Since joining Kiva, a website allowing users to provide micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, my family and I have made over 20 loans ranging from $25 to $75. Though we considered it a donation, the idea of it being a loan, and the fact that I can pull out my money after the loan has been repaid has definitely shaped my perspective on it to being considered more of an “investment” in doing good.
You can imagine my disappointment then when I found out that one of the loans had …

One year ago today my beautiful wife, after a trying labor, gave birth to our equally beautiful baby girl. Today we celebrate their health and our happiness for a joyous first year and look forward to many, many more to come.
Adyra, I am so proud of the strong girl you are growing to be. You bring such a joy to my life and have taught me so much in our short time together. I enjoy every moment we have together and am so eager to see you grow and become …

This is terribly disappointing and shocking information, but it points to the need for us to be critical shoppers and not passive consumers when it comes to all things, even those that claim to be “Fair” or “Green.”
I’ve written about No Sweat before and found them to be an impressive company overall. They made a switch a few years back to start offering products made overseas, but they put in some stringent measures to ensure fair labor practices including outside independent auditors. And they even put the reports on their …

Who knows if this will become a regular series, but I’ve definitely ran across enough stories to keep it going if I wanted to. This recent one is about a Casino being fined $800,000 for sending marketing material to recovering gambling addicts who had voluntarily signed-up to be banned from all casinos. In other words, the casino was enticing addicts to gamble even after they asked to be excluded.
From the Chicago Tribune (ht. AAA)
The Illinois Gaming Board on Monday fined Hollywood Casino in Aurora $800,000 and suspended three …

Girls Rock!

I wish I could shave like this guy

My friend, Aaron, from Nashville, made this sweet video about Digital media for his work:

The youth group from our church did the 30 Hour Famine. Nice two minute video:

We are back out of the wilderness and fun that was PAPA fest. It was a good time, I might blog about it a little later, good and disappointing, but overall it was a nice little trip. The kiddo did great with tent camping and handled the hot summer days pretty well.
We aren’t home yet, we stopped to visit our good friends in Iowa, praying they have a baby before we leave, but not sure if that’s gonna happen (no pressure). It’s just been great to sit and talk …

My friend, Bryan, recommended this book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture, by Shane Hipps and I picked it up from the library about a week ago. It was a phenomenal and very insightful read, which I’d highly recommend to anyone in church leadership or church anything.
The book basically talks about taking a step back from media (and it uses this term broadly) and considering the impact the media itself has on us, rather then just considering the message we communicate through it. For example, we tend to think of …

Hmmm… What do you think?
(HT [that means 'Hat Tip' by the way]. Nick, Pete and JR)
It reminded me of the image I pieced together for my final paper for my art survey class.
Which is obviously not even close to the artistic ability of Nadia Plesner who made the above art piece.

If you found my blog post last month on art interesting, you might be interested in reading my final paper, nothing special but I posted it online.