Today I was flying back from 12 days in NYC and really didn’t have any idea of who I was going to give $10 to this Tuesday. I got home. I was tired. I was much more interested in playing with Harper and Oreo than staring at my computer. There was a chance that my $10 for Tuesday wouldn’t get posted until Wednesday.
And sometimes it takes a kick in the pants. Today that kick came from Michele Shaw:
Hi Kelsey! In the spirit of your Tuesday project, I have contributed for a month to Samaritan’s Purse. They do one of my favorite projects-Operation Christmas Child, and are already gearing up to help children around the world come December.
It’s sort of funny when a big butter Jesus burns down – in fact, I drove by the site last week and it’s even funnier in person – but there’s nothing funny at all about a homeless shelter burning down.
No one wants to live in a homeless shelter.
I remember the scenes in Pursuit of Happyness where Will Smith and son are waiting in line for a bed at a homeless shelter in San Francisco. The father, Will, was looking down at the ground to avoid eye contact while simultaneously scanning out the side of his eye for anyone that might recognize him.
Making the decision to move into a shelter must be quite humbling.
But then to have the last place you would turn burn would really seem like…
I need to do a master page for the $10 for Tuesday project showing whom I’ve given to and more information explaining the project.
It’s been a pretty amazing experience for me so far. Everyday I get an email or a post from someone asking for $10 or from someone who his giving in their own way. A couple of days ago I received this note from Hannah Ford.
My husband and I do not have a lot of money but every Sunday we pick at least 5 different children in our churches (my husband is the organist for two churches)..from 1-5 dollars each..someday we will be able to do more..we set aside 20 dollars each week for this..love what you are during.
Every Tuesday I give $10 to an individual or group as part of the $10 for Tuesday (#ten4tues) project. If you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments or email me at Kelsey@kelseytimmerman.com.
For a few weeks I actually gave a crap about soccer.
I think every game I watched had a goal that should have been allowed and wasn’t or was allowed and shouldn’t have been. At times it seemed a little like WWE wrestling. Still, the beauty of soccer is its simplicity.
He served me tea. We small talked and then he told me about how is son killed himself by jumping off the bridge in Limerick into the River Shannon. He recounted the days spent on the river searching for his son. He talked about the man who found his son and how he came to the funeral.
“And that’s not the end of it,” he said.
Three months after his son jumped in the river to his death, his wife did the same thing, leaving the man with five kids to raise.
We sat in the Limerick office of the Samaritans and talked for nearly two hours. The Samaritans operate in England and Ireland. “Samaritans provides confidential non-judgemental emotional support, 24…
My buddy Tim Bete, former director of the Erma Bombeck writers workshop, who forever holds a special place in my heart for dragging his daughters through 10 inches of snow to my first ever reading, is editor of a cool new project – ThankfulHome.
Here’s how Tim describes ThankfulHome:
ThankfulHome.tv allows people to share their stories about housing issues by submitting short videos. Visitors to the site can share why they are thankful for their homes or talk about a difficult housing situation they’ve faced (e.g., homelessness, unsafe conditions.) By connecting people who have decent housing with those who don’t, ThankfulHome.tv hopes new innovative solutions to housing issues will emerge.
Having been away from my home for the past six weeks, I’m feeling very thankful for my home. Almost…
The day I left Muncie for my recent trip, NURU hosted one of their Be Hope to Her events in town.
I wanted to go, but the timing just wasn’t good. I would have had to leave from the event and go directly to the airport. I was milking those last remaining moments with my girls and opted to not be hope to her, but be a dad to Harper.
Nuru’s grassroots guru asked me to share a post about their Be Hope to Her events that took them around the country. It’s not out of guilt that I’m posting it, but out of great respect of the fine work that I saw the group doing firsthand in Kenya.
One morning, before surfing, Jake got a call from Stanford saying he had been accepted to their business school.
Jake had an idea.
Jake went to Africa.
Jake was struck by lightning. (That’s a good one.)
Jake grew corn.
Lots of corn.
Jake changed lives.
This is Jake’s story.
But the thing about Jake‘s story – the thing that Jake really doesn’t like about it – is that it gets in the way of the amazing thing that‘s taking place in Kuria, Kenya.
Josephat, a father and a farmer, went from living in a mud hut worrying about how he was going to feed his family, to a man who produced five years…
In case you’ve been wondering about the $10 for Tuesday Project, I haven’t stopped. I’ve just been slacking posting about them. I’ve been on a whirlwind tour of Kenya, Ethiopia, and I just arrived in Uganda.
I’ve lived in the slums of Nairobi, visited soleRebels in Addis Ababa, checked in on NURU which has to be one of the coolest and most efficient new NGOs I’ve seen in awhile, and I ran with (and by with I mean an ever increasing distance behind) world champion Kenyans. The audio, photos, and chicken scratches in my moleskine are piling up.
So to catch up on my ten4tues, I thought I’d recap the past three Tuesdays below:
Tuesday #1: The Prophetess
Oh there’s so much to write here. In fact, one of the main…
Home is where you are enslaved to your cat, poopy diapers, and lawn mowing.
Home is a lot of things. Even the ones that don’t exactly fall under the “awesome” category are missed when you aren’t home.
I’m leaving my home in a few days. Next Tuesday I’ll be in Nairobi, Kenya. I’ll be sure to continue the “$10 for Tuesday Project” there. I expect I’ll find some very interesting and worthy causes and people to support during the following 6 weeks, which will lead me from Kenya to Ethiopia, Uganda, and Ireland.
