Archive | October, 2010

For your viewing pleasure

By on October 23, 2010 in Uncategorized

Here’s a great new video from The David Crowder Band. It’s a cool video to watch, but it’s even more amazing when you think about how they did it.

What I’d be curious to know after watching is this: can a Lite Brite make you cry?

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Amazing proximity

By on October 18, 2010 in Adoption, Catalyst

One of my favorite parts of our time at Catalyst was an hour we spent in a lab on Orphan Care on Wednesday afternoon.

The session was a panel talk with Kelly Rosati from Focus on the Family, Elizabeth Styffe from Saddleback Church, Johnny Carr from Bethany Christian Services and moderated by Ken Coleman.

The panelists each shared their own stories of how adoption has intersected with their lives, and then offered ideas about how to minister to orphans and the families who adopt them through the local church.

Perhaps my favorite nugget from the whole session came from Elizabeth Styffe, who offered this word to folks who don’t have orphan care ministries in their churches:

“Adopt. If you adopt, you’re going to start the orphan care ministry in your church.”

But as interesting as the panelists and the ideas swirling in my head during the session were, something even more interesting happened when the event was over.

At the beginning of the panel discussion, Ken Coleman asked for a show of hands of people in the room who have adopted. Lots of hands went up. Then he asked for a show of hands of people who were considering adoption. Since he didn’t give the middle choice (people who are in the process of adopting) we raised our hands.

After the session wrapped up, Mary Craig got a tap on the shoulder from the lady sitting behind us, who asked, “So are you considering adopting?”

“We’re actually filling out our applications right now,” Mary Craig explained. “We’re adopting a child from Ethiopia.”

The lady’s eyes widened.

“That’s so great! We just brought our little girl home from Ethiopia a year ago,” she said.

In a heartbeat, she had her phone out and showed us a picture of her beautiful Ellie.

I think I saw a statistic where something like only 700 or so kids are adopted into the U.S. from Ethiopia each year. Which is to say the family isn’t that big. Statistically, we were much more likely to have been seated in front of a family who adopted from someplace else.

It was a huge encouragement to meet the Prossers and catch just a glimpse of what life is like on the other side of the trip to Addis Ababa.

I love the way God works.

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Saturday notes

By on October 16, 2010 in Daughter, Son

Here are a few quick notes while I have some quiet moments before the crew wakes up:

  • By selling cinnamon rolls and doing chores around the house, the kids raised $120 for mosquito nets for families in central Uganda. Glory to God.
  • We put that $120 into Friday’s joint campaign between Safe World Nexus and Jon Acuff at Stuff Christians Like. Jon and Safe World were hoping to raise $10,000 in 24 hours. You need to click here and see what happened.
  • Public schools are on Fall Break this week so Daughter has been home. She and Son have been playing outside together like never before. They’ll trot off into the yard and entertain each other for hours.
  • In my work, I’m 99% more effective if I let someone talk for 10 minutes before I say anything about who I am or what I do. These Conversation Tips posts from Tripp Crosby are full of truth. Here’s Part One and Part Two.

That’s it for now. I hope your weekend is jam-packed with goodness.

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The sweet rolls have gone viral (but that’s good)

By on October 15, 2010 in Daughter, MC, Son

Mary Craig greeted me in the driveway last night when I got home from work.

She had the baby on one hip and her apron on. She looked as if the day had beaten her.

“Wow. You smell like cinnamon,” I told her.

Is that not the go-to greeting in your house when Mama has had a long day?

For about two weeks, our kids have been doing chores around the house to to get enough loose change fill up two old pickle jars that are perched over the fireplace in our kitchen. When their jars are full, they want to use their money to give mosquito nets to families in Uganda to help stop the spread of malaria.

About a week ago, someone figured out that they weren’t filling up their jars very fast folding dish towels for a nickel each, so they asked if Mary Craig could bake some cinnamon rolls to sell.

On Tuesday morning, I set a pan of cinnamon rolls in the kitchen at my office, with a note that said something like this:

The Hart Kids want you to have a cinnamon roll today!

Woo-hoo!

If you like the rolls, you can buy your very own pan for $4. The money will be used to buy mosquito nets for families in Africa to help fight malaria.

Sign up below if you’d like a pan of your own!

And then I didn’t go in the kitchen for the rest of the day, because I didn’t want to be disappointed if no one cared about what the kids were doing.

At lunchtime, a friend poked her head in my door and put $5 on my desk and said she didn’t need a panful of that much caloric temptation sitting in her house but wanted to help anyway.

At the end of the day, I checked in the kitchen and my co-workers signed up for five pans of cinnamon rolls. I was amazed and humbled.

I delivered those first orders on Wednesday morning. As I was leaving Wednesday night, two new people ordered three more pans of cinnamon rolls. On Thursday, one friend ordered five pans to give as gifts and a bunch of the teachers at our son’s preschool joined in for another four pans after Mary Craig left a pan and a note there.

When I got home yesterday afternoon, Mary Craig had baked 21 pans of cinnamon rolls from scratch. When she met me in the driveway, the smell of cinnamon was literally baked into her clothes. At this moment, there’s honestly not a flat surface in our kitchen or dining room that’s not covered with a pan of rolls.

In its own scale, the cinnamon roll thing has just absolutely blown up.

Because of the generosity of the folks I work with and the labor of my wife and kids, some families in Uganda are going to get mosquito nets for their homes. That’s pretty cool.

And to think, I was afraid to look in the kitchen at the office because I thought nobody would care.

It really is amazing what happens when you get yourself out of the way and just invite people to be part of a good story.

Two little kids raising money to buy nets for folks in Uganda? That’s a good story.

So now let me invite you into the story, too.

Do you think you could be a part of a one-day effort to put 1,000 mosquito nets in central Uganda?

Safe World Nexus and Stuff Christians Like are teaming up to raise $10,000 for nets TODAY.

How can you join the story? Click here and give $10 to the SCL10K project.

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Catalyst

By on October 12, 2010 in Catalyst, Leadership

Last week, Mary Craig and I spent three days at the Catalyst conference in Atlanta.

I don’t yet have the right words to describe our time there, but it was big for us.

Over the course of three days, we took in a lot of big ideas from leaders in business, church and nonprofit.

I was going to share all my notes with you, but Ron Edmondson has put together a really nice recap post that packages things up better than I could have done myself.

Enjoy!

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