Sniffle.
Y’all have the most beautiful God-sized dreams. What a blessing, in the midst of the holiday craziness, to stop and read what God has uniquely put on each of your hearts. I had no idea when I was putting these giveaway days together how much fun it would be to read through & respond to the comments. I’ll be honest – like every other blogger, I love comments. BUT. I’m horrible at responding to them. Thankful for grace & readers who keep coming back anyway – but I promise I read every one of them. Or, I do when I finally realize I have comments – silly Disqus doesn’t seem to want to send me email notifications now that it’s on WordPress 😉
Who’s ready for giveaway day 6? I think you’ll love this one!
Today’s giveaway is brought to you by Freeset and Ann Voskamp. Oh yes. If that’s not a power house team of awesome world change & amazingness! One amazingly lucky winner will receive a set of 3 Freeset bangles and a copy of Ann Voskamp’s new Christmas devotional, The Greatest Gift (Amazon affiliate link).
Instead of my story about why I love Freeset, why you’ll love these bangles, and how they’ve impacted my life, I thought maybe you’d prefer to hear a story from a woman who has been directly affected by the work of Freeset.
Meet Isha.
When Isha was introduced to Freeset she was concerned about her son’s future, “I worried about whether I could manage to work and earn enough for my son so he could grow up to be a man.”
Isha’s concern soon gave way to a new realization, “Slowly I came to understand that if I worked well, then I could manage my finances too. I could save some money to buy milk for my son so my Mum could look after him while I was training. I realised I needed to stay and work at Freeset so my son would be cared for and would grow up well.”
As for many of the women at Freeset, Isha’s training to sew was full of apprehension. She remembers, “At first I was very frightened, I couldn’t make good bags. I was given extra time to learn and someone sat with me for days helping me – now I can make good bags. I have learned to sew all the different parts of the bags.”
But now her confidence has grown, “I like work, it’s good. I was very frightened, but now I have no fear and no worries. I can sew well now, my wage is better too and my son has good food and is growing up well. He’s learning to read and write well.”
Freeset is a fair trade business offering employment to women trapped in Kolkata’s sex trade. We make quality jute bags and organic cotton t-shirts, but our business is freedom!
And I highly doubt I need to say anything to you about why I love Ann Voskamp or how her new Christmas devotional, The Greatest Gift is changing my heart this season. But did you know that Ann is one of the best huggers on the planet? That she loves with her whole heart, listens more in 5 minutes that I do in an entire day, and inspires me to take the time to stop simply be present in the Presence of the God who loves us beyond our wildest imaginations? Miss Ann makes me want to be part of the “Esther” generation – to do what God is calling me to do, for “such a time as this.” And this Christmas season, I would just love for one of you to be blessed as I have by her new devotional.
All you need to do to be entered to win is to fill out the lovely PunchTab thingy, below 🙂 All of the giveaways will be open through Thanksgiving and then winners will be emailed directly! If you missed a couple days, feel free to go back and enter now.
Compassion and Focus are my faves. Our traditions…hmmm…my brain is so fuzzy at the moment I can’t think of a single one!
Compassion is big on our list too 🙂
I have enjoyed caroling with church members to our shut-ins/people in the nursing homes. We’ve also really loved Operation Christmas Child.
We love packing shoeboxes 🙂 I think next year we might turn Madi’s birthday party into a shoebox packing party!
I love supporting a local outreach ministry, Mission of Hope. They serve about 1000 people each month with food, clothing and some job training. They also do various event through out the year such as VBS, Thanksgiving lunch, Christmas toy give away and craft days.
Oh I love that you have a great local organization to support!
Two organizations that I love supporting right now are Living Waters and The Apparent Project.
Those are both new to me – I’ll have to check them out!
Living Waters provides clean water, as well as the Living Water, to people who do not have access to water. The Apparent Project is a business in Haiti which has over 250 employees who make beautiful jewelry from cereal boxes, recycled oil barrels, coffee bags, and other materials. The money these artisans make makes it possible for them to feed, clothe, and house their own children instead of bringing them to an orphanage.
Freeset! I love Freeset and have only recently (this year!) learned of them!!!
Aren’t they amazing!
My daughter and I just wrapped up an Open House wknd hosting a Trunk Show for Women At Risk Int’l. We have been involved with them for a couple of years now and much like Freeset (who we also love!) – they sell gorgeous items handmade my women freed from trafficking, but they offer Freedom and what’s not to love about that! We also sponsor children through World Vision and COTN
So fun!
Compassion International and Operation Christmas Child.
Two of my favorites 🙂
I love Freeset, Compassion, Know Hope, Three Cords, and many more!
Advent. Every year we find a different devotion or way to celebrate. It keeps us grounded.
A tradition we’ve made is to all pile into the minivan, and wait in the one hour plus long line to see the most amazing Living Christmas Story a local church does. You drive through it. So some years we stop and buy fast food to eat during the wait…but we always watch a Christmas movie. To drive through that village and feel what it must have been like that long ago night is amazing (and somehow it’s always freezing that night…which is odd in FL!). It’s always over too soon. : (
Oh that sounds like such fun!
One of my traditions from before I was married was to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” after Christmas eve services and gathering. Now, my husband and I make a point to watch it one evening between Christmas and New Year’s. It’s such a great reminder of how truly rich we are.
Mercy House and Charity Water! We also started the Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child shoe box tradition this year 🙂
My kids had fun putting together shoe boxes for Samaritan’s Purse and we look forward to making this a yearly tradition.
Samaritan’s Purse.
Hi there! My favorite organizations are Feeding America, BADRAP, and Compassion International. 🙂
Compassion International. We incorporate giving to both our sponsored kids and to the organization more generally, through the Christmas catalog items, at our kids’ birthday parties and our Jesus Birthday Party with friends.
I love that you get your kiddos involved in so many ways!
Compassion, definitely. Freeset. And Sole Hope…the impact they are making is incredible. It’s my dream to travel to Uganda with them someday. Hopefully soon…praying through that right now. 🙂
We love the Samaritans purse and the Salvation Army.
Samaritan’s Purse, Mercy House, Orphan Aid Liberia and my list is growing. 🙂
Mercy House, IJM, the Seed Company, Hope Mommies, and Holden Uganda
favorite organizations to support: The Seed Company, Compassion Int’l, Samaritan’s Purse, Mercy House, Freeset, Gospel for Asia, Noonday, Ornaments 4 Orphans, Pure Charity, Sevenly, Salvation Army
I love Sole Hope and would love to travel with them some day to Africa!!
Through Allume I learned of so many wonderful God focused organizations to support. I love Exodus Road, Sole Hope, Freeset, & Mercy House. Our favorite traditions are sitting by the Christmas Tree reading nightly devotions as a family. This year our nightly devotion will come from Ann’s book The Greatest Gift.
After having a Sole Hope shoe party last night that is fast becoming my favourite. Although our family loves to browse and shop the Compassion Gifts catalouge. Some our favourite traditions are singing around the piano, attending a Christmas Eve service and just being with family and friends.
Our youth group used to do a $10 gift exchange at Christmas parties. But it became a kind of negative thing because sometimes kids would be insensitive about the gifts they received. So a few years ago, Aug changed things up – everyone instead now brings $10 (or more) to the party and we put it all together and play a bunch of games in teams. The winning team hops on the Gospel for Asia website and gets to decide to how to spend all the money – on others who really need it.
I love that so much!