2012 Writers and Readers Reach Out

Pleased to welcome my friend and fellow belle on southernbelleview to share her heart on this great cause! 

Before us is a great opportunity to partner with one another to raise awareness about human trafficking and join together to raise funds towards their rescue through Kimberly L. Smith's foundation, Make Way Partners. 

And yet, even as we are set to launch, one-fourth of our population has been impacted by Super storm Sandy and many areas remain in distress. Far too many people have seen their homes destroyed and many others have suffered the painful loss of loved ones. 

The winds of Sandy have literally caused us to adjust our sails as we respond to the heartache in our own country. Writers and Readers Reach Out 2012 is enlarging the vision!

As you make your donation to Make Way Partners, please consider making a matching donation to relief efforts underway for our neighbors on the East Coast. 

We believe strongly that our being mobilized to respond to the needs of our neighbors at this very moment is no coincidence. We've been given much, let us give much.

Over the years I’ve challenged my readers at All Things Southern to join me in an annual benefit for the less fortunate. 

We’ve done everything from drilling wells in Africa with Life Today to partnering with World Vision to buy chickens and goats for needy families around the world.

Last year I became fixated with the exponential power represented by the fellow writers I meet in my travels. Knowing these wordsmiths all had a circle of readers that enjoy his or her work and interact with them via their websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter, I wondered what we might accomplish by combining our individual platforms and multiplying our efforts.

 The dream led me to launch Writers and Readers Reach Out. The positive results fueled my desire to do more. For the second year, I’m asking writers and readers to embark with me on 30 Days of Thankfulness to coincide with the season of Thanksgiving.

I was in the planning stages of the drive and personally burdened by what I was learning about human trafficking when I read Passport through Darkness, by Kimberly L. Smith.  

I knew immediately that Make Way Partners, the organization that Kimberly and her husbanded founded, should be the recipient of this year’s efforts. Make Way Partners works with individuals, churches, and organizations to help prevent and combat the evil of human trafficking and all forms of modern-day oppression.

If you’ll take the time to read just a few of the real-life stories on Kimberly’s blog of women and children who Make Way Partners has rescued from slavery, and for whom they provide long-term care, I believe you’ll want to participate in this beautiful journey of restoration.

Eight years ago, Kimberly began chartering small mission planes to fly her into the war zone where U.S. sanctions and Islamic regimes rendered thousands of orphansunadoptable. 

Providing food and opening a first-grade school in a lawless land with no other educational systems, MWP partnered with an indigenous leader to rescue and care for these most vulnerable orphans. Year-by-year, they have added a new grade to their school. 

Now, graduating eighth grade, the orphans of MWP have more education than many current leaders of their nation.  It is time to build a high school, making it possible to raise up the next generation of educated Christian leaders who will stop the cycle of violence and slavery.

Read about a few of these amazing students and the complete high school proposal here:http://kimberlylsmithblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/battle-cry-by-guest-blogger-matt-mcgowen.html

The quotes scattered here are those of the late Helen Keller.  Inviting Ms. Keller to share this journey with writers and readers feels right, for it was the power of a word written in the palm of her hand that unlocked Ms. Keller’s heart and mind and subsequently impacted untold lives around the world!

As readers and writers, no one knows the value of education better than we. Let’s dream big and build a high school for the world’s most vulnerable orphans!

Thirty days of thankfulness. It’s not a long time, but it’s a perfect time to join hands and do something grand, together. ~Shellie Rushing Tomlinson

Beautiful Brides: Shellie Rushing Tomlinson

Meet another Belle over on Southernbelleview, Shelling Rushing Tomlinson, humorous non-fiction author and radio host over at All Things Southern. She's sincere, truth and a lover of Jesus!

Shellie writes: One of my favorites memories of our wedding ceremony came as my dad was walking me down the aisle to meet the love of my life.

After all the preparation, all the money, all the time, all the planning and with a church full of folks there to celebrate our union and Phil waiting at the altar, my dad turned to me and whispered, "You can still back out, you know."

 Granted, when I told Phil about that moment later, during our honeymoon, I had to do some fast talking before he could see it with quite the same affection.

I assured him that my dad hadn't changed his mind, that he still thought Phil was a wonderful young man and the "right" one for me. It was more about letting me know that life wasn't on auto-pilot and I still had the power of choice.

Phil understood then, but as time wore on, he and I both came to get the love behind that moment even more. The tenderness of it makes my heart well up even as I type these words tonight.

 What a gift to give your child, or anyone else for that matter. To know that yesterday's decisions do not always have to be today's.

Or as I twittered sometime this afternoon when this post was simmering in my heart, "This isn't just another day. It's your current opportunity."