budget planner – Mint.com

it's really saddening to see the systems that keep society, especially social movement, static.

Something Scott Said.

While conversing yesterday, Scott and I were talking about conversation, questions, relations with people. Here's something he said that's going to stick with me for awhile:

"S'part of why I love to listen to anything someone will talk about. I see more of them, and who they are. I see more of His writing."

library ministry

i spent monday in the charlotte public library and i was overwhelmed by the number of homeless people that were there. i walked through the entire second floor one time before a homeless man smiled at me and said that we could share his table if i could find another chair. at urbana, i went to the st. louis library, this beautiful palace of books (one of the buildings sponsored by andrew carnegie, really art-deco with fancy mosaics on the ceiling and stuff) and it too is a popular refuge for the homeless.

i really praise God that there are places that the homeless can go to not only keep warm but also have some type of mental stimulation. anyway, as we start thinking about what types of things we want to do in the future to serve the poor of durham, we might think about public libraries being a place to minister to others or just meet some people :)

Christian Protests in Egypt

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/07/world/AP-ML-Egypt-Christmas-Attack.html?ref=world

This is such a sad story about Christian prosecution and retaliation right now in Egypt. Please read and pray for intercession.

We are connected.

"All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in this world, no man can be totally rich even if he has a billion dollars. As long as there is disease rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than twenty or thirty years, no man can be totally healthy, even if he just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic in America. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be." - James Cone's Martin & Malcom & America