We have all heard the statistics surrounding Compassion International. By now, we have all been made aware that over 830,000 children are currently being rescued from poverty, through the efforts of local churches in the third world. We know that over 1.2 million kids have been cared for through the work of Compassion International as a whole. We’ve been told that 30,000 kids will die today, and tomorrow, and the next if we don’t get more involved and don’t get more people involved. I have read the Money Magazine’s endorsement of Compassion International, ranking them in the top five charitable organizations in the world, and I know that no less than 82% of my actual $32 a month goes directly to supporting my sponsor child. We know the history of how Compassion was started by an evangelist wrecked by the sight of children in poverty. By now we know that Compassion International is currently reaching children in 24 different countries. These are all things we know.

What we don’t know is how far my $32 really goes in the life of a child? Can anyone answer that? How far does my letter writing go by the time it is translated and finally reaches a small village in Uganda? How far does the amount I spend on a third of my cell phone bill really go when it finally reaches the Philippines? I have a guess. I’d say about half an inch…

I have three boys. Three boys, who love to run and jump and wrestle, and laugh. Three boys who can wreck me with tears, and trick me into reading one more story before bed with a simple hug. One of my favorite things to do in life is to watch them play. I love to watch their interaction with other kids in the yard, pretending they are captains of a pirate ship, or fearless Jedi bent on saving the universe. I love to watch them swing as high as they can on the swing set, until the base starts to jump with each forward thrust. I love the half-laugh, half-scream that comes with each time I push them higher.

There are few better moments in a parent’s life than when they see their son smile, or hear their daughter laugh. It’s infectious. Try it. The next time you are around a baby, and it gives you that squinted-eye, no-tooth grin try not to smile back. The next time you hear a little girl on the playground laughing and screaming as she goes down the slide, try not to smile with her. That moment is the moment when everything around us shrinks. When the world slows for only a second. When war, hunger, death, sadness, and pain, are all reduced to something we barely notice.

Reduced to something that’s about half an inch…

My wife and I sponsor two children through Compassion International. The first little boy we sponsored lived in Mexico. Ricky Luna. He was a round little guy with black hair and dirty jeans. He helped his mother by sweeping and doing chores around the house. We were able to sponsor him for just over a year when Ricky was taken out of the program.

One day we received another packet in the mail, with a new picture, of a new child. The face in this new picture looked worn and tired. A lifeless stare into a piece of electronic equipment he had never seen before, being told to say “cheese” and startled by the “click”. Nervous and looking for answers. James Kasaatu. James is older than Ricky, and from Uganda. “He goes to school, and helps out carrying water and cleaning around the house. James lives with his mother and father and there are nine children in his family”, is what the packet tells us. James sends us letters about every two months with sketched pictures of giraffes and trucks and trees. Our oldest son writes him about his guitar and his bike, and draws him pictures as well, calling him Kasaatu instead of James because it’s more fun to say.

Our second child that we sponsor is Roshie Mae. She lives in the Philippines and “loves to sing and play house”. The first letter we received from the Philippines was from Roshie’s mother thanking us for supporting her daughter. The words of a mother unable to properly care for her own daughter are like no other words. Desperately grateful, and unashamed. I could sense relief in her words. She could sleep easier that night knowing that there was someone a world away willing to care.

A few days later, we received another envelope in the mail from Compassion International. This time it was an updated picture and another letter from Uganda. Staring at the picture, I noticed something different about the way James was looking at me. Something small, something calming, a difference of about half an inch…

This morning I found a piece of string. With a black marker I marked one side. I called in my four-year old and asked him what the funniest thing he had ever heard was. He told me a knock-knock joke somehow ending with the word “booty”. He’s four, and a boy. “Booties” are funny. I asked him to tell it again. As soon as “booty” crossed his lips, I stretched the string across his mouth, the black mark on one side of his lips, my thumb on the other. I marked where my thumb had been and asked him to tell me a sad story. He looked at me confused and asked if he could go outside to play. I told him “no”. At that moment I stretch the string across his mouth again. A third mark, and he was on his way outside. With a yardstick I measured the distance between the two closest marks. About half an inch…

How far does my $32 dollars go in the life of a child cared for by Compassion International? I’d say about half an inch. About half an inch was the difference I saw on James’ face when the new photo came in the mail. A photo that has been taken after receiving letters, support and love from a family he has never met. That photo is solid proof that something has changed in this little boy’s world. About half an inch reduced the pain and fear in Roshie’s life enough that her mom sat down to write. Thirty-two Dollars a month will change their lives forever, reaching further than any ocean, or social class. I’ve found that about half an inch is the difference between disappointment and a smile, between sadness and hope, fear and security. Thirty-two dollars a month to make about a half inch difference in a life through Compassion International.

This is my oldest son, Blue. He’s four. And crazy.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow. It’s a short tour but worth trying to catch.

This is LuChanda Turner. Our cat. We found her outside of Chico, California, on the side of the road along with three other cats. She was a kitten, probably about four weeks old. She was the nasty one. She was the one that climbed inside our tire between the wheel and the brake pads and wouldn’t get out. She’s the one that bit me several times and made me want to just get in the car and start driving. That would get her out.

Originally her name was Turner. We thought she was a boy. We were wrong. She is a girl, and needed a name. Mrs. Turner she became. After being mocked in social circles for never actually having a first name, I gave her the official name of LuChanda Turner.

