A Hungry Soul

A Hungry Soul is a person who asks:

How do I connect with God in a way that satisfies my soul?

How does the Bible, written so long ago, really feed the spirit?

How do I begin to live the spiritual life I've always longed for?

How do I heal from wounds that have closed me off from God?

How do I go deeper spiritually, and not just skim across the surface?

Does Christianity let me enjoy beauty, the aesthetic, the literary, or is it just serious and severe?

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Positive Deviants

   I spent all of last week above Colorado Springs in intense training sessions with some of the leaders of the CHE (Community Health Evangelism) movement, which is so effective it is spreading rapidly around the world as various denominations and missions groups adopt its methods. Saddleback Church with Rick Warren, for instance, is using the CHE development program in the Peace Initiative in Rwanda.

    CHE is a unique neighborhood (or village) approach that seamlessly integrates Scriptural stories with practical preventive healthcare (or microenterprise) lessons that are advanced by trained village nationals who relate (ideally) to 10-15 households. There may be other groups that are doing this kind of integration—I’ve witnessed all kinds of relief and development initiatives around the world in my travels as a journalist—but, generally they lean toward one pole or another, development and relief on the one hand, or church planting on the other. Click here to read more: http://goo.gl/KzrcC

Crisscross Double Dutch

"I don't play very well."

How frequently I hear this lament in the Listening Groups. Not only does this seem to be a common lament for contemporary Christians, it is also a problem with which I deeply identify. I either never learned to play, or, through the decades of ministry, I have forgotten how!

So, much of this year (since Hungry Souls conducted workshops on Lucia Capacchione's Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self), I've been working at learning how to play. (Notice the conundrum in that sentence--it's bad when you have to work at having fun!) I am learning that it is important for me to have days in which there are NOT lists of things that MUST-BE-DONE. Click here to read more: http://goo.gl/RU8P1

Count Days, Not Calories

Several nights back, I was wakened at 1:00 A.M. by this urgent thought: You only have fifteen years left, you know.

Obviously, I didn’t go back to sleep. Instead, I slipped out of bed and went downstairs to seriously pondered what I had just heard. You only have fifteen years left, you know. This wasn’t a gloom-and-doom message; more the kind of reminder a spouse gives when you’ve lost track of time: “You know we have to be ready to leave the house in half an hour.” Or perhaps, it was more like the gentle words of a friend, “We really need to attend that meeting; it will mean so much to Julia if we are present.”

I’m suspecting the Holy Spirit was nudging me, since I’ve never really been any good at math. At least, something was prodding my subconscious in the middle of the night, after I had slept for a while and my mind was rested, and when I was not distracted with any of the “to-doings” of my daily life.

Let’s see … 15 years x 365 days equals 5475 days left to me. In 15 years, I will be 81. How much world traveling, strategic-living do I think I will be doing then? Click here to read more: http://goo.gl/QMn8F

Sleeping on the Danube

“There aren’t many Americans who can say they’ve slept on the Danube,” laughed my new friend Catherine Sevier. She is an R.N., PhD, and former Vice-President of the Diabetes Foundation. Catherine, along with her husband David, was in charge of the Health Consultation track for the Hope for Europe Congress II. Our little group of 42 folk (out of the larger 1000-plus attendees) were rooming in a “botel”—a ship-turned-hotel docked at Quay 21 on the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary. Read more here: http://goo.gl/OMk9P

Scavenger Genes

Some of us were born with a scavenger gene. I confess that I am one. I can’t resist the temptation to comment (obnoxiously) when complimented on an article of clothing or a new household item, “Goodwill—five bucks,” or “St. Vincent’s Resale Shop—three dollars.”
So when I saw the kitchen cabinet (without a hole cut in the top for a sink) discarded at the curb in front of the house of a son’s neighbors, I realized it was exactly what I had been praying for to store all the messy leftover paints and supplies that had been gathering dust on a rusting metal shelf in the garage. Click here to read more: http://goo.gl/s9o2Z

Need Some Bridesmaid Gifts?

Hannah T. put this photo on her Facebook page. She was in Nairobi when Karen Mains and Carla Boelkens visited in April. Hannah was a month away from her wedding date while working on some projects for staff at African International University. We were with her in the sewing room when she chose her gift bags. This was so much fun, and we thought Global Bag Project bags for bridal party gifts was a terrific, eco–conscious, globally–aware idea!

Last year, Ashley B. gave Global Bag Project bags as gifts to her bridal party as well. Here’s what she says,

"We loved the bags and they are often used. This is such a wonderful project. My bridesmaids were so happy to know that their gifts were not only awesome, useful bags, but that they were partnering with the women of Kenya with them. Continue the g