Friday, November 14, 2008

Gift Giving that Grows the Kingdom

This is in response to something I had on facebook today. I am posting a list of the gift giving ideas that I included in the article that I mentioned on facebook. I have taken out all the "waffling" that I did inbetween and this is merely the list. I hope you get some good ideas!

1.Eternal threads - www.eternalthreads.com
"We are dedicated to improving the lives of women in poverty by giving them work, marketing their handmade goods and returning the profits to educate girls. Everytime you purchase a tote you help keep a woman employed and educate a girl. Your purchase of a small size tote doubles the family income of a woman for nearly a week and educates a girl for two months."
You can purchase beautiful handmade totes and bags from India along with lots of new merchandise from Nepal, Afghanistan, Madagasacar and Thailand.

2.Christian Relief Fund - www.christianrelieffund.org
"The Christian Relief Fund is dedicated to following Christ’s example of ministering to human needs: spiritually, physically, and emotionally, by feeding the hungry, healing disease and heartbreak, fighting ignorance and poverty through education and preaching the Gospel through word and deed."
You can sponsor a child through Christian relief fund and literally change the trajectory of someone's future.

3.The Kibo Group - www.kibogroup.org
$49 plants a mvule tree on behalf of that person in your life who already has everything. (That’s actually cheap for a “Christmas” tree these days, and ours are actually alive and growing!). We send you a card. with your tree registration number, which you can use to follow your tree online!A village, with the help of a Mvule Project engineer plants a tree and marks it with a Global Positioning System (GPS) for further monitoring. We are allowing up to 100 trees per village so we need the GPS to keep track of them. Periodically for a year (every month at first) we will return to the trees to monitor their status. Every live tree garners a payment . . . with each payment increasing, sometimes doubling, from the last one. You get the picture . . . the motivation to keep these trees alive is big, big, big! If a mvule tree can make it through the harsh first year, it’s good to grow. At the end of a year, 100 living trees will mean more than $3000 for a village and their project. That’s good money for a village and that’s easy management for us. Because of the economic seeds you’ve planted, Ugandan children will grow stronger physically, spiritually, and academically. And one day, their children will sit in the shade of your mvule tree.

4. Catchall Basket: This beautiful basket starts at just $10, but then again is is made from grass and potato chip bags found littering the streets of Nepal. http://btcelements.com/products/?view=sub_product&sid=2305&cid1=376&cid2=364&cid3=370

5. Elephant Dung Products: It sounds kind of gross but cool at the same time. Pick up stationary sets made from elephant dung. The money helps save elephants. http://www.rainbowgifts-usa.com/stationary.htm

6. Toms Shoes: Buy a pair of Toms Shoes and the company will donate a pair to a child who doesn’t have any. http://www.tomsshoes.com/

7. Envirosax: Pick up reusable grocery bags and know you are doing your part to help the earth. A portion of sales go toward environmental causes. http://www.envirosax.com/products/greengrocer_series/

8. Oxfam America Unwrapped: Give a powerful gift through Oxfam America Unwrapped. $90 buys a pair of sheep, $500 plants a forest. http://www.oxfamamericaunwrapped.com/

9. Kikoy Covered Book: Help marginalized women in Africa by purchasing their handmade products like this covered book for just $10.99. http://www.amaniafrica.org/shop/item.php?itemID=127

10.Kiva Microfinancing - www.kiva.org
"Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty"

12 comments:

WendyC said...

Great list, Arlene. I posted an Aussie list a couple of days ago here: http://wjcsydney.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/feeding-the-dump-people-and-christmas-gifts/

jeleasure said...

Interesting gifts. The tree that has GPS? Incase it grows out of the village? In case someone takes it? So it can be seen from space and broadcast to broadband?
Elephant Dung! I'd have to see it and be sure there is not any offensive odor. Americans can really get the wrong idea based on receiving smelly elephant dung in their Christmas Stockings. Most Christmas stockings don't get put in the washing machine, either. That's american culture.
I'm sure the elephant dung is safe. We Americans don't know anything about it, though.
All of the gifts are for great reasons and I have copied the list to Microsoft excell. I had fun joking about the dung. But, I have a mischievous side that is compelling me to order it.

