Just last week I was up in Fort Wayne having lunch with a fellow church planter and listening to his stories of adopting 3 brothers from Latvia – an amazing story I hope he turns into a book some day. And just this afternoon my blog buddy Adam Owens got the final approval they were waiting for to add little Angela to their family.

Lisa and I have always had a heart for adopting. Right now we’re in a different phase of life where our children and this church plant is requiring all of our spare time but we have both said we would love to adopt some day.

When I start talking about adopting I can’t help but think about God’s heart for the orphan. Did you know that there are 143 MILLION orphans on our planet today? 143 million children who have neither father nor mother to take care of them or love them.

Earlier this year when I was in Kenya this young orphan’s story melted my heart.

Eliud was a young man – 18 when I met him – whose way of life is unlike anything we could possibly imagine here in the United States. He lived in a slum in Nairobi after losing both parents and a sister. He was an orphan in the truest sense of the word – completely on his own with no one to take care of him.

In the midst of a situation that would have broken most people down, Eliud was able to connect with his true source, his heavenly Father. Those words he wrote on his cardboard wall above his store still humble me every time I read it.

Oh to have that kind of perspective.

If you haven’t already, please read the post I wrote about Eliud called Father To The Fatherless and especially watch the video of Eliud thanking his Compassion sponsor. I dare you not to cry when you watch it.

To commemorate Orphan Awareness Month, please take a moment to pray and ask God how you can help make a difference in an orphan’s life today. Perhaps you know a friend who is in the process of adopting who needs some financial support. Maybe God is calling you to invest in the life of a child like Eliud by sponsoring a child through Compassion. Or perhaps you are or have already adopted yourself.

God is called in the Bible a “father to the fatherless“ and the purest form of religion according to James 1:27 is to serve the fatherless and the widow.

Please pray this month for the 143 million children who have no father or mother but instead rely on their heavenly father to protect and take care of them.

If you have adopted, are in the process now or know someone who is, please share a brief story so we can pray and celebrate together.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for social justice causes and I love seeing more corporations becoming socially conscious, but don’t you think you could show even the tiniest bit of creativity when creating a new product or campaign? Competition is good. Outright copying is lame.

What do you think of the new Bobs shoes?

With all the “important” stories dominating the news like which rehab clinic Lindsay Lohan is in this week, we sometimes forget that there are 42,000 people dying every week (90% of whom are children) from unclean water and lack of sanitation,

But of course those numbers are just too much to comprehend. They just don’t hit home for many of us because we are so far removed from the problem.

So let’s bring it a little closer to home. Imagine if New York City’s taps went dry…what would we do? In this great video from Charity:Water, Jennifer Connelly walks to Central Park to get dirty water for her family as millions of mothers in Africa do every day.

Please take a minute today to donate something…anything…to help bring clean water to people who need it. 100% of the money you give goes towards water projects – none of it goes to advertising or organization expenses (private donors take care of all overhead)!

A $20 donation provides 1 person clean water for 20 years – just stop and think about what that means! When was the last time you spent $20 and got that kind of return on your investment?

Like you, I often think of the many needs I have or the bills I have to pay that would prevent me from giving. And yet, if it were my family that was without clean water, is there anything I wouldn’t do to remedy the situation?

“I was thirsty and you gave me a drink…I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me – you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:35,40)

Please take a moment, think about the need, and give generously today.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases in our world today and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Children are the most vulnerable. Of the 42,000 people who die every week from unclean water and lack of sanitation, 90% are CHILDREN.

I saw first-hand the importance of clean water in a community during my trip to Africa in March.

Enough about the problem. If you’re like me you’re saying, What is the solution? What can I do?

I’ve long known about and been a big supporter of an organization called Charity:Water. They are a non-profit organization that was founded by Scott Harrison on a simple premise: to bring clean water to people who don’t have any.

So when my blogging friend Bryan Allain contacted me last week about joining a group of bloggers raising money for Charity:Water during the month of September I was immediately on board.

I took on the challenge to be one of 30 bloggers to raise $30,000 in clean water over 30 days. I knew that you, my good friends and faithful readers, would resonate with this challenge like I did. I’m confident that together, we’ll blow this goal out of the water and change the life of over 1,500 people by giving them clean water for the rest of their lives.

Here’s a few things you should know:

So over the month of September I’ll be sharing little bits of information about this 30-Day Challenge and update you on our progress (we’ve raised over $1,700 in the first day alone!).

I’m asking you – my faithful blog reader, the early adopter, the generous giver – to step up and give towards this goal. $20 will give 1 person clean drinking water for 20 years and change their life!

Thank you for joining me on this incredibly worthwhile goal!

There are so many different people today with opinions about what justice looks like in our world. For some, it means fairness and equality but even the idea of fairness comes with some debate. Is the world really fair? What are the basic things that everyone should share equally and have access to fairly?

One of my favorite quotes from the Call + Response film project says that “justice is what love looks like in public.” I love that thought. But still, there is something about the use of those two words together – social + justice – that triggers different opinions and, in some cases, puts up walls.

