Once upon a time I blogged about all manner of things interesting to me like books, films, ideas, software, people. None of those things have ceased being interesting - it's just that there has been so much [AC] stuff to do, engage, etc.
So, in the spirit of remembering some of those other things...and in wanting to give a good (and free) gift to all my friends out there in the blogosphere...and in wanting to continue to perpetuate all things Apple/Mac - I give you:
Letterbox is a great little utility for people who use Mac's Mail program. Created by Aaron Harnley, it changes the inbox/preview screen of your mail application from two small, horizontally split screens to two full-size, side-by-side vertical screens. Actually, it is easier to view than describe.
Here is the original way the mail application is formatted.
Here is the modified Letterbox version.
I don't know about you but I rarely open a specific email if I don't have to. Letterbox allows me to see the full page at once. And that is a good thing. Also, Harnley has just released a version for Leopard. If you don't use Leopard there is still a version for previous versions of OS X.
David Albright is a videographer/filmmaker in the Jacob's Well community. Last year he was contracted to go to Ethiopia to document a water project happening in Amhara.
Most of the Jacob's Well Advent Conspiracy videos we have shared have focused on the need side of the water equation. This video begins to demonstrate the impact water can have on a community over time. Thanks to David for putting this edited version together and sharing it with us.
One of the many things I love about the Advent Conspiracy at Jacob's Well is the creativity it has unleashed in our community.
Most of the readers of this blog know now (due to my consistent posting re: [AC]) that we are asking our community to give different kinds of gifts this year and then contribute the money to the [JWAC] to provide fresh water for a specific community without it. We then ask people to pick up a [JWAC] water bottle and a card that they can give to represent the fact that a donation has been made in the name of their loved one.
Here is are the pieces of original art that are on one of four cards. They correspond to the four themes of the [AC]. Our deep gratitude to each of these artists for their amazing contribution. Enjoy.
When I returned from home after our morning worship gatherings and our afternoon gift-making workshop, an email from Mike and Ginger Broyles was waiting for me. I guess Ben Stein "preached" on a similar topic yesterday on CBS's Sunday Morning. His video essay is called "What Makes a 'Good' Christmas?" You can read the transcript or stream the video from that link. Here's a blurb:
"I keep seeing in the newspapers that it might not be a "good" Christmas because while visits to stores are up, purchases per visit are down very slightly. There is also some fear that it might not be a "good" holiday season because fears about the housing correction will scare shoppers into keeping their wallets zipped. I'm fascinated by this, because I have looked through a Concordance of the Old and New Testaments and I do not find the word 'shopping' even once."
We shared last Sunday (week two of Advent) that we have determined the water project our church will help to fund. The decision was an easy one to make.
Last week we had the opportunity to host Pastor Edward Simiyu from City Harvest Church in Nairobi, Kenya. The Jacob's Well Amahoro Team met Edward in Kampala, Uganda, last May. After the conference concluded, three of our group traveled with Edward back to his home in Nairobi where we spent three days learning about the challenges and opportunities he and his church face. They have an incredible ministry to people infected with HIV/AIDS. In fact, that is not even really an accurate way to describe what they are doing. They have an amazing community and their community includes many with HIV/AIDS. As a result they are figuring out what it looks like to be the body of Christ to those among them with this disease. They are also involved in economic development through micro-finance. These are things we witnessed while we were there.
It was when I was sharing with Edward about the Advent Conspiracy and Jacob's Well participation in it that I learned that he is also involved in helping a remote community in northwest Kenya. The region is called Pokot and is considered by many to the "wild-west" of Kenya. It is a very unsettled and violent area with few resources. Though many pastors and missionaries have been killed there, and the military will not enter apart from armed air support, Edward has made significant relationships with many men there and has been asked by them to help them develop their community. This is going to involve a number of things (schools, medical clinics, e.g.), but first it is going to require access to clean and accessible water. This where we get to come in. Ultimately this region will require five wells to sustain the community. But for now we are excited to see how God will use the people of Jacob's Well to partner with our friend Edward and his community at City Harvest Church.
