C3's Youth Movement – "Changing Lives"

Mike needs a blog break – he’s wounded.

Mike busted his collar bone in a “skiing accident” with Rick Heiniger. 1 surgery, 1 metal plate, and several screws later, he’s recovering. Rick, of course, returned unscathed. Fox claims he wrecked avoiding a 5 year old girl who cut in front of him. I don’t buy it. I think he was looking for an excuse not to blog. I’m sure he’ll trot out a purported “carpel tunnel” injury soon, given the blazing pace with which he’s producing his blog entries.

Anyway, I’m glad to pick-up on the Fox Report.

So much happens week to week at C3. Let me share just two of the many things that happened last week. These stories grabbed me, because they demonstrate young people making a huge difference for children around the world.

Six-year-old Isabelle (see November 2007 Newsletter – archived) has her home for 8 children under construction. She removes any excuses the rest of us concoct to avoid stepping up to care for more of these children.

Isabelle’s House of Hope will be done in the next few months. We’re starting to plan a January ’09 trip to Haiti, for Isabelle to meet and have play time with the children whose home SHE funded. Imagine that scene! Oprah, if you want to capture the spirit of joyful giving, bring your camera and crew. Isabelle oozes what authentic giving looks like. This is an amazing story. We’ll keep you all posted.

Speaking of youngsters, here’s another one.

Whitefield Academy in Kansas City – about 150 students – just hit a home run. Whitefield raised $50,000 to build TWO children’s homes in Haiti. 120 orphaned children have homes coming.

The part of this story that really hits me is this… The children in the school also wanted to pay for the beds and furniture for the children. So they started collecting loose change. They didn’t do a scorched earth collection, but they were intentional about it. For 3 weeks. In 3 weeks, they collected $3,600!

So, by way of recap, some students in 1 small school in Kansas City collected change for orphan care for 3 weeks. $3,600.

This reminds me of Deuteronomy 24:19-22.

Can you imagine a national “Changing Lives” campaign? How about the conversations this would trigger? How many children could we take care of, just by directing loose change to C3?

For some enterprising C3 Advocates – young, old or in between – this is my invitation to run with this project. Start a movement to collect loose change and help us support a bunch of children.

We’re excited that people of all ages are making C3 their ministry.

I need to shut down the blogging for now.

Mike, do you have anything more to offer here? Or, are you still on the DL?

Joe