I’m just curious, when I say the words “social justice,” what does that mean to you?

We don’t like reading that kind of stuff because it’s just so…wrong. Our mind wants to block it out because something inside of us knows that this is just not how the world is supposed to be.

God didn’t create the world so that people could die because of preventable diseases.

God didn’t plan for orphans to be left to fend for themselves in dangerous world.

God’s design wasn’t for millions to live on less than $1 a day and lack access to the most basic human necessities like clean water.

Our heart tells us this is wrong but our mind simply can’t comprehend the magnitude of the need or how we can ever make it right.

And so we choose to ignore it.

Oh we might not say it quite as blatantly as that. We skim over the post in our feed reader. We watch the latest multi-million dollar blockbuster movie instead of that documentary a friend gave us. We’ll even give a little to an issue just to appease our conscience and make us feel like we’re doing something while choosing not to torment ourselves with the facts about the need we’re giving to.

I know this…because I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I just returned from Africa where my heart was broken by the poverty I saw in the slums. I’m still processing what I saw.

And then I saw this in my feed reader last week:

My friend Anne is traveling to Moldova to blog about one of the most heinous subjects I can think of: sex trafficking. She shared a fact in her first post that my mind just can’t wrap itself around.

At least 20% of Moldovan females will be trafficked at some point in their lifetime.

So many girls live in impoverished rural villages. So, they go to the city looking for work, get lured out of the country at the promise of a job, have their identity and papers stripped from them, and are forced into prostitution – often having to “service” up to 40 men a day.

These are the kinds of posts I would prefer not to read because they can really screw up your day. I would prefer to read something a little more upbeat like who got kicked off of American Idol last night or speculation about the latest episode of LOST. Not this. This isn’t how I want to start my day.

And yet that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do. I’m asking you to follow Anne’s blog while she’s there. Let your heart be broken by the facts and stories she shares. Keep reading even when you feel like you can’t read any more.

Anne’s posts this week are not going to be the kind of posts you want to read.

But they are what we need to read.

Start with this post.

As has been seen in past events, the expected tourist boom during the FIFA Soccer World Cup will also increase the demand for sex workers.  It has been proposed that sex work be decriminalised before the World Cup, increasing the risk of women and young girls being exploited during this time.

This is similar to steps taken during past World Cup events. In Berlin, for example, a 10,000 square feet mega-brothel was built next to the main World Cup venue designed to receive as many as 650 customers at a time. It was estimated that as many as 40,000 women were “imported” from Africa, Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe to meet the expected “market” demands.

With the upcoming World Cup and the millions of people who will be pouring into South Africa, stories of abuse and human trafficking will unfortunately be far too common.

Please pray for justice to come to the millions of people around the world who are in slavery today. Pray for protection for all the vulnerable women and children in South Africa during the World Cup this summer.

Read more about modern day slavery and how you can help stop it at IJM.org.

I don’t know about you but that gives me goosebumps.

We took a last-minute trip with the girls on Sunday afternoon to go hiking in Turkey Run State park and ended up spending the night so I was offline most of the day yesterday. I planned on writing a post to share about the Vietnam school project this morning but when I went to check on the progress I was blown away. The $30,000 needed to build the school was raised in 18 hours! I was out just one day and I missed the opportunity to be a part of that outreach.

Online communities like SCL are changing the game. People are organizing behind causes wherever they find it – through their church, city or even blogs that they follow. When vision is cast and people believe in a cause they get behind it in a big way. So big in fact, that if you don’t jump on the train early you’ll get left at the station.

Some of us were barely making it through the Monday blues and were complaining about the start of another week while others were giving $5, $10 or $20 to build a school in Vietnam.

I’m so excited to know that there are online communities like SCL that are using their resources to change the world. I may have missed the boat yesterday but I’m still going to give anyway.

Don’t underestimate the incredible resources that are available to you through your online network of friends.

** Update: SCL is working on raising another $30,000 to build a second school in Vietnam. Read more about it here and donate towards it here.

After preaching on Matthew 25:35-40 and sharing how our simple acts of service and sacrifice for others is just like serving Jesus himself. As Jason further reflected on that passage, he thought, “There’s gotta be more I can do.” He also realized he needed to lose some weight.

And so the idea was born to link his weight loss to a challenge to raise dollar for pound for six life-changing causes: LOVE146.org, Blood:Water Mission, Soles4Souls, Action Against Hunger, a local United Way shelter, and Doctors Without Borders.

I love out-of-the-box ideas like this that rally people behind a simple challenge to make a profound difference. When millions go to bed hungry every night and over 3.5 million die from water-related diseases every year, like Jason, I agree that this must change.

Please consider donating dollar for pound in Jason’s challenge or start one of your own. Ask God to open your eyes to everyday opportunities that are all around you every day.

You can be that person that Jesus is talking to when he said, “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

What cause or social justice need weighs heaviest on your heart right now? What are you doing about it? How can we help?