Emma and her hilarious giving – Ravings of a creative housewife
I’m not prone to seeking out social justice projects myself, so I don’t naturally stumble across ways for my kids to get involved in helping others. We practice kindness, hospitality, and generosity with the people we bump into every day, but at some point I would love to take my kids out of their comfort zone (so to speak) to help other completely outside of the world they know.
Bead Parties – Notes of Us
“Bead For Life is an organization in Kampala, Uganda, whose goal is to eradicate poverty through creative means. Instead of just accepting donations, they empower their Ugandan women (who have been through situations I cannot imagine) to create beads from recycled paper: old calendars, magazine pages, and even cereal boxes. These beads, in brilliant colors of reds, oranges, pinks, blues, greens, purples and more, become necklaces (long, short, flat, woven or circular), bracelets and beaded jewelry bags.
The profits they receive from selling their jewelry go toward their own community projects and six other organizations in Uganda.”
Somewhere Out There – This American Life
“The story of struggle and pain, passed through and fought through and over come – that’s not a story you tell in public. Because no one ever asks, How did you two stay together? They only want to ask, How did you two meet?”
“[They] had to make that same transition that all couples do – from the crazy-in-love stage to the other thing, the hard part of love. And it’s when you’re in that struggle you most need the story of how you’re meant to be. Because the alternative, that the person you’re with could be any one of hundreds of thousands of people – well, if that’s true, then why even try?”
We have supported for about 20 years a missionary couple in Kampala, Uganda, the Sorensen’s. They are an awesome couple we met at the Baptist church we used to attend then, and since they had the same last name as Don’s mother’s family, we just bonded to them. In addition, they had 2 very blonde girls and little blonde boy who looked like they could be our kids. But the cutest picture they ever sent in their newsletter was their youngest, Stan Jr, at 2 years old standing with the cutest, and totally opposite in color, little black boy from Kampala, and I treasured that picture for years until it just got too faded on the frig. Anyway, I will contact them about the beads. Thanks for sharing, Jen.
Hey, thanks for the link Jen! I love spreading the word for the bead parties. Totally worth doing, or at the very least looking into!!
I love your Friday links 🙂