I love what my friend Cassie said about Water For Christmas. Her words:
“I’m consumed. Every single time I brush my teeth, take a shower, wash my hands, do a load of laundry, a load of dishes, fill up a glass with ice, I think about those who don’t get to do that. Those who would give anything to be drinking that water that I’m flushing down my drain.
It could have been me. It could have been my kids. I do not deserve this water any more than the woman in Africa, I just happened be be born in America.
Bono’s quote keeps running through my mind,
“Where you live should no longer determine whether you live.”
I’ve been listening to a podcast series from Mosaic Church. I have quoted McManus several times on this blog and I love so much of what he stands for. Mosaic is his church and I love to listen to their messages.
ANYWAY…the series I have been listening to talks about “What if everyone…”. Last week it was What if everyone CONNECTED? What would the world look like? And today I listened to “What if everyon SERVED?” What would the world look like?
I found it so interesting that they first talked about relationships. It has become so obvious to me that movements are built on relationships. We cannot do it alone. We cannot knock out the water crisis single handedly. But suddenly our relationships come into play.
I’m so excited about this. And suddenly my mom is so excited about this…because she loves me and she has felt my excitement through our conversations. And suddenly, Melissa, on the other side of town is excited about it and wondering if she can implement it at her place of employment, and then Jennie gets excited about it and decides maybe we don’t need to do that $10 white elephant gift game. And then Kelly from Phoenix emails and says she wants to implement it somehow in her classroom and suddenly the word is spreading to Arizona. And then Lisa sets up a table in her deli in Seattle and Kelly’s dad is setting up a table in Nebraska. And Larry’s wife in Baltimore “is like an amimal”, setting up tables all over town. Courtney in Virginia is selling shirts and Christa, a college student in Missouri, has designed shirts and is selling them and Taylor and Joanna have designed water bottles in Pennsylvania and Jill and Josh from New Zealand set up a facebook group that quickly grows to over 1300 memebers and Naomi and her mother in Colorado set up a gift wrapping station and on and on.
Relationships.
Water.
Friendships.
Water.
I’m amazed by this. And reminded how important we all are to eachother. And what a difference we can make if we all band together instead of working against eachother.
Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, New Zealand.
All for water.
We are all connected.
All brothers and sisters.
And it keeps ringing truer and truer in my ear…
“Where you live should no longer determine whether you live.”"
There is an article in the Quad City Times today about Water For Christmas. I thought it was a great article, and what a great way to spread the word! You can find it here, and I’d encourage you to go read it.
But please, please don’t make the same mistake I did of reading the comments. It will just make you mad. At least it made me mad. I know everyone has a right to their opinion, but come on. Some people should just keep their traps shut. Or computers off. Whatever.
Thought someone else might relate, too. I found it on familylifemomblog.com.
Is Your Gas Light On?
by Jennifer Dyer
How long do you wait to refill your car’s gas tank? If you’re anything like me, it’s after the gas light comes on. I asked a friend this question. She told me her dad always refilled his cars just after the halfway mark. She grew up on a farm, with the nearest gas station miles away. Her father held to the principle that you never know what will happen tomorrow so it’s best to be prepared.
So, how does this apply to being a mom, besides trying not to run out of gas in the carpool line? I must take care to refill my mind, body, and spirit. How far do I let myself go before I refuel? Sadly, too long. Yesterday, I collapsed on the couch in the middle of the day and looked around at the toy carnage. I teared up. My whole body hurt, I couldn’t make my mind focus, and I felt so disconnected with everything. I was exhausted. That’s when I realized my gas light was on. I was running on empty.
Why do I let myself get to this point? Guilt. I sometimes think I must be busy and productive at all times. That might explain why I have so many health problems today.
So, as I sat down to do my daily Bible study this morning, I thanked God for that time. Because I wanted to make my Bible time a priority, I was able to let all the other things go. I rested in God’s word. I must make this spiritual rest, along with mental and physical rest, a discipline. As my friend’s father said, you never know what’s around the corner.
Showing me how strong he is
Playing with his cars…putting them in a line. (Karen B- I think Harrison and Gracie are a lot alike! He hides from me, too, like she hides from her teachers.) 
Hiding under the easel while un-snapping his outfit.
We’ve been busy this week…just doing stuff. Tonight Kelly and I went out on a date while Harrison was at his friend Jack’s house (we’ve been trading off Friday night dates and it’s been working well!). When I went in to pick him up, Harrison had a harmonica and had been playing it for quite a while! Craig and Sara said he could take it since they had a couple already, and truthfully, I don’t know that Harrison would have let it go, anyway. :) I think Craig wanted him to have it just to see if it would annoy us. :) We’ll tell you in a couple of days.
Anyway, he played it the whole way home and the whole time getting ready for bed. He did not want to put it down. Finally I had to take it away from him, and he sounded so miserable, whining “Hiyayayamonica! Hiyayayamonica! Hiyayayamonica!” over and over again for like 10 minutes. It was funny, despite the fact that it took him a while to get him settled down. I think we have a new favorite toy!
Here’s some random pictures.
