Conviction: Recap

So, as you might have noticed, I didn't hit my goal of writing one post for everyday of the month of December.

However, my desire to serve, love and give more is renewed by learning so much about the world around me. In the next few weeks, I'll try to fill in the blanks of what was left behind! I think I owe it to you readers and myself to give you all the information on these important issues. It's been a real discovery and learning process for me and I hope you've learned some from it all.

A couple thoughts on not finishing, though: After having a few days of feeling miserable and miserly for not writing those few missing posts, I realized it's really not about me. Duh, right? What is important is being in frequent communication with God. It's a relationship that needs to be nurtured, and when things get busy and get in the way of that relationship, even the best of intentions can be twisted around. So though I would have liked to do great and hit every post spot on, it's God who is in control of everything (including this blog!) and so I think it'll work out all right.

Until those final posts come in, I hope you do the service you can, and your new year's resolutions involve you and big changes in your world -- fill me in!

Conviction: The Unfortunate Truth

I hope you watched yesterday's video -- I've seen it quite a few times so far and I really like it.

Today let's get back to the routine and figure out just what malaria is.

From my reading on the Mayo Clinic's website, malaria is a disease (much like HIV/AIDS) that is spread by a parasite through contaminated blood. Most often spread by mosquitoes who are carriers of the parasite, it can also be spread mother to child, through contaminated blood used in blood transfusions and through shared/dirty needles used for drugs.

Once the parasite (called plasmodium) is in your bloodstream, it then travels to the liver. Here's the bad news: once it reaches the liver, it stays there for a certain amount of time -- up to a year -- and during this time, there are no symptoms.

When the parasite is all grown up, it gets back into the bloodstream and this is when malaria does it's worst: the symptoms include chills, sweating, fever, and vomiting. Those often lead to dehydration and malnutrition, which makes it the lethal disease that it is.

Kinda scary, yes?

The Mayo Clinic has some other information, too: people living in South African countries, India and several islands including Haiti are at a much higher risk of contracting malaria, and in many of those places, there just are not the appropriate resources to save people who get it.

Tomorrow, let's discuss more of how malaria can be prevented and cured! It's one of those things that is all about knowing too much to do too little.

Conviction: 2000

The facts in this are so shocking, but so important.

(Having some issues with formatting -- if you are seeing problems in IE, try another browser!)

Conviction: Starved

Yesterday, I gave you a little information on how many people in the world, and how many children in the world suffer from hunger. So today, let's talk about what hunger really is!

Hunger is simple as far as our definitions are concerned. However, in deference to our previous definitions, here it is:

hun·ger   /ˈhʌŋgər/ [huhng-ger]
–noun
1. a compelling need or desire for food.
2. the painful sensation or state of weakness caused by the need of food: to collapse from hunger. 3. a shortage of food; famine.

A need or desire, a sensation, a shortage -- hunger is a very bodily thing. You feel hunger, you have hunger, you are hungry. Unlike our previous definitions, I think that in the case of hunger, all of the definitions are necessary and important to our learning.

For you and I, we will most certainly feel hungry in our lifetimes. Actually, probably this morning, after you rolled out of bed and finished checking your email (I know you did it!) you thought: "Gee. I could really go for a bowl of cereal." So you wandered out to your kitchen and fixed a bowl.

It's not out of the ordinary to feel hunger, that's the first definition: a need or desire that compels you to find some chow.

The second and third definitions? Well, it's a little less likely that you or I will experience these. This is a sense of hunger, an aching in your stomach that isn't caused by a few hours without a meal, but by a few days. And a single meal won't fix it, either, though it's a step in the right direction. Perhaps its not that you didn't get a meal, you just didn't get enough of a meal for weeks on end.

I don't know about you, but I can't imagine experiencing it myself. And it saddens me that other people have to experience that.

I'm not going to tell you to stop saying anything in respect to people who suffer from hunger. I don't care if you say "I'm starving!" or "I'm so hungry I could die!" because when you say you are starving, that may well be the hungriest you have ever been. Instead, keep your eyes peeled and look for a way to help. Those will be here at the end of the week!

Until next time, how have you noticed the way food is used and misused? Leftovers, food thrown away, extra food sent to food banks? Tell me about it!

Conviction: Hunger

Let's kick off another week, with statistics to get a idea of the scope of this issue.

As you might imagine, hunger is one of the most widely spread problems. It affects people down the street, people in the middle of nowhere, people next to the White House. People in Europe, people in Australia, people in Mexico and in China. There isn't anywhere that hunger isn't a draw on the resources of a society.

More than 11,000 people have died from starvation today. That means that a child dies from starvation every 7 seconds.

There are more than 1 billion people in the world suffering from hunger.

Approximately 1 in 4 children don't get the nutrition they need.

Along with that information, World Vision also cites this:

Even if a child is just moderately underweight, she is four times more likely to die from an infectious disease compared to a well-nourished child.

Worldwide, approximately 145 million children are underweight and at risk of dying — simply because they don’t get enough nutritious food.