She reminds me of Courtney Love. She thinks she is really glamorous, but deep down she is a dirty, dirty girl. LuChanda Turner would most likely be addicted to heroin if she were a human. And she would wear those old dirty prom dresses that are pink and ripped at the bottom. She would cuss a lot too.

LuChanda Turner has been in our family longer than we have had kids, and has always been filthy. She has given birth to several offspring from different fathers, before she was fixed, has eaten several dead animals, and not even felt bad about it. She even urinated in the heater vent in our bathroom once. She’s a nasty, Courtney Love cat, but she’s our nasty, Courtney Love cat.

… and her name is easier to say than “Biernt”.

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Thanks to a few links like these, this conversation is still going. I don’t want anyone to feel left out.

YM News.com

“Be A Man”

“Macho Man Remix”

“Mark Driscoll On Men In Church”

“Love Him/Hate Him”

It turns out this internet thing is pretty big and people find out stuff. Who knew? All I can say is that I hope I don’t get beat up the next time I am in Seattle.

Tonight we are just outside of Washington DC, and I can’t believe how packed the Wal Mart was at eleven o’clock at night. I’m not going to tell you why I was at Wal Mart at eleven o’clock at night. That’s my business. Not yours.

What I will tell you is that several of Shauns message board folks were at the show tonight, and I got to meet several of them for the first time. I was also able to meet Transition Pete.

Transition Pete is a pretty cool guy. And his blog looks amazing. I don’t know how he makes it look that cool, but I’m pretty jealous. We were able to have some dinner with him, talk blogs and answer a few non incriminating questions. Check out T.P.’s blog and be in awe of how he makes all his links little pictures. I like that.

Nothing says a fathers love than buying this number for his little girl. Of corse it comes in any youth size, and uses the classic “little girl” colors, pink and purple. So if you get a chance this summer, swing by Christian music festival this year, share some time with the family, sing some songs, and don’t forget to pick up your “genital warts” t-shirt.

A friend of mine is traveling around to a couple different Christian music festivals this summer, and ran across this. I know there are some pretty bad shirts out there, but is this is one of the worst. Is this the new generations version of “True Love Waits”? “True love doesn’t want genital warts”? What’s the worst “Christian” shirt you have ever seen?

What does one do with a day off in Burlington, North Carolina? You want to know what I did? Five hours of dental work. Yeah that’s right. Nothing says a good time like kicking back in a comfy leather chair, watching a little Discovery Channel, and having numerous sets of hands in your mouth throughout the day.

We started off with a simple cleaning. Then on to the bleaching. After an hour of bleach eating away years of stain on my teeth, another cleaning. Then on to the pulling of a wisdom tooth…but only after two separate shots for numbing. A few crunches, a loud crack and now I have a wisdom tooth as my souvenir from North Carolina. After the wisdom tooth hole stopped bleeding, it was time to add to a small tooth in the front of my mouth, just to make them all look even. After about an hour of molding and adding to that tooth, another clean and we are almost done. Because we did the bleaching, we needed to make molds of my newly shaped teeth in order for me to continue bleaching in the future. Molds were made, and five hours later, we are done.

Thanks so much to Tracy Edwards DDS and everyone at her office that stayed over and helped out. Oh yeah, and did I mention that Tracy isn’t charging me for any of that? She’s awesome. We had a great time today, and if you are even remotely close to Burlington, North Carolina, I think you should make Tracy your dentist.

Now, I just took a couple 800 mg Ibuprofen and it’s starting to kick in. Thanks again Tracy, I really appreciate it.

And by the way… Tracy looks nothing like George W. Bush.

“Welcome to (fill in the blank), may I take your order?”

“Yeah, I need a (fill in the blank), and two large (fill in the blank) with extra (fill in the blank). Oh yeah… and ahhh… gimme (fill in the blank).”

I have never worked at a place with a drive thru. But for a short time in high school I worked at a Dairy Queen, catering to folks stopping in on their way to Lake Tahoe skiing trip. I stood at the counter with a half smile, pretending I wasn’t the guy that was making four dollars an hour to make them shakes and have them complain about them.

I think at some point every teenager, with the thought that they have an opinion that matters, should work in a fine fast food establishment. A fine food establishment where for hours upon hours you are treated like you are simply the lowest form of human on the planet. Where after three hours of being ordered around and treated like crap, then and only then, have you made enough money to purchase a movie ticket. Three more hours and you will have enough cash to pay for a date, assuming the grease from said establishment, in compliance with adolescence has completely disfigured your face and you are actually able to get a date.

And my favorite line? I heard this morning, from the woman behind me in the Starbucks drive through. With my window still down, sitting between the intercom and the window, I hear this.

“Yeah, I need a large mocha.”

“I need a…”. I hate that for some reason. It’s probably one of those things that just sticks out to me, but I cant stand it. Do you really “need a” anything from Starbucks? Do manners and common courtesy no longer matter when you are talking to someone, simply because they are are at a drive thru window, or a fast food counter? What happened to “Can I please get a…” or maybe even, “Yes, I’d like…”, but why, “I need a…”?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something. If someone is asking you if they can take your order for something, especially food, you will never, ever, ever “need” anything from them. If someone is standing in front of you, willing to serve you eight hours a day, for the price of movie tickets, there is less “need” in your life than you think.

Just a thought.