Playing with his friend Abigail in his Clifford house. Should I be worried that they’re under the blanket together?
Pulling Harrison and Jack after group one night- notice how red Harrison’s cheeks are- they were having fun!
Today while Abigail was here- it was getting towards the end of the day and I needed them to let some energy off!! Notice how in both pictures Harrison is pretty much air-borne.
I have been blown away by everyone who has joined the effort for Water For Christmas. It has just been awesome to see. As a reminder, please visit my friend Jody’s blog for details.
She has a tab at the top called ‘water’ that will get you lots of good information. They are now selling t-shirts, bracelets, water bottles…and even dancing!
Or you can simply donate here. Please use the red donate button.
If you’re in the Lincoln area, H & S Auto, owned by Kelly’s parents, will have a display set up soon where you can add your donation to a huge water bottle. Let me know if you want to know where they are located.
All of the proceeds will be going to Water For Christmas, through charity:water, to dig wells in Liberia, to bring clean and healthy drinking water to those who need it.
There is now even a Facebook group…yesterday morning we had 150 members. Tonight we are at 550. And we have a challenge. If each member donated just $10 a week, we could have 1 new well PER WEEK! That would be like 7 new wells between now and Christmas! And that’s not even including the people donating that aren’t in the Facebook group!
Water is something I so take for granted. I’ve been trying to remind myself how blessed I am to have it for cooking, washing clothes, showers…the list could go on. This has changed my view. This has changed my heart.
Yesterday was the first time in a long time that Harrison wanted to sit on his potty chair. I ask him a lot, but everytime he answers with a definite “nope”. So I was excited yesterday when he sat on it. He didn’t do anything, but I kept telling him he was doing a good job by sitting on it.
So imagine my surprise last night after church when I picked him up from his room and the lady working said, “He told me he needed to go potty, so I took him in and he tinkled in the toilet.” I was totally shocked, but excited! When he saw me he says “PAH-DY!” He was really excited. It was cute. She told me that there were a bunch of other kids waiting in line to go at the time, so we think maybe he wanted to join in and go, too.
He’s gone twice in the toilet today, and I’m using some pull-up pants for the first time. We’ll see what happens! It’s been kind of funny, though- every time he goes he HAS to wipe his bottom, even though he’s only gone pee.
He’s had a really bad cough the last two days or so, which is from his throat condition (he has some extra tissue in his throat that he hasn’t “grown into” yet). He gets to coughing so bad he chokes- he’s thrown up twice this morning from coughing so hard. It makes his colds worse and makes it sound like he constantly has croup…which he doesn’t. I got the ok from the dr. to give him some steroids that I have from a previous episode, which reduces the inflammation in his throat and helps him to not have coughing spells. Hoping it works fast- usually he’s better within 24 hours or so.
That’s all the excitement going on in the Gubser household this weekend.
On Wednesday (yes, just two days ago) the high was 79. Today it was in the 30’s and snowing. Yes, snowing. I drove to Iowa City for an appointment in sleet and snow. Crazy!
Harrison got to see it snowing outside, but he didn’t seem too interested in it. Maybe when it starts accumulating and he can actually go out and play in it.
Speaking of playing, I am a little nervous about what this winter will bring as far as being able to let Harrison get rid of some energy. I am thinking of getting him one of these:
Do you think that will work? :) I am really very, very serious.
So my friends Jody, Cassie, Amy and Tesi and their orphan care group have another awesome project up and running. I would not do it justice to try and re-write what Jody has written about the project, so please visit this post to find out why they are doing this, and this post to find out how to get involved.
Bottom line: people around the world are drinking dirty water to help them stay alive, only to get sick from the awful things that are in it. 4500 kids die EACH DAY from this. Digging for wells would solve this problem. The US spends 450 Billion Dollars at Christmas each year. It would cost 10 Billion Dollars to give the whole world clean drinking water. Hmmm…do the math.
Those numbers shocked me. I am just as guilty. I am also thinking of things to do this Christmas, or not do, rather, that would instead go to this cause. Click on the banner on the sidebar, or visit one of the blogs I mentioned earlier. Please join us.
We were invited to some friends’ house for a cook-out by their fire pit. It was so much fun, and a beautiful night. I was a bit on edge trying to keep Harrison away from the fire and the edge of the patio, which quickly dropped off into the dark of night. Ok, that was a bit exaggerated, but it was kind of a steep edge, and a ways down. We finally made a wall of chairs and moms so none of the kids could get by the fire. :) We got to enjoy some great company, great music and dancing (by some adorable kids), great food and great weather.
We finally got Harrison to sit and listen to the music by handing him a cup of potato chips.
Kelly got Harrison a new track for his cars today. They were playing with it tonight after we got home. It took him a while to understand that he couldn’t lay on it while he launched the cars. :) And Kelly’s sleeve looks really dirty…I think it’s the oil from the potato chips Harrison was eating at the cookout. He must have used Kelly’s sleeve as a napkin!
I think Harrison had a great “playing” day…a few new scratches, his nails were filthy tonight, he went through 2 or 3 outfits, and got to eat a cup of potato chips for supper.
