One in Fifty US Children Homeless

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I saw this story today…

One of every 50 American children experiences homelessness, according to a new report that says most states have inadequate plans to address the worsening and often-overlooked problem.

The report being released Tuesday by the National Center on Family Homelessness gives Connecticut the best ranking. Texas is at the bottom.

“These kids are the innocent victims, yet it seems somehow or other they get left out,” said the center’s president, Dr. Ellen Bassuk. “Why are they America’s outcasts?” [Read Entire Story Here]

Continue reading “One in Fifty US Children Homeless”

Perspectives

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I always find myself taking things in life for granted, or overlooking how blessed I am because of minor issues that I allow to be bigger than what they really are. I think when we start looking at things in their proper perspectives, we are able to see the truth of how blessed and how good many of us have it.

For instance, this morning I am standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of tea (the kind with no sugar in it) and taking my array of daily pills. We live in a small home (especially with 5 people) so the only place we can fit our cereal boxes are on top of the refrigerator. I just happened to look at them and think, “Wow, we have a lot of cereal!” But to really put things into perspective, we probably have more food just in cereal than many children do in a year in third world countries. Yet, my children will complain if they don’t get the cereal they like, or if we are out of their favorite kind. I wonder how excited the kids who barely have anything to eat would be to get just 1 box of cereal? I then got a little downtime (finally) today to go visit some other blogs, and I was given another perspective on my life…

The reason I have not had time to visit other blogs is because our stupid website hosting company (no names, 1&1) sent my wife’s domain name to be deleted instead of for transfer to another company, I guess that’s their way of saying, “We’ll show you to leave our company!” I spent a week and a half with their tech support, whom you cannot understand ( I think they are a mix of arabic and chinese) trying to get the domain name restored and transferred to the new company. Once that was complete, I have been trying to rebuild the site for her to get her business back up and running. My bed times this week have been, 1:30 am, 2:30 am, 3:40 am, and 3:50 am before getting up between 6:30 and 7:00ish to go to work. I thought my last couple of weeks were pretty bad, but then I was reminded of what my friends Dan and Stephanie Gould deal with constantly with one of their children, Jackson. They’ve been in the hospital 5 times since September due to a cesure condition their son has. Personally, I would take a crashed website and early mornings trying to fix it, than having to see my son helplessly deal with the issues Jackson does, and to have him subjexcted to the tests and the probes from the Hospitals. Dan and Stephanie are much stronger than me, and their story helps me realize that my life is not as bad as it may seem…it could always be worst! (I’m not saying they have a bad life, just that they are having to endure more than my situation with the website).

Join the Conversation: What helps you keep your life in proper perspective? How could the world be different if we all had the right focus?

Another Small Step to Make Huge Impacts

Back in June I posted about an opportunity to help a friend of mine with the adoption of her daughter and/or siblings with your purchase of an everyday item, coffee. You can check that post out HERE. Neely and Josh have recently been informed that they are 27th on the list to get a girl and 10th on the list to get siblings.

Today I come to you with a new opportunity to help them out by purchasing another everyday item. Adopting a baby from a foreign country is expensive, but with everyone taking small steps, we can help make it happen and essentially re-write a baby or potentially two babies life stories, as well as a families. Neely and Josh have had some really cool T-shirts made up to help raise money for the expenses of the adoption. I am sporting mine in the picture at the top of the post. The T-shirt reads “Adoption Rocks” in an Africa logo and comes in black with a white logo or White with a red logo. The T-shirts are $15 each, and you should buy one for yourself and everyone in your family (yes they have children’s sizes)!

Click HERE to go to Neely’s page to order your T-shirt. She has an order form on her right hand sidebar or Email her HERE to place your order.

For Coffee lovers or family and friends of Coffee lovers…Click HERE to place your Coffee order. Remember, you must order through the link for them to get credit for your purchase.

Thanks for Re-writing little children’s life stories!

A Night For Africa

This is an event hosted by The 410 Bridge. You need to be there!
Its going to be awesome!!!

Click HERE or the button above to order your tickets.

Lanny Donoho asked me personally via Twitter (ok maybe I wasn’t the only one he asked) to post this, you can see his blog HERE and his Twitter HERE.

See you there!

Nick

A Rap Worth Listening To

I watched this over at Pete’s blog yesterday and had to go back this morning to listen to it again. My favorite part is “Send Me I’ll Go” because that sums up where my heart is right now.

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What are your thoughts? Join the Conversation!