Tag Archives: clean-water

Being Dad

Birthday Book Giveaway

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Though I used to try and avoid mention of my birthday, I’ve been finding unique ways to embrace it. It’s a chance to do something fun, or selfish, or ask unique requests of others. So, today I launch my own Birthday Book Giveaway.

Clean Water for EliroseLast week I mentioned Clean Water for Elirose, a children’s book I wrote. Well, for the next 48 hours I’d like to giveaway copies of the book to anyone who makes a donation to the Elirose Charity Water project. Anyone who makes a donation over $5 will get a copy of the book in the mail. It cost me about $5 each to send the book, so please be generous in your donation to the water project. The goal is to raise $5000 from Clean Water for Elirose book sales, which is enough to build one clean water well to provide clean water for 50 families or 250 people.

And there you have it. The point of the Book Giveaway is two-fold. First, it’s an incentive for you to give to a worthy cause. Second, it’s an opportunity to put Clean Water for Elirose into the hands of kids, parents and teachers to help discuss the topic and expose kids to both the injustices in the world and tangible ways that they can help.

Donate to Charity:Water and email me your address before 9am October 8th

Being Dad

Clean Water for Elirose

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Four years ago, when we were expecting our daughter, I knew I was about to begin a major shift in my priorities. It would still be a high priority to live out my faith and values, but above all else, the top priority is now to lovingly raise my children and instill those values that are so central to my life in theirs as well. In addition to simply loving my kids, I wanted to help them to see the world the way I had grown to see it. A large community where we are all intertwined and where our decisions impact others.

My kids are 4 and 3 now and, as concrete thinkers, reading books with them is one of the most tangible ways to expand their world, next to actually experiencing things in real life. My journey to find children’s picture books that discussed topics like poverty and homelessness, clean drinking water and lack of education, was fruitful, but sparse. It was a genre with books few and far between. And so, I set out to write my own.

Read the book Online
Read the book Online

Clean Water for Elirose is a children’s picture book about what kids drink and how four young kids make a difference in fifth child’s life, Elirose. My goal with writing the book is two-fold.

  1. To provide parents with a meaningful way to discuss a global social issue with their young children.
  2. To use the book as a tool itself for fundraising for clean drinking water.

My hope is that it reaches those goals, if even on a small scale. If your interested in ordering a copy you can do that here. Anyone is free to buy a “teachers copy” for $5, which is the same book, but doesn’t cover the total costs ($3.65 per copy of the book, ~$2.10 for shipping plus envelope). Or, you can order a $15 copy and about $10 if your purchase will go directly to supporting a clean water well project (currently with Charity:Water).

I’d love your help getting the word out if your willing. Review the book on your blog, ask your local parenting mag or paper to write a review, purchase a copy for your library, tell your friends or use it as a fundraiser for your next missions trip. Oh, and let me know what you think with a comment below.

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$1 Provides Clean Drinking Water for One Year

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I’ll cut to the chase: I would like each one of you reading this blog to donate $1 to Blood Water Mission. Better yet, I would like each one of you to ask ten of your closest friends to give you a $1 each and then take your $11 and donate it to Blood Water Mission.

Some of you might remember our campaign at Wheaton College entitled “I Support Meera.” Meera is a native missionary in India and in one day we raised over $1000 to full support Meera’s entire life’s missionary work (enough to get his ministry started and become self-sustaining). We did it by asking every college student on campus for $1 a piece. The power of many small acts can move mountains.

In a similar fashion, the community group I meet with from Mosaic has decide to adopt the goal of raising $1000 for Blood Water Mission, an organization dedicated to providing clean drinking water to individuals and entire villages in Africa. You can visit the website and read the details and what not, but the object is simple, please donate $1.

If you end up being ambitious and doing it on your own, email me and let me know how much you raised and donated.

Otherwise pass me a dollar next time you see me or use the Google Checkout button below (Google doesn’t charge any transaction fees right now, so $1 off your credit card is a dollar straight to Blood Water Mission).