Category — My Hope

Don’t forget — you can still help end child sex trafficking and exploitation by donating to LOVE 146.

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Love 146 Vision: The abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation. Nothing less.

Love 146 Mission: Abolition and Restoration! We combat child sex slavery & exploitation with the unexpected and                                           restore survivors with excellence.

Why, What & Who: Love146 works toward the abolition of child sex slavery and exploitation through Prevention                                            and Aftercare solutions, and contributing to a growing abolition movement.

“Look good, feel good, do good. Tread on Trafficking 2010. This spring, put some purpose in your pace and and join Love146 in the fight against child sex trafficking while you shake off the winter blues and get ready for summer. From May 1st to June 30th, the miles you run, walk or swim can count towards a better life for victims of child sex trafficking.”

And I am joining in!

I generally don’t like to exercise but I love to do it for a purpose. And the purpose usually has to be more than “look good in a bathing suit” because they make suits to correct all your problem areas

Will you help me? My goal is to raise $500 for LOVE 146. If you are not familiar with this organization I highly recommend you visiting their website to learn more about their work to end child sex trafficking and exploitation.

Ways You Can Help:

1. Visit my donation page and make a donation to Love 146.  No amount is too small!
2. Fill out a donation pledge form and mail it in with a check. No amount is too small!
3. Post about Tread on Trafficking on your blog and ask your readers to support me! You can link to my donation page HERE.
4. Tweet about Tread on Trafficking and ask your followers to support me! Again you can link to my donation page HERE

Wouldn’t it be awesome if we WAY EXCEEDED my goal?!?!

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:8-9

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

The word of the Lord came to Zechariah: The Lord of Host says this: Render true justice. Show faithful love and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the stranger or the poor, and do not plot evil in your hearts against one another. Zechariah 7:8-10

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

What does this look like in my life as a stay at home mom in the suburbs?

What does this look like in your life?

What should it look like in our lives?

The past two weeks in Sunday school we have been talking about giving. By giving – I mean financial giving above and beyond your tithe (which is a whole different post!). Bill and I have different a different opinion on the matter than most people in our class. It really brings us back to the question posed to us a few years ago by our Community Group leader, Kristian. “If you have 6 million dollars and give away 3 million are you generous?”  It was interesting to me that the consensus in class yesterday was that you should give a higher percentage of your income as your income increased.

Luke 21: 1-4 “He looked up and saw the rich dropping their offerings into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow dropping in two tiny coins. ‘I tell you the truth,’ He said, ‘ This poor widow has put in more than all of them. For all these people have put in gifts out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”

Bill and I are super cheap – I mean, it hurts for us to spend money. But I have been convicted lately about this attitude towards money. It is not healthy and it is not Godly. It is one thing to be wise with your money but it is another thing to value your money to the point you don’t want to let it go. This type of attitude is more aptly called – idolatry.

Bill’s first job after college was with Dave Ramsey and a requirement of employment is to go through his Financial Peace University classes. This was probably one of the best things we could have done as a young married couple. It really put us on the right track for the rest of our lives. We are now wise with our money and are prepared for unexpected expenses – like Will’s trip to the ER and the few months were Bill was in between jobs.

Proverbs 27:12 “A sensible man watches for problems ahead and prepares to meet them. The simpleton never looks, and suffers the consequences.”

Over the years we have taken what we learned in those FPU classes to be wise about our finances and it has put us in a position to be able to give – and usually give generously. Do we always do a good job about giving with a “cheerful heart?” No, but we try.

I would say that one aspect that we don’t align 100% with Dave is on wealth building. Yes, we want to save and invest for our future so that we are not a burden to others but probably not to the point of being a multi-millionaire or leaving a huge sum of money for our children. I truly believe that God entrusts us with financial resources so we can bless others – and to do it extravagantly. (Note: We do know that Dave is very, very generous in his personal giving.)

I do not intend to be controversial on this topic – it is just a few thoughts that have been running through my mind the past few weeks. I welcome your input on the topic – and would very much appreciate if you could back up your opinions with Scripture. I am still “investigating” and searching Scripture on this topic.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground.

“Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. “He is not here, but he has been resurrected! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying ‘The Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day.’?” And they remembered His words.

Luke 24: 1-8 (HCSB)

A friend and I have had several conversations about self discipline lately. It’s convicting because I am lazy. Really lazy. I have been better lately at keeping my house picked up and semi-clean. That has been nice because now when we get a phone call that someone wants to look at the house I just have to dust and vacuum instead of put away everything that we own AND clean every nook and cranny. (By the way, someone is coming to look at 3:30 today!)

