End It Movement

Did you know that slavery still exists, today, in 2014?    Human trafficking and slavery TODAY.  Men, women and children, enslaved for the perverse pleasures of the highest bidder, or the guy with $25.  98% of the people sold into slavery are women and children.

DID YOU KNOW?

As many as 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States annually?

Atlanta. Georgia is a major hub of human trafficking and ranked among the top 14 cities in the United States for the highest incidence of children used in prostitution.

An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year.

EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY, two (2) children, who should be playing and learning and enjoying life are sold into slavery? Children….yours, mine, theirs, ours…sold into hell on earth.

Want to get involved?  Want to help END IT? Get involved, get educated, get busy helping those who can’t help themselves.

Here are just a few ways you can be part of the solution.

Wellspring International

End It Movement

Polaris Project

International Justice Mission 

Teaching Them To Serve

One area that we stress in our family is serving others.   We try to teach the girls the value of volunteering your time, energies and resources to help others and doing your work as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23) to bring honor to Him.  Here are a few of the projects we work on.

Operation Christmas Child is an annual event for us.   Each girl purchases a plastic shoe box in January so they can start filling it with items during the year.   You can use a regular cardboard shoebox, but we prefer to use the plastic ones so they are more sturdy, but also so the children who receive it can use it to carry water in.  Check out these links to order supplies, find out how to pack a shoebox, or to fill a shoebox online.

Olivia spent some time this week baking chocolate chip muffins for the kindergarten Sparks club at Awana.  This was an opportunity for her to work on her cooking skills, and to serve those younger than her.

We have also spent time recently working with Equipping the Saints, a ministry that supplies items to missionaries and ministries worldwide.  We spent the day sorting clothing by size and season and packing it into boxes to be shipped to Liberia.  This will be something we help with on a regular basis.

Other areas of service that are great for kids are:

• collecting food for a food bank
• raking leaves for an elderly neighbor
• helping in the nursery at church
• hosting a bake sale for a charity

What are some areas that you’re children serve in?

The Forgotten Initiative

I try not to compartmentalize our lives.  You know what I mean, don’t you?  There is the homeschool part of your life.  The church part of your life.  The club/activity part of your life.  The whatever I’m involved in at the moment part of my life…but they often never blend together as LIFE.  So I’ve been looking for ways to combine what we’re learning (in school, at home, at church) into hands on opportunities to be the hands and feet of God.

Recently, the kids and I have started doing some volunteer work with our local chapter of The Forgotten Initiative.  This ministry works to help the foster care community all the way from the caseworkers to the kids and foster families.

This past weekend, the girls and I organized a project called Journey To The Heart.  The purpose was to collect various items (hygiene items, school supplies, clothing) and then come together and pack Journey Bags.  Typically when a child is removed from their home and placed into foster care they have only the clothes on their backs.  Journey bags are backpacks and/or diaper bags that hold items that a child needs for hygiene and also personal items to give them a sense of ownership and belonging.

Olivia and Lindsey helped me to shop, collect and sort items for the big event.   Below is a photo of the the fruits of our labors, and the blessing of many friends, family members and churches in the area.

The head of our local The Forgotten Initiative – Augusta found a supplier for backpacks in bulk at a reasonable price.   The day of our event we had people come in, donate the amount to cover the cost of as many backpacks as they wanted.  Then these same folks got to go through the stash of goods and pack their backpacks (for FREE) with items for a child in need.

Lindsey of course put herself in charge of packing the diaper bags for babies.  She has an incredible love for babies, and was very distressed to find that there weren’t enough pacifiers to go around.  I see some more shopping for pacifiers in her future.

Olivia was more interested in the teenage girl bags.  She really put a lot of time and effort into picking out things that she thought an older girl would want.  Sadly, it became quite evident to everyone attending that teenage boys were getting left out in the giving of donated items.  The next focus will be to fix that issue.

All together, we were able to assemble 70, yes SEVENTY, backpacks/diaper bags.   What an awesome feeling to know that 70 children have basic items to call their own.  What a horrible feeling to know that the 70 won’t last long.

Each backpack also had a handmade, hand written card placed inside.  It was very heart warming to see my 6 year old write things like “God loves you and He will make sure you are ok.  Don’t be afraid.”

How does your family incorporate your beliefs into acts of service?   Maybe you’ve never really thought about it before?  However, I’ll give you an opportunity to get started.  If you’d like to make a donation to The Forgotten Initiative, click here, you can even designate which state group receives your funds.  Or maybe something here has tugged at your heart, and you want to get involved and start a group in your area.  Find out more here.

All Gods Creatures

Earlier this month we went to the Virginia Wildlife Center on a field trip.  While we were there they told us about the 168 baby squirrels that had been brought in after a hurricane blew through the state, knocking down trees and squirrel nests.

One of the items we picked up while there was a list of ways kids can help the Center. One of the ideas on the list was to collect native nuts and berries.  Berry season is long gone, but nuts are plentiful, so we hit the woods and set the girls to work.

Acorns were hard to find for some reason.  Between the two girls they collected only one grocery bag full of acorns. 

Walnuts are another story.  We ended up with nineteen bags of walnuts!

We didn’t find any hickory nuts or chestnuts.  But there should be some happy little squirrel tummies full of walnuts.  This is our first service project of the school year.