Arlene Kasselman said...

Jim, I know- some of these were cracking me up too. I am always up for a good chuckle. These are really good organizations. Eternal Threads, Christian Relief Fund and the Kibo Group are all known personally to me.

One good thing about anything made from dung - at least one's expectations are not too high so one could be pleasantly surprised.

Do you read Relevant Magazine - one of our favorites for contemporary Christian thinking. Many of these are listed in there this month also.

jeleasure said...

A very good point concerning expectations.
No, I have not heard of that magazine. Maybe I am a bit isolated. My reading is mainly on line. Mostly political issues.
I read what I need to build an educational blog post. Sorrowfully, I even had to tell my friend, Dan I have been busy the last two evenings. Tonight was, 'visit the in-laws night'.
Thanks for being a friend. It is nice to get educated opinions and have small chats when I'm online, studying.
Jim

Cornelius Crew said...

I'm going to check these out. I've been trying to think of ways to help turn this season into a less self absorbed season for the boys. I really need some hands on, face to face encounters for them to really get it though. I haven't got to look over your list very closely being as how it's 1230 right now, but if you have any suggestions where they could see those that they are serving,

I'm open!

jeleasure said...

Hi Arlene,
I have not been able to find time to do any significant blogging this past week. I did however, post a new blog item this evening. It is the one I said I would follow up to my last blog item with. Visit me here at Journaling For Growth .
Thanks, and blessings to you and your family.
Jim

jeleasure said...

Hi Arlene,
You may have been able to see this coming.
We Christians have a responsibility to promote peace. I think we can do this by creating an awarness of a current tempest that may be ready to break loose from the private chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States.
This, vs. getting blind sided by surprise that will likely create anger and disappointment leading to something worse.

Obama's born Conspiracy
The link above will take you to a blog from one of the analyst who determined Barak Obama's Certificate of Live Birth to be a forged copy. The blog will tell you exactly what he did to discover the fraud and display the evidence. It took me nearly two hours to get through this.
Give credit to Christine of Talk Wisdom for sending this on to me.
I believe if you ask your friends and readers to take this link, and distribute it to as many people as they possibly can, we may be able to avoid a race war which the mainstream media is setting us up for by not reporting the story as it unfolds. What we can do is soften the shock and ease anger before the possibility of The SCOTUS announcing they will try the case.

Arlene Kasselman said...

Jim
From everything I have read, and I have not read it all, plus what I have seen on snopes, I am frustrated by this whole thing. I think it is a ploy against Obama by the conservative right.

And if not, hopefully sanity will rule the day :-)

I have not been reading blogs much this past week because I have been crazy busy but I will get over to yours and read your new posts this week.
Blessings for thanksgiving.

jeleasure said...

Thanks Arlene,
Have you ever heard an argument for the Bible that speaks of the Bible being timelessly cohesive?

Well, I read this guy's report. He gives much scientific evidence that is just too cohessive for him to be pretending and attempting a hoax. I have been bantering over this with a friend who is a software consultant/programmer. I think there may be something to it. However, we must be sober and vigilant.

Bill Williams said...

As I reflect on the many reasons I have for being thankful, I am definitely moved to give God thanks and praise for your light and life. May God’s richest blessings continue flow through you to enlighten and enrich the lives of others.

Love in the Lord,
Bill Williams

jeleasure said...

Arlene,
I can't believe I missed the opportunity to say, Happy Thanksgiving. I'm sorry. It is now 10:58pm.
Sorry,
Jim

jeleasure said...

Arlene,
You are a wealth of expression in words.
Thanks for commenting on my blog, of which, the title may have been the hook for many of the people who read it this weekend.
I did a poor job in communicating that Paul was in fact speaking to the people that he has learned to be content in want or in plenty. I discovered this when I was trying to figure out why so many people were focused on only responding to the music analogy.
Then, by the time Jody responded, I was putting it together. Or, maybe it was when Scott commented.
Thank you for being gracious in your comment. I know this could have been offensive in my poor manner of expression.
You know, I will still have to comment in reply to your comment at Journaling For Growth. Good to have you as a friend. You're fantastic.
Jim