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"