Help children in poverty AND get a t-shirt!

Every 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria. Compassion's Malaria Intervention Fund exists to provide children in poverty with mosquito nets.

This week, Sevenly has a goal of raising $7000 to purchase 700 mosquito nets. There are two ways you can help.

Option 1: In the next seven days, sponsor a child using this link and you will receive a free t-shirt from Sevenly.

Option 2: Purchase a t-shirt from Sevenly and $7 will be donated to provide a life-saving mosquito net to children in Rwanda.

This opportunity ends precisely at 9:59 AM PST next Monday, April 9 and you must use the links provided in this post.

I picked the olive woman's t-shirt...which one did you choose to help children in Rwanda?

Dona, Santiago, and Tobolsk

Meet Dona, Santiago, and Tobolsk. I picked them up today knowing that later on this summer, they will produce beautiful heirloom tomatoes!

I am thinking of planting them between the brussel sprouts that have yet to produce any brussel sprouts.

Not sure how much bigger the broccoli is going to get this spring, so maybe we should harvest some of this and roast them to have with dinner tomorrow night.

Could there be a chance we might have blueberries this spring?

We might need to put a net over these to keep the birds away from enjoying them all.

And I need to figure out what pesky pest is eating up my garden.

But in the meantime, I love smelling the sweet fragrance of these...

...and these.

Since we are at the end of March, I really need to start planning my summer garden. What yummy things will you be planting this spring?

Have you written to your sponsored child lately?

Tonight, I attended a Compassion Advocate training call on the Ins and Outs of Correspondence. I love attending these training calls! This training call reinforced for me the importance of writing to our sponsored children regularly.

The trainer tonight gave an example of a young boy in Indonesia. This young boy was discouraged because he kept losing his sponsors. He was considering leaving the Compassion program. Then someone starting sponsoring him who wrote to him regularly, encouraging him. This young boy ended up staying in the Compassion program, graduated out of the program, and is now working for Compassion in Indonesia. Because one person decided to make a difference in a young boy's life.

Need more motivation to write to your child? Here are 10 motivating reasons to write.

Not sure what to write? Here is a great blog post from the Compassion blog to help you get started.

Don't have a lot of time to write? Be sure to check out the new online letter writing tool!

Want to do something a little creative? Instead of sending them a blank coloring page, draw a picture for them!

Just think of your sponsored child's happy, smiling face when they receive that letter you took the time to write.

My take on 'The Hunger Games' movie

Yesterday, I went with Matthew to go see 'The Hunger Games' movie. He has read all of the books, and I have not. Due to some reviews I had read about the books and the movies, I felt that his dad or I should be along to watch the movie in order to have some discussion about the movie afterwards.

I did not enjoy the movie...

Here are some of the reasons why I did not enjoy the movie:

1. Government control over children - this was really disturbing to me and reminds me of what is happening to a lot of our children in the public school system. How could any parent allow their child to be 'reaped' for the sake of the government? I know this is part of the plot line of the book, but we are already seeing the government take too many liberties with our children. The children belong to their parents, not the government.

2. Children killing other children - when did this become entertainment? Don't we see enough of this going on around the country that this needs to be part of what 'entertains' our children? What exactly does this teach our children? For the sake of the game, it is all right to kill other people?

3. Adults manipulating for their pleasure - during the 'game' portion of the movie when the children are roaming around the 'game board', I couldn't believe the manipulation that was going on by the adults who were 'controlling' the outcome of the game, basically so people would watch. This really bothered me, especially when their manipulation caused the death of some of the children.

I know that many people like to read these types of books and watch these types of movies simply to be entertained, but where do we draw the line.

Thankfully, the movie and its plot/theme were the subject of a long discussion last night. Sometimes, we need to discern ourselves whether these are the types of movies/books we want to watch/read. Just because 'all of our friends' are reading the books or watching the movies does not mean that we need to jump on the bandwagon.

I don't write this post to judge what other families have decided about the books and the movies. I write this post as an observer who has a different view which may not be popular. My view may be different than yours, and that is okay.

Thankfully, the rain stayed away today

We have been watching the weather forecast all week for this upcoming weekend. The threat of rain stayed away today and we ended up having a beautiful day today at our first Civil War reenacting weekend event for the year.

Normally, our whole family participates by dressing up and camping out for the whole weekend, but with the anticipated rain and wind in the forecast, Matthew was the only one who dressed appropriately for the weekend.

That is Matthew in the middle of the picture

Some of his friends came by for a visit

Really hard to find Matthew among all those boys in blue out there

The covered bridge at this location is always a great backdrop for pictures.

We usually participate in five or six Civil War events every year. Our next event is at my favorite location close to my favorite national park. I am sure I will have more pictures to share after the next event...so stay tuned...