do I believe?

On a larger scale, it’s a bit more complex. The book mentions guilt, resentment and anger, fear, materialism, and the need for approval as things that drive many people. I don’t really do guilt or resentment and anger much, and fear comes in only when I’ve over-committed myself.

Materialism? That one gives me pause. On the one hand, I’m definitely devoting most of my time right now to making money, but I don’t feel like it’s the promised “stuff” that’s driving me. What I really want out of it is freedom to spend my time however I want, and as far as I can tell, you either have to have good savings or good passive income to do that. Yes, I do want that touring bike, but that’s so I can spend my time touring rather than working (though maybe I should satisfy myself with my road bike to be able to afford the time off…). I don’t feel like I’m looking for “money as security,” just “money as time freedom.”

Approval strikes a chord, though. I really hate saying no to people I can actually help, particularly in my work. I want people to like me, to think I’m cool or helpful or kind. This is probably a major factor in my tendency to over-schedule, which of course results in providing worse service and then feeling pressure to work too much to keep people happy. Arg.

All of this stuff about “drivers” comes back to the idea of purpose being in control. “Knowing your purpose simplifies your life. It defines what you do and what you don’t do,” says the author. Well, I can see how that’s true, but I come back to my ever-present tension between inspirational ideas and the pragmatic reality of my day-to-day work decisions. If I understand what God has in mind for me, how do I decide which clients to take? Which projects to work on today and which ones to schedule out a bit? Or maybe I should be doing something entirely different with my skills and interests? It just all seems so theoretical.

And here’s a quote that’s almost painful to my dabbling, flitting self:

If you want your life to have impact, focus it! Stop dabbling. Stop trying to do it all. Do less. Prune away even good activities and do only that which matters most.

I agree. In theory. But that just makes me want to wrap my arms around my knees and start rocking and humming.

Actually, most of the time I’m delighted to be alive right now, because I’m so excited about all the amazing things that the Internet is facilitating. I’ve been on the web since its early days of public availability, and it’s sort of a backdrop for a lot of my life. I love that. And now that I think about that, it seems highly likely that God had my current career in mind for me; is it possible that in another time I would have found fulfilling work that has nothing to do with a non-existent or evolved-beyond Internet? I’m sure that it is, but the fact is that God put me right here, in middle class America at the turn of the millennium for specific reasons, so maybe my line of work is inherently more meaningful than I give it credit for.

Of course, the flip side of that premise is a little harder to face: that God specifically chose some people to live in miserable places, like drought-plagued areas of Africa. Though come to think of it, those areas wouldn’t be nearly so miserable if humans would reject selfishness. I read recently that there’s a very large underground lake in the Darfur region of Sudan, where there have been such brutal actions taken, essentially over resources. There’s a tremendous resource right under them in this drought-prone region, but they’ve been too busy terrorizing their neighbors to develop it. (And that’s not to say that we in the first world nations have done nearly enough, either; it’s just an example of how human selfishness keeps people impoverished and exploited.)

I was reading an article in Good last night that talked about Buckminster Fuller’s vision for humanity:

He believed we could use human ingenuity and existing resources to solve global problems, as long as we committed “egocide.” “Selfishness”, he declared, “is unnecessary and … unrationalizable. … War is obsolete.”

Fuller was one of the first thinkers to publicly identify the global crisis of unbalanced resources that remains today. He set out to put that imbalance right by inventing models for efficiency based on nature. His motto was: “Do more with less.” He firmly believed that technological advances, if applied correctly, could allocate and manage the world’s resources in such a way that every member of the human race could live the luxurious life of a billionaire. “Technologically,” Fuller wrote in 1981, “we now have four billion billionaires onboard Spaceship Earth who are entirely unaware of their good fortune.”

I think that’s absolutely true, except that we haven’t grasped that selfishness is unnecessary and unrationalizable. We rationalize it every day. But if God has given us everything we need to live without fear (of scarcity and violence), then I guess the blame for miserable lives lays squarely with us, doesn’t it?

I have a hard time with this somehow. It seems like purpose and my personal goals should be the same. Well, I guess they can be, but only if you go from purpose to goals, instead of from goals to purpose. One of the other major points is that, not having created ourselves, we can’t claim to determine our own purpose (the analogy given is an invention trying to decide what it was invented for). So to try to determine our purpose based on our preferences is backwards. I guess that makes sense.

So what does that mean for today? How am I supposed to go to work now and live like I believe it? The easy answer is to “make my goals God’s goals” but how do I do that? Today I have three client projects that need my time. I have several internal projects that also require my time. What does God want me to do differently? Does living for God’s purpose mean just doing work for charities and churches? Another pat answer that comes to mind is something along the lines of “do the work you have to do with integrity and as if for God.” I think that’s biblical but it seems so trite…