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Emerging Ministries, PathLight, The SOLD Project,

Remembering the Poor – And Also the Spiritually Poor

I’m exploring Galatians 2 this week. Here is the passage from the NIV:

“James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.”

As I said in my first post, it is obvious that Paul is saying that when he went out into the world, he was …

Emerging Ministries, PathLight, The SOLD Project,

Remembering the Poor

There’s a passage in Galatians 2 that has always intrigued me, so this week I’m going to share three posts on the topic. This is from The Message translation of the Apostle Paul’s letter:

“Recognizing that my calling had been given by God, James, Peter, and John — the pillars of the church — shook hands with me and Barnabas, assigning us to a ministry to the non-Jews, while they continued to be responsible for reaching out to the Jews. The only additional thing they asked was that we remember the poor, and I was already eager to do that.” …

Belize, PathLight,

How Does PathLight Choose Their Students?

It’s a great question. I hear it from donors all the time. “How do you decide which students receive a sponsorship?”

Truth is that we have to be selective because we have far more worthy students than we have sponsors. But this recent post on the PathLight website is a great explanation:

July 2011 Student Selection Process
This summer marks the fifth year that we have gone through the process of selecting students for our sponsorship program.

Just as our program takes a holistic approach in building the students academically, socially, emotionally and spiritually, our selection process is designed to …

PathLight, The SOLD Project,

Boystown

If you read this blog you know that I’m passionate about uplifting the poor, supporting the oppressed, and challenging systems that perpetuate injustice. That’s why I co-founded PathLight. It’s why I serve on the board of The SOLD Project. It’s why D’Aun and I support a variety of other endeavors.

I came across this short video on the 24-7 Prayer. It’s about an amazing woman doing some amazing things. Or more accurately, God doing some amazing things through her. I don’t know her and have no connection with her, but her story will touch many people I …

Belize, Emerging Ministries, PathLight, The SOLD Project,

Biblical CQ

As far back as Sunday School I’ve been taught to consider the cultural context of a Bible story. It wasn’t explained that way to me, of course, but cultural understanding was critical for understanding the sometimes bizarre stories of Scripture. In college my religious studies courses emphasized this over and over.

Here’s an example of how important it is. Our church just started a series on Ruth. In the first sermon, the pastor had to spend half his time explaining the cultural context for the book. He couldn’t get past even one verse without having to paint the cultural backdrop!…

Family, Goble Properties, Junkyard Management, PathLight, The SOLD Project, Wine Reviews,

Goble Properties Staff Retreat

During the 30-years that I have been at Goble Properties we have never had a staff retreat. Ridiculous, right?

Well that has been corrected. Last week D’Aun and I spent three days in Napa at the Silverado Resort with some of the nicest people on the planet. Our staff are scattered from Cathedral City to San Jose to Pleasanton, so it was good to pull everybody together.

We built our meetings around the book ReWork by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. What I love about this book is that it understands the mindset of a small business owner. …

Belize, PathLight,

Transforming a Village, One Student at a Time

The transformation of a village started last night. One might say it began four years ago when a few students shyly stepped onto a bus and headed to their first day of high school. But that was the beginning of their personal transformation, not the village.

The village transformation began last night when Amalia, Danald, Concepciona, and Sulema graduated from high school during a traditional ceremony at the Belmopan Civic Center. All four live in Armenia Village, a small community on the edge of the Belize rainforest, created twenty or so years ago to handle the influx of refugees from …

Belize, PathLight,

Off to Belize!

I’m off to Belize tomorrow for the first ever PathLight International graduating class! Hard to believe it was four years ago that we selected our first group of students. They have put in a lot of hard work leading up to the commencement ceremony.

The ceremony is on Tuesday night, but our big PathLight blowout graduation party is Sunday night. It’s going to be fun to see the proud parents and excited students! Hopefully I can post pictures soon afterward.

The kids have overcome a lot of odds. Born into poverty, living in a rural setting, and attending poor schools …