(RSS subscribers – there is a video in this post)

What an amazing story of forgiveness. The Thomas family reaching out to the Becker family in the midst of their own pain. The lesson I see in this is that we must lead by example. It’s amazing how the act of the Thomas family reaching out to the Becker family allowed the rest of the town to do the same.

Is there a time when you or someone you know has had the courage to forgive and lead by example?

I have been using Google Priority Inbox for a couple of days now and I love it! I never really used the stars before in my Gmail because in order to see a message that was important to me I needed to actually remember to go to the stars tab. No more! Gmail is still learning what I consider a priority and what I don’t. But it is already helping me out in a big way!

Google Wave < Google Priority Inbox!

Have you activated it yet? What do you think?

Today Our Saviour’s hosted Journey to Jamaa. A program produced by World Vision. We are very excited because Our Saviour’s is actually the first church to host this brand new program!

Taking place during the Sunday worship service, Journey to Jamaa brings home the reality that worship is something you do with your whole being—heart, mind, hands, and feet. Journey to Jamaa allows your congregation to see poverty through the eyes of two Ugandan orphans, experiencing their journey from tragedy to hope. Each participant is invited to learn more about poverty by personally experiencing the story of one character in the narrative parable, told through film. You’ll learn about the needs of children around the globe and how World Vision is helping children, families, and communities experience life in all its fullness. Grow closer as a church family—on your Journey to Jamaa.

- Journey to Jamaa.org

The video is very powerful and shows the types of conditions these children live with… every day of their lives. It shows heartbreak, struggle, frustration, joy, love, kindness, compassion and understanding. It will bring tears to your eyes and will call you to action!

You can make a difference!!!

By sponsoring a child through World Vision you can enable them to experience the fullness of life that God offers.

More than 1 million children live on less than $1 each day! These children and their families are all too familiar with poverty. By sponsoring a child you can provide them with the basics such as food, clean water and love. By writing to them and getting to know them you will be helping them and encouraging them in so many more ways than just food and water.

If you decide to sponsor a child, let me know what his or her name is and send a picture or blog about them yourself!

[Images by: World Vision]

I had the opportunity this weekend to drive up to Moorhead, MN to visit my sister Margot. We had a big family graduation party for her and all that. We got to see her new apartment and just hang out together for awhile. Good times were had by all. She decided that she wanted to get back into blogging. I told her she’d have to talk to somebody that knows more about those crazy interwebs than I about that… blogging… I’m not familiar with the term.

But… we persisted… and I started a blog for her. We got super creative with the URL and went with www.MargotBrenna.com. As you can see, it’s rockin the Standard Theme (affiliate link)! Side note… the ST is a fantastic premium theme for wordpress. Some have said

It’s the best coded wordpress theme ever

- 8 Bit

She’s still finding her niche in the blogging world… so check out her site and send her some comment love!

Wow! This is an interesting idea. Apparently there is a contest happening right now asking for a redesign of all U.S. currency. This submission that I’m highlighting on this post is by a graphic design studio named Dowling Ducan.

With offices in both the UK and the US, graphic design studio Dowling Duncan offers a collective experience of over 30 years in the industry. Our aim is to deliver appropriate and engaging work, solving problems with intelligent ideas whilst exploring the possibilities of creativity and craft.

-Dowling Ducan

You can vote for the winner of the contest here.

Here is their submission

more after the jump

I was born in Minneapolis. My mom’s side of the family is from Minnesota and I have always liked the state. My mom, sister and I moved to Illinois in 1991 and I have definitely grown up as a Chicago boy. So… I’m a White Sox fan. Much to my mother’s dismay. Actually we are both very respectful of each others favorite baseball team. I like to say that we are baseball fans first… and team fans second. Okay… enough of that.

My mom and I went to Target Field to see the Twins host the White Sox. I want to say how much I love U.S. Cellular field in Chicago. I think it is an excellent ball park. Target Field however… was simply amazing! Built right in the heart of Minneapolis. Blocks from Nicollet Mall. I think it is simply amazing how the designers managed to put a ballpark of this magnitude in the middle of the city with everything around it already built up.