I will share more of this story in coming days, but for now let me share the video we showed on Sunday. The video shows Edward and a village in the Pokot region where a lack of water is a real problem. The video concludes with Edward and members of the community praying for the ground where a well will hopefully be dug.
Broadway Cafe was opened around ten years ago by a good friend of mine from high school, Sara Honan. It is now co-owned by Jon and Kendra Cates, who come to Jacob's Well. Best coffee in the city - no offense, anyone. I might be biased, but then again...
On the first Sunday in Advent we shared a video to give people at Jacob's Well a tangible way of understanding why we are choosing to celebrate Christmas and worship Christ differently this year. The video is of a water project in Chacocente, Nicaragua, undertaken by the Ecclesia community of Houston, TX, in partnership with the Advent Conspiracy and Living Water International. As you can see in the first half of the video, the community lives in the town garbage dump. It is hard to fathom that reality. Friend and Ecclesia founding pastor Chris Seay sent me this last year and every time I see it, it still provokes emotion in me that is overwhelming.
The original version Chris sent me was almost ten minutes long (and though I haven't looked, I believe you can find the long version on YouTube). Beth Mercer edited that version down to the four-and-a-half minute one here and that was used in our worship gathering at Jacob's Well Church on December 2.
We have heard from several people that seeing that video allowed them not only to conceptualize why this is so important, but also share with others (friends, family members, co-workers) why they are choosing to engage Christmas in such a dramatically different way this year. We are trying to create an Advent Conspiracy page on the Jacob's Well Church site that has all of the different resources we are creating and using, but until we do I want to make it for people to access here.
So, without further explanation...
A final remark about this video. Yesterday we received an email from a man in our congregation, Clay Masters, describing his reaction to both the Advent Conspiracy generally and this video specifically. His words really affected me and so I asked his permission to share them here.
The Advent Conspiracy has been grace to us. I think we are more peaceful this year at Christmas than we ever have been. After watching the video last week, a thought came to me. All those recipients receiving clean water were also receiving a "baptism" of sorts. I am not sure how to describe the beauty and grace of what I saw....it was as if the people were getting a baptism into grace without words being spoken. Or another image comes to mind. Perhaps the water that they played in and so joyfully received was more than a channel of H2O, but also a channel of grace. And the only thing we can do in it (water=grace) is dance to the goodness of God!
What a beautiful reflection. The only thing that I would add to it is that it seems to me that it wasn't only those receiving the gift of water who were being baptized, but those who provided it, too. There seems to me to be a mutuality present in this exchange that can also be seen when Jesus (who himself is living water) asked the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar to give him a drink. What beautiful interdependence.
Finally, tomorrow I will post the video of the water project Jacob's Well is taking on in NW Kenyan region of Pokot.
I had the opportunity to meet Rebecca Neuenswander at JW yesterday. I had seen an article about her and her work this summer in the KC Face magazine. She introduced herself to me yesterday after our 11:00 a.m. gathering. Rebecca founded HALO: Helping Art Liberate Orphans. Her organization currently works with orphanages in Mexico, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Africa, and Nicaragua. The children in these homes create art and then submit their artwork to be auctioned off at an auction hosted by HALO in the U.S. Proceeds go back to the orphans. What an amazing deal.
Some HALO resources to explore: a short video of Rebecca talking about the work they are doing: Helping Art Liberate Orphans; a photo album with some pics from an orphanage in Uganda where HALO is at work; and here is another article in Present Magazine (the same one that highlighted Andy Woolard and Interwoven Threads): Rebecca Neuenswander's HALO for Children.
Also, reading Scot McKnight's blog, Jesus Creed, I stumbled across a blog called ParadoxUganda last week. This is the blog of missionary doctor who lives and serves in Uganda with his family. [Updated: I just discovered that both the husband and wife are doctors serving in Uganda; her name is Dr. Jennifer Myhres] I can't find his first name anywhere, but their last name is Myhres. [Updated: his name is Dr. Scott Myhres] Apparently a new strain of the Ebola virus has broken out in Uganda in the last couple of weeks. As of today, there are 115 confirmed cases with 29 known deaths.
