Midweek Lynx

Here’s this week’s recommended lynx links:

• We begin with a couple of YouTube vids.   This one was posted back in 2006, but is still popular.  The group Go Fish song Christmas With A Capital “C” is the basis for this homemade video.
• The second video clip is sort of at the other end of the spectrum, posted a couple of weeks ago by Voice of the Martyrs.  Instead of fighting to keep Christ in Christmas, some believers in other parts of the world are fighting more serious battles, as seen in this Raid on a Full Gospel Church.
• Carol at the blog Sheep to the Right suggests that there are a number of dangers hidden among current social media technologies, in a post she calls Foxes in Facebook.
• If you’re a church-hopper look out!   Will Mancini in the blog Clarity Evangelist cuts through the rhetoric and doublespeak in the post, Top Ten Things Church Hoppers Say.
• The HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible) isn’t on a lot of peoples’ radar.   Will Lee at the blog Anwoth (read his ‘about’ page to find out what that means) has a constructive critique at 16 Changes I Would Make to the HCSB.
• Brian Russell at the Real Meal Ministries blog suggests that it’s important for pastors and teachers to regularly teach the broader narrative or overview of scripture in a post titled, Proclaiming the Big Picture of the Bible.
• Blogger Eugene Cho and his One Day’s Wages (ODW) project is featured in a New York Times Article, New Fame for the Everyday Donor.
• A new two-minute promotional video is available from The Advent Conspiracy, promoting clean water projects as an alternative to Christmas Giving.    Well done and worth waiting for.  Watch online (loads very slowly) or download for use in your church.
• It’s been awhile since we linked to Naked Pastor (see blogroll at right) so here’s one for you from the ever cynical, always transparent pastor from Atlantic Canada, David Hayward:
• And since nobody can say it exactly quite like David Hayward, and because, as stated, it’s been so long, here’s a bonus one for ya:

Last week’s links link.

And the one before that one.

Third World Sponsorship of Another Kind

I’m gonna be totally honest here, and it’s not pretty.   Our family doesn’t do the child sponsorship thing.   I know that in Christian circles it’s spiritually incorrect to say that, but it’s true.   We’ve talked about it.   We can do the monthly payment.   We can do the praying.   But when it comes to committing to write the letters and getting emotionally involved, we feel somewhat spent.    And some days, I write dozens of letters, articles and blog posts.

Last year, we felt that all our charitable giving was too focused on North America, and concerns even closer to where we live.   So we cut back on Christmas presents — at least I’m told we cut back — and donated some money to a project my wife’s uncle is involved in, which is providing well restoration to parts of Africa.    It was, pardon the pun, a drop in the bucket in a much larger project.

Two weeks ago someone told me about a project that Samaritan’s Purse is promoting called “Turn On The Tap.”   You don’t adopt a cute kid who sends you letters and a fresh picture every year, but for $100 you finance a well that services a whole family, using the technology found in BioSand water filters.

The BioSand Water Filter is an award-winning Canadian water filtration technology developed by Dr. David Manz, a former University of Calgary professor. BioSand Water Filters are an adaptation of slow-sand filtration, designed for use at the household level. The filter removes water-borne bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and other organisms that cause diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, and amoebic dysentery. The filter also strains out the particles and organic matter that cause cloudiness, unpleasant taste, color, and odor.

Filters can be built on location with local materials. The exterior is made of concrete, with gravel and sand layered inside. Rain, surface, or ground water is poured through the top and filtered as it passes through the layers of sand and gravel. The sand filters 1 litre of water per minute, enough to provide an entire family with sufficient water for their daily drinking, cooking, cleaning, and hygiene needs.

To service one family takes $100.   That’s it.   Not a monthly gift.   Not an obligation to write letters and send them your picture.  You just reach into your pocket and give, and a family has clear, clean water.

To learn more about the Canadian project, Canadian link here.  In the UK, Turn on The Tap is promoted through the Global Walk for Water;  UK link here.  In the U.S., Turn on the Tap didn’t get started until April of this year and operates differently; U.S. link here.

If you’ve always been cynical about child sponsorships, or, like us, you were just too stretched to get involved, here’s something you can do.   There are a variety of similar programs available for individuals or your entire church.   And you don’t have to wait for Christmas.

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Gain a better perspective on this from someone who’s been there:

Anne Jackson makes the case far better than I can in an excellent blogpost at FlowerDust; click here to read it.

Advent Conspiracy: Our Good Intentions Finally Realized

Many weeks ago, (Nov. 28) like many other bloggers, I posted a link to the Advent Conspiracy video, which encourages people to spend less on themselves at Christmas, and instead, provide fresh water to parts of the world where it is lacking.

It was a noble bandwagon to jump on.  (I’m really good at telling other people what to do; wishing “Bob” had heard today’s sermon; forwarding links to something I think “Fred” needs to read…)   Furthermore, I decided that this was the year that we would indeed do something, instead of just talking about it.   But it was yesterday, December 27th, that we actually got around to sending a donation; and sadly, there wasn’t a huge contrast between this and other Christmases gift-wise, because when we started collecting things to wrap them on Christmas Eve, we discovered we had been in gift-acquisition mode since mid-September, though many of them were from a chain of thrift stores here called “Value Village.”   It’s not like there was just one thing under the tree and it was implicit in this that the rest was going to Africa.   That the kids would have remembered.

So the boys didn’t exactly do without, but if we added it all up, I’m guessing we spent about 60-66% of what we did the year before, and decided on a project from Alongside which is a division of a Canadian charity, Partners International.   We chose this one because my wife Ruth’s uncle, as it turns out, is part of a team that has gone to Nigeria several times to not only install wells, but rehabilitate wells that are not functioning.   It sounds good when a mission or relief agency is installing wells, but if there are perfectly good wells there that just need some repair work, it makes more sense — and it’s more efficient — to fix the wells you’ve got before you start  drilling new ones.  Besides, this way, we get a Canadian tax receipt.   (Not that this should be the motivation.)

So credit card in hand, we made what was probably a modest donation, but for us it was a big deal.   Hopefully it starts a trend, and hopefully next year, we’ll get to it before much of the other shopping has commenced, and as we get to know the organizations involved better, perhaps it will be larger or there will be two gifts to two different agencies.

At the very, very, very least; you owe it to yourselves to watch the 2 1/2 minute video that got all this started for us.   You can click here to view it.  You’ll know what your heart is telling you to do after that.

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*If you live in the U.S., the designated charity for the Advent Conspiracy is actually an organization called Living Water International (click for direct donation link after watching the video).

Photo:  Alongside website photo  highlighting Ruth’s Uncle Ted, who, we’re pretty sure, is the one on the left.