Fruit

The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. My Mom!

Well, I had 17 more potential "Seed" post's lined up, but I think I made that point already. Relieved? :) So now I am on to Fruit. Why fruit? In church circles, that is a common word, but I am not sure even there, we really dig deep as to its meaning in our daily lives.

A great definition I like to apply to the word fruit is from management guru Peter Drucker when asked about the "bottom line" for charitable organizations in his book "Managing the Non-Profit Organization". He said:

"the measurable product of any not for profit institution, is changed lives"!!

Gosh, I love clear, precise to the point statements that you can't wiggle out of.

Now, I have talked about some non profits like Go and Do Likewise and Kid Works and there are many, many thousands of them in this country and hundreds of thousands around the world doing great things and I applaud them. But this blog is not about organizations and institutions. It is about You!! And Me and our Talents and our Gifts. Gifts we have been given and gifts we are to give.

Now before you tune me out and and say you don't have any talents or gifts, nothing of value to anyone else, slow down. Because the greatest thing you can give away is simply yourself. Kinda ties into what Christ said when He said to "Love your neighbor as yourself". I've got two stories I want to use to make my point. One is personal to me and one was personal to a small group of people, but now has become quite public.

The first one is about my Mom, Ilabelle Oden. She is 84 years old and lives in a hospice care facility in Springfield, Oregon. In spring of 2008, I got a worried call from my brother Ron who was told by the nurses and Dr's where she was living at the time, that my Mom was dying. He said I better get up there soon if I wanted to say goodbye. Now he wasn't convinced that all was being done that could be, that they were giving up on her, but he said it doesn't look good. So I flew up that weekend to see her and perhaps say my goodbye. After I spent time with my Mom Saturday morning, my brother said she looked better than the day before I