Here are some pictures…

1. This is coolest gate in the entire field! Gate 34 for Kirby Puckett. It’s the gate our car happened to be closest to when we parked. The feeling you get when you enter through this gate is indescribable. As you can see… people are just hanging out and having a good time sitting on the wooden benches under the large-scale baseball bats.

2. This picture shows the vastness of the filed.

(more pictures after the jump)

3. The food selection at Target Field was amazingly diverse. The Minnesota State Fair is a pretty big deal each year and one of the food stations boasts the greatest hits from the fair. You can see Walleye at the top of the menu… in a ballpark!

4. This is the jumbotron at Target Field. Of course I had to wait to take a picture of it until there was a picture of a White Sox player on it…

5. Here’s the extent of my sports photography… Paul Konerko hitting a double!

6. This is a shot of the park from our seats in the 3rd row!

7. Here is the field from our seats. I think the section with the Budweiser logo on top is their stadium club area. It looks very nice and I wish I had access to it. Plus that area is just visually appealing to me. The base is Minnesota limestone which you can find in other areas throughout the park as well.

8. Just taking pictures around the park. They have a lot of seats in their outfield!

9. The overhead shot from the upper deck.

10. This post is starting to sound a little too pro-twins… and as a White Sox fan… I must show a picture of the scoreboard at the end of the night. WHITE SOX!!!

11. Here is a picture of my mom and I after the game. Even though her team lost… she’s still super happy because she got a jersey. We look good!

12. Here is gate 34 again as we were leaving. I couldn’t pass up this photo opportunity with the color lights.

There is something about Target Field that is just very Minnesotan to me. I suppose that is the point… it being in Minnesota and all. Minnesota is such a beautiful state. I love me some Chicago but sometimes I wish we could just copy some of Minnesota’s essence and bring it to the flat, boring, no-lake-ness of Illinois.

I have a couple of friends who have lived or are currently living in a third world country and therefore have experience with the 3rd world style of living. They have learned how to be comfortable where the comforts of home are few and far between. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through a summer without air conditioning, walk the 6 miles to work every day, not have a warm bed to sleep in each night. My most recent frustration is that our fridge no longer dispenses water from the door. We have resorted to keeping a pitcher of water inside the door. Oh the humanity. I have lived in Naperville, IL for most of my life. I’ve grown comfortable in my community. Three Starbucks withing a two block radius does not phase me. The Porsche population is in the triple digits and I don’t bat an eye anymore when one drives by. I am comfortable.

But I am not naive.

I know that there are millions of people in the world that do not know what conditioned air feels like. I know there are people that walk miles upon miles each day just to get water. I know that many throughout the world do not have the proper back support when they sleep. I know that knowing isn’t enough.

Do we need to feel discomfort to really make a difference?

What makes you uncomfortable?

Pretty much…

Think about the first time you rode a bike. Were you amazing or did you scratch your knee? I’m guessing you got hurt… if you didn’t get hurt… I’ll bet you didn’t go off and win the Tour-de-France that same year. But maybe you’re pretty good now right? That’s called experience. I know, I know. I’ve got some pretty revolutionary stuff in this blog post.

Now do you remember the first you saw a tornado? For me it was in the movie Twister with Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Young Philip Seymour Hoffman talking about the suck zone… flying cows… Aunt Meg’s burgers. Brings me back…

Anyways. When you first saw that tornado, either on the TV screen or in real life. You didn’t have a sudden urge to run right up to it and go for a quick little tour around the corn field did you? No… of course not. That would be silly.

I wrote that useless post to lead up this really good next line:

Wise comes with experience, but it doesn’t mean you have to go through the eye of the storm to know a tornado is windy.

[Image by: haphotography]

When you think about it… this business model seems very similar to the Christian church. We want to make God’s word available to everyone, so we print the Bible in a bunch of different languages. Members of the Christian community are called Christians but we are cool if you believe in Jesus but don’t call yourself a Christian. Okay… so only a couple things they listed correlate to the Christian church. One thing they didn’t discuss in the infographic is how Wikipedia is funded. They are 100% funded by donations. Sound familiar?