It is more than heartbreaking to read this blog. I added it to my RSS reader and everyday get an update on the situation in the Bundibugyo region of Uganda. To go back a few weeks and read forward through the posts is to read an unfolding and heartbreaking tragedy. At the heart of it is the friendship this doctor has with a Ugandan doctor, Jonah Kule, who went out to respond to a new sickness before anyone knew what was happening. He contracted this strain of Ebola and died shortly thereafter. Please pray for this family, for the family of Jonah, and for what is happening in Uganda.
Here is an interview with Dr. Kule about his life and work in Uganda: Dr. Kule Lived to Serve.
Finally, if anyone wanted to discuss my book Intuitive Leadership but wasn't able to make it to the Emergent cohort gathering last Thursday, I will be joining an Emergent cohort of seminary students from St. Paul School of Theology tomorrow at 11:45 a.m. to do another discussion. I am sure anyone is welcome to join us at the seminary for the discussion...that is if there isn't a sheet of ice covering everything in the city. [Updated @ 10:00 p.m. - there is a sheet of ice covering the city...I just saw that SPST is closed tomorrow so we'll have to reschedule this discussion.]
I had a surprising conversation last Friday afternoon. Helen Gray, religion writer for the Kansas City Star, called to interview me about Jacob's Well's participation in the Advent Conspiracy. One of the editors saw an article come across the wire last week about Imago Dei (in Portland, OR) and the Advent Conspiracy (hereafter designated [AC]). They were just going to run the AP story. However, when they went to the [AC] website, they found us on the list of participants so they decided to write it from a local angle.
The story will appear on Saturday in the "Faith" section of FYI. My hope is that it will inspire other local congregations to become co-conspirators. Or maybe even encourage people from outside the Jacob's Well community to contribute to our water projects (more on that later). We received our first [AC] check in the mail, by the way - a check written to Jacob's Well (with [AC] on the memo line) by a congregant's parents in lieu of a gift that would have directly benefited their daughter. My heart jumped.
Also, Imago Dei pastor and [AC] founder Rick McKinley interacts with Morgan Spurlock on his new film What Would Jesus Buy? You might remember Spurlock from his last film, Super Size Me. Check out both the interview and a trailer for the film here. The film premiers in Kansas City on December 14 at the Tivoli Manor Square in Westport (maybe we should do a midrash on the movie...stay tuned).
Until then, the best line? "The Shopocalypse is upon us … Who will be $aved?"
As of today, you can now register for the Intuitive Leadership Conference that Jacob's Well will be hosting April 23-25, 2008. More details and registration available by clicking the "Conference" tab above.
I received an email earlier today from Carrie Buchmann, the woman who is directing the project against human trafficking in the Kansas City metropolitan area and who works for the Hope House, a local outreach to women and children fleeing domestic abuse. The purpose of the email was to alert coalition participants of a report that will air on MSNBC tonight at 10:00 p.m. CST.
Here is what Carrie shared:
Tonight at 10 P.M. CST, MSNBC will be airing a piece on human trafficking. This morning on the Today Show there was an interesting piece on human trafficking. They interviewed a Russian victim of trafficking who escaped her captors in the Detroit. I believe that the topic tonight will segue into a ‘discovery’ that human trafficking is occurring in the Midwest…. I believe that they will also be discussing legislation that is going before our legislative branches in the next few days that would strengthen current and future efforts to assist victims of trafficking. I know that many of you have indicated that you want to hear about cases in our area. If MSNBC does segue into how human trafficking is occurring in the Midwest, it will be of special interest to all of us to watch.
If you do not have something else already happening and are interested in this real life issue in our community, then please consider taking some time to watch this tonight. If you do, then also please consider posting any thoughts or reactions as a comment here. Thanks.
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