But the mornings is when I am really bad! I hate getting out of bed – sometimes I just lay in bed after getting Will out of bed and let him play in the living room while drinking his milk. I am a bad mother! I am also bad at disciplining my body – food and exercise. But lately I have been cooking more at home and am really enjoying it. (Note: We never ate out a lot but I didn’t cook good things at home either. We had Shake N Bake every week! Don’t get me wrong I like Shake N Bake chicken but not every week!) I also got a new exercise DVD that I really enjoyed the first day. I was too sore to do Day 2 yesterday but am going to tackle it today.

So, am I just beating myself up about being a “better person” or is there something more profound about self-discipline. I believe there is something profound and spiritual to being self-disciplined. One, we are examples to our children. Especially examples of Christ likeness. Scary! Also, as my friend pointed out, self control is one of the fruits of the Spirit. And self control is not just NOT doing things you shouldn’t do but also DOING things you should do.

Christ has not set an example to His children of laziness and self indulgence – and neither should we. Convicting.

I guess I won’t make Will fold the laundry anymore. He is not very good at it – the clothes always look really wrinkled!

It’s Friday and it’s time for “Show Us Your Life” over at Kelly’s Korner. Yay! I love these blog parties – I always find a new friend This week’s theme is Favorite Charities. Being a social worker, I could name about 100 “favorites” of mine. But, I will limit them to one’s I actually contribute to in some way.

Compassion International ” exists as a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults.” Compassion currently helps more than 1 million children in 25 countries. Compassion operates through child sponsorships – it is a great way to make a difference in the life of a specific child and family. And it’s only $38 a month – that is giving up one restaurant meal a month!

AAA Women’s Services and Choices Women’s Resource Center are located in Chattanooga , TN. They provide SO MANY services and resources for women who are expecting babies. They provide ultrasounds, full information on a woman’s choices including adoption, and classes for expecting mom’s and dad’s. I feel like this description is not doing them justice – they do some amazing things for women AND men! And the really cool part is that their original location set up shop in what was once an abortion clinic – many of their first clients came looking for an abortion and found AAA instead So many lives saved!

If you’re in Chattanooga they accept money donations for the many services they provide and they accept baby items for their “store.” Clients earn “dollars” by completing classes and then get to shop for baby items.

And of course, I have to mention Hope Church. Hope Church is a new church plant in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans. Bill and I are partnering to help start the church and are looking forward to moving soon! (Just have to sell this house.) After Hurricane Katrina the entire area was devastated – as we all remember. But, what a lot of people don’t know is that many, many churches did not reestablish after the storm. New Orleans is a city hungry for God’s salvation.

If you’re interested in learning more or partnering with Hope Church – please contact me. Do you think your church would be interested in partnering through praying, giving and serving? Let me know (amber@dixondialogue.com) and we can send you an informational packet.

And no post is complete without a picture of Will! I don’t have any new ones from this week so I thought I would post a nostalgic picture from March 2009: Meeting his cousin, Greyson, for the first time.

This past weekend Bill and I went to the Passion Conference in Atlanta, GA. This is an event for college students and draws over 20,000 participants. We went with Matt Tipton and met a group of young adults from New Orleans. I was so excited about this event! It had speakers like Beth Moore, Francis Chan and John Piper just to name a few!

We had a great time at the conference and enjoyed every aspect of it. They had an area devoted to several social justice organizations and it was amazing how much money the students (their parents) donated during the course of the weekend. With a matching gift over 1 million dollars were raised to help the poor and oppressed all over the world.

We had the privilege to attend a break out session led by John Piper and the “topic” was reaching unreached people groups. But in general it was about reaching people for Christ who have not heard the truth or are hard to reach. One thing in particular really stuck out in the session to Bill and me.  It was the fact that Paul really longed to be in Rome but he was not able to be there because God had called him to do other work and that work was not yet finished. And that is exactly how we feel some day. We long to be in Chattanooga with our families or we long to be in New York City because we love it so much but we can’t do those things – yet. We must do what God has called us to do which is move to New Orleans. Maybe someday God will allow us to do these things that our hearts desire and long for. Paul did eventually get to go to Rome (of course it was as a prisoner – but still he went!)

One of my prayers recently has been that God would continually reenforce to me His calling for us to move. And the session with John Piper did just that. We also had a great time getting to know the New Orleans folks – it will be nice to know a few people when we get there!

This Christmas we got to spend an entire week in Chattanooga with our families. It was a fun week full of Christmas celebrations and just having fun! The celebrations began on December 19th when we celebrated with Will in Nashville and ended with the big Dixon celebration on December 26th. Below are a few (50!) of our pictures from the week. I hope you enjoy!