It's not a good outlook, by any measurement. And like the other topics we've covered so far, there isn't any easy solution by which every hungry person will suddenly be fed and happy and healthy. The reason for that lies in the reasons that there are so many hungry people in the world, and those are coming up tomorrow!

Conviction: Pay the Debt

As I wrote in yesterday's post, poverty isn't all about money. But there is a debt involved in poverty -- being poor is to be lacking something. So today, I'm gonna go real easy (it is final's week after all, gimme a break!).

Here are just ten things you can do to help the poor: (I pared it down some, Google returns 38,100,000 results...)

1. Give some coins to a Salvation Army bell ringer.
2. Be a Salvation Army Bell Ringer.
3. Donate to a food bank.
4. Volunteer at a food bank.
5. Donate old clothes/shoes/appliances/whatever!
6. Buy a needy family's groceries
7. Volunteer at a homeless shelter
8. Do a mission trip
9. Provide free childcare
10. Collect school supplies

I know it's not much, but anyone of these things will most definitely make a change. We just need to remember that these people are our neighbors, friends, and family. I'm hoping to do at least one of these things over the winter break, and I challenge you to do the same!

Conviction: Coffee for a Cause

Hey! For today, a total treat. After catching sight of Three Avocados on Twitter the other day, I realized it fell right in with what I'm posting about this month. So I sent an email through their website hoping to get an interview, and voila! Joe Koenig, a founder of the company, responded promptly to my questions. Here they are!

Real Fine Place: Please, tell us just a little about Three Avocados:
3 Avocados: Three Avocados is a non-profit coffee company, using 100% of our profits to provide clean water in Uganda. We were founded in February of 2010, and had our first coffee available for sale in April of 2010. Currently, Three Avocados focuses on Uganda, but the plan is to expand into countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Hondouras, Guatemala, and virtually any coffee-producing country that has a need for clean water.

RFP: What inspired you to start a company where you give all of your profits away?
3A: I visited Uganda in January of 2010 and saw great need. I was amazed at the number of people living without basic necessities, such as clean water. I saw how much I truly had been blessed with and felt called to do something. I wanted to find a sustainable way to make a difference. Something that didn't rely on donations, and something that could be produced in Uganda. Giving away 100% of the profit seemed natural - I truly have all I need, while others in the world are in great need.

RFP: How has your life changed since Three Avocados was founded?
3A: I am a lot busier :) Three Avocados is something I work on in the evenings and weekends in an effort to grow the organization. I am passionate about Three Avocados and truly believe it has the potential to make a significant impact, in Uganda, in the world, and in the business world, by showing what we can achieve when we place others before ourselves.

I definitely have a new perspective on life since visiting Uganda and starting Three Avocados. I am significantly more thankful and aware of all of the blessings I have been given. I certainly did nothing to deserve to be born with every opportunity placed at my feet, nor did anyone in Uganda do anything to deserve to be born into a life of constant struggle. That blessing also comes with a responsibility to do everything I can to help my brothers and sisters throughout the world. Three Avocados gives me the opportunity to do that, which is an amazingly gratifying feeling.

It's a neato story, but even more exciting -- it's just that easy for you to get involved. Maybe send your favorite uncle a nice bag of Ugandan coffee?
This is the cool thing about service. Once you see that there is so much you can do (you don't need to start your own coffee company! start smaller!) it's hard not to just start doing it.

If you want to know more about Joe's company, visit the Three Avocados' website, or find them on Twitter and Facebook. Muchas Gracias to Joe & the rest of the Three Avocados crew!

Whew! One week down. But that isn't the end -- see you tomorrow for more of our regularly scheduled programming.

Conviction: 31 Days to Serve the World

As I write this post, there are 6,887,790,073 people in the world, and the number keeps growing.(1)

In the United States alone, there are 310,823,879 people.(1)

That's all well and good, right? But here's what gets me:

This year, 4,617,263 have already died from water-related diseases, and since there are 1,452,739,846 people without access to clean water, the deaths will continue.(1)

This year, 1,867,113 people have died from HIV/AIDS, and another 32,885,805 people are infected.(1)

Today, in Africa, 2000 children under the age of 5 years old will die from Malaria. Hundreds upon hundreds of other children are affected by dirty water, lack of food, their parents' deaths and the deaths of their guardians.(2)

And though these statistics are just that -- numbers that tell you that tragedy is widespread -- these statistics are not only numbers. They are actual flesh and blood people. People that you and I should care about.

Here at Real Fine Place, December 2010 is the month of conviction. After having quite a few experiences that have showed me God's love, and how it should be extended to the world, I'm convicted that I have to love people the way Jesus would have -- people here and people a million miles away -- and that extends into telling other people about it. For the 31 days that make up December, each will have a post that I hope will provide you with a little insight, hope or inspiration to love the world the way Jesus does.

Each weekday, I'll post a little bit about one of four issues that I've chosen for the month: HIV/AIDS, Poverty in the US, Hunger, and Malaria. Then, on the weekends, posts will be about why helping others even matters, and what to do about it. Of course, regular posts will be peppered in too, so I hope you can keep up!

Here's to the world!
(The statistics at the top of the post come from 1. Worldometers and 2. World Vision)