With less than three weeks until Christmas, Samaritan’s Purse is inviting us to give hope this Christmas. Please join us next week for a very special chat about keeping Christ in Christmas, teaching our children to serve with a giving heart and more. The Samaritan’s Purse Gift Catalog offers 53 gifts that bring hope to hurting people around…

Please join me for a very special hour on Twitter next week.  We’ll be tweeting with Compassion International about giving back this holiday season with a focus on how to support others without breaking the bank.  I’m happy to announce that @TheSamiCone, a Compassion blogger, will be joining us as a special guest as we…

Right now Compassion International is in Peru with a team of bloggers, all of them experiencing the same heartbreak and hope that I experienced last May when I joined Compassion in Tanzania for a week to learn first hand what they are doing to release children around the world from poverty in Jesus’ name.  Tonight,…

Like most of the country, Superstorm Sandy left me feeling paralyzed and helpless, so close to New Jersey and New York and yet unsure what I could do. Yes, there are many opportunities to donate money, but I also felt compelled to box blankets and toys and clothing and ship them to…where? As a family…

When I was a child, Thanksgiving and Easter were held in my parents’ home while Christmas was celebrated at my aunt and uncle’s home with my grandmother helping to cook the Christmas day meal. As family members have passed on and my parents have gotten older, holiday celebrations have shifted.  Easter is a small affair…

Kleenex brand has partnered with Laura Posada, wife of Major League Baseball’s Jorge Posada and mother of two, to create a clever post-season program that supports a great cause. The post-season can be rough, so Kleenex has created custom tissue boxes with their favorite MLB team for sad fans.  I’m a sucker for fun variations…

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When my daughter was born two months premature, the NICU nurses kept both of us afloat. They sat and talked to me for twelve or thirteen hours a day and they cared for Emma above and beyond their obligations, creating little signs for her isolette, loving on her like she was theirs, reminding her that…

Every Halloween my kids go through the neighborhood and collect a giant stash of candy, and every year we ask them to choose a couple favorites and turn the rest over to us.  Typically we donate the extra to our church, but this year we also have an especially huge amount because of a low…

I live smack dab between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD, so we have been prepping for Hurricane Sandy since late last week. The grill was tied to the deck rail so we didn’t have it shimmying across the deck like it did in Hurricane Irene, the cushions from the patio furniture stored safely, the kids’…

My daughter was born with a full head of hair despite being born 8 weeks early.  People told us it would all fall out and her real hair would grow in later, but people being people, they were wrong. I always assumed I would have a boy first so was surprised when I found myself…

I was going to write a post about the loved ones I have lost to cancer. I thought maybe I’d write about my own terrifying fear of melanoma. But the truth is that cancer has touched every single person reading this post. You don’t need my story. You have your own. Every day cancer kills…

Last fall I wrote about ideas for what to do with gently used toys that your family no longer needs or wants. In the past I’ve been frustrated to find that many organizations only accept donations of unopened toys when I know that there are many years of use left in the toys we have…

All bloggers know that comments count, but for the month of August, comments can count to save lives.  Each day of August a new blogger is writing a post in the blog relay to support Shot@Life, and for each comment made on a Blogust blog post throughout the month, an anonymous donor will donate $20…

Last week we partied on Twitter with JCPenney and The Moms to kick off a month of free haircuts at JCPenney Salons.  Today is the day!  Take your kids into JCPenney Salon today for a free child’s haircut and JCPenney will donate $1 to the Boys and Girls Club as well as 4H.  What’s better…

When most people think of Compassion International, they primarily associate the organization with the child sponsorship program.  However, Compassion works to provide relief from poverty in Jesus’ name around the world in a variety of ways.  One such program, the Child Survival Program, helps save the lives of babies and mothers in poverty utilizing local churches…

Everyday 1,000 babies are born with HIV. Every. Day. By 2015 that number could be nearly zero, and I want us (yes Us, you and me) to be part of that change. For the next ten days from June 1st to June 10th, (RED) is running the (RED)RUSH to Zero (#REDRUSH) campaign, and we can all do…

While in Tanzania with Compassion International, I met my newest sponsored child, Meke.  I would love for you to see just a glimpse of my time with Meke, including the time I had to show her pictures of my life here in the United States, the things that are the same – rolling hills of…

I spent last week sharing just some of the incredible stories of the people I met during my time in Tanzania with Compassion International, but I wanted to also share the beauty of the country… There are no trees like this in my backyard… Flamingos, visible from miles away like pink flower petals floating on…

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the amazing mothers and grandmothers I met last week… Thank you to Keely Marie, who took many of these photos and many of the other amazing photos featured in last week’s Compassion International trip images.

Every night of this trip, all of the Compassion bloggers have come together to share stories, snacks, laughter, tears, check facts and spellings (Kiswahili – oh my!) and do what we love most – write.  I have been so blessed to share this week with five amazing bloggers whose styles and perspectives differ greatly from…