THANK YOU to all who participated! We love your continued prayers and support as we are working hard to raise our families and raise funds for a school to change lives and impact the community of Kechene, Ethiopia!
For our blessed winner please contact Wear Love VIA FaceBook. Let her know you are Awake and Alive's winner!! (I will let her know to expect you) If you did not win this time but LOVE her shirts you can purchase one on her Etsy Store.
When we were on Moody Radio Chicago in August, one of the questions we anticipated was, "What's it like to run a nonprofit with 7 children?" We thought it might be fun for you to have a little snapshot into what it looks like for us, a fairly typical experience in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style showing you where our love for children--both in our homes and in Africa--takes us:
Danielle:
Wake up and get precious boy #1 on the school bus by 6:50 am. Have 10 minutes to myself to either crawl back in bed, start cleaning the kitchen after being too tired last night, or spend time reading my rockin' new devotional book by Sarah Young. Other two boys wake up at 7:00 am, get dressed, and start watching "Arthur" on PBS. Check e-mail and facebook. YES! Lots of responses for the new giveaway Awake and Alive is doing! Arthur's done. Love on boys for a few more minutes--shoes on, teeth brushed (sometimes), vitamins taken...there's the bus! Then, I should have 20 minutes of quiet before Selah is awake, though this is not guaranteed. Start a blog entry for Awake and Alive. 7:55 am-Selah's up! Run upstairs for hugs and kisses, and 2 books. What? You want them both read again? Okay...make that 4 books. Pull-up off, potty. Tickling, and more kissing and hugging....and then crying...Downstairs to blog some more. Check on brochure our awesome college intern Keith is working on. Shoot! Website is down. Phone rings. Ignore...then pick up (it's the PTO, after all). Share our new giveaway on my facebook page. Get Selah breakfast. Brochure is looking good! Help pick up toy room. Where was I? More blogging. And now it's 8:41 am. Anyone want to take bets when it will finally be ready to actually put on the website?!?
Similarly, here's a typical morning for Jolene:
Responding to an E-mail from a lover of Awake and Alive. She was interested in our mission trip and I was trying to jot down the details of our trip all the while I was getting breakfast for 3 babies. So I was cooking eggs, pouring glasses of milk, typing response e-mail, cleaning up spilled milk, spooning apple sauce in their little mouths, developing a thought, breaking up a fight, continue typing e-mail, blowing on eggs to cool them down, pouring myself a cup of coffee, typing some more, wiping up milk mustaches, refilling sippy cups, typing, singing and dancing to Veggie Tales "here I am to worship" for the kiddos, proof reading my E-mail, Calling Danielle to let her know we have a few people interested in traveling with us to Kechene, breaking up a fight, laying a little one down for a nap...
Can any moms or dads relate? This is life for us. Beautiful, tricky, busy, full life with 7 incredible blessings. Sometimes an office and uninterrupted time sounds really appealing. We'd sure get a lot more done! But most of the time, we wouldn't change all the interruptions for the world-to hear the laughter along with the cries. Because we know that they're not really interruptions, are they? Mothering is our highest calling. We're just so thankful that God has allowed us to do both. I want to leave you with a little bit longer video from Andrew Peterson that a wonderful friend posted on my facebook page at just the right time. I hope it means as much to you as it did to me. Glory to God who gives us strength. :)
Lynn is a Christ follower, she has a family full of missionaries and her husband is a pastors kid. Lynn told me, "I want to be a cross over company, not just another Christian tee shirt company. Love the cross over because we have the opportunity to tell the story of John 9 and it opens lots of conversation when people say, "spit in the dirt ?"" Lynn has a HUGE heart for Africa and a large amount of the proceeds of Wear Love go to help street boys in Saint Louis (san-loo-EE), Senegal, Africa. She is flying solo in the Wear Love venture so lets show some love to Lynn. (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.)
So... What have you been wearing these days? Does what you wear show people who you are and what you believe in?
We have an opportunity for one of our lucky readers to do just that for free!! Lynn is lovingly and generously donating one of these shirts to an Awake and Alive follower!
All of the rest of you not so lucky readers ;) can go to Lynn's store Click here and buy one for yourself or for your entire family! (They make great Christmas gifts) So here is what you have to do to get entered to win one of these great t-shirts: (each entry should have it's own comment.)
2 Mandatory Entries
1. Be a follower of Awake and Alive’s blog {leave me a comment that you do follow..1 Entry}
2. Like Wear Love on FB and leave Lynn an encouraging message on the page, or let her know you came from Awake and Alive. {leave me a comment that you did …1 Entry}
ADDITIONAL ENTRIES:
Follow Awake and Alive on FB here {Again, tell me you follow..1 Entry}
Share this giveaway on your FB and encourage others to check out Awake and Alive {1 Entry}
Take our button off the side and post it on YOUR blog until this give away is over {tell me you did..1 Entry!!!}
The mother of all entries...
do a write up on your blog about Awake and Alive and link up to us in your post. (You can tell your readers how you know us, what inspires you about the work we are doing, something we have written about that made you think differently or your come up with your own idea about Awake and Alive and write about that.) {if you do this tell me that you have and leave a link to your blog....5 entries}
You have a potential for 10 entries!!
We will be drawing the winner for the Wear Love T-shirt on Friday September 30th. Go. Spread the love! Then Wear Love.
“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.” – Elie Wiesel
I resisted agreeing with this quote the first time I read it. On some level or another I have been indifferent and it’s hard to admit that I’ve been the opposite of love. My god talked about loving others a majority of the time he is quoted; it’s hard to face that I’ve been guilty of the opposite.
But the more I have opened up to this concept, the more it makes sense. Indifference is the lack of concern for the well-being of another; the refusal to help someone despite knowing that person needs help. It’s the failure to acknowledge life, yet alone hate it.
When I read this quote, I immediately thought of the reports of famine currently taking place in the Horn of Africa, the children in Kechene who are in desperate need of very basic needs and safety, and how I have reacted to the faces I have seen.
It’s not my goal to guilt you into doing something you don’t want to do. I don’t like doing things out of guilt either. But I hope this quote will enlighten a part of your life much the way it did mine, and help you take action when you see someone in need.
Did this quote affect you the way it affected me? Do you agree with it?
We are so excited to announce our 1st mission trip to Ethiopia! We will be visiting the forgotten and "cursed" slum of Kechene. We will be there to kick off the start of the school, that we have been working so hard to raise funds for and we will be building relationships and showing God's love. If your heart pumps faster when you watch this video I would encourage you to be in prayer over the next few months about traveling with us in September.
