ANGELS: Youth from a small church named Psalm 100 in Ciudad
Juarez, Mexico, have begun dressing up like angels and standing on folding
metal chairs at busy intersections in an attempt to end the violence that has
gripped their city. A year of this effort seems to be producing results, with
none of the youth injured and violence perhaps waning slightly. Biblically, angels
are God's messengers. Although the wings, halos, and flowing robes have more to
do with creative interpretation than rigorous exegesis, the congregation offers
an excellent spiritual example for other congregations to follow: incarnating
the gospel to speak to the real needs of people in spite of the inherent risk
in doing so. (For more information, cf. Damien Cave, “Angels
Rushing In Where Others Fear to Tread,” New York Times, November 9,
2011)
ONE PERSON MAKING A DIFFERENCE: John Wood has established
more libraries (12,000 of them) than Andrew Carnegie and his foundation have
(2500 plus). Admittedly, Wood’s libraries lack the architectural splendor of a
Carnegie library and some of Wood’s libraries have only a few hundred books. Incredibly,
Woods also opens libraries more frequently than McDonald’s open new outlets (six
per day vs. one per day). In 1998, John Woods visited a remote Nepalese school
serving 450 children that had no books. Moved, he offered to help. The delivery
of a donkey caravan of books so exhilarated Woods that he resigned from his job
as Microsoft’s marketing director and established the Room to Read foundation. His goal? In
twenty years, to have 100,000 libraries reaching 50,000,000 children. One
person can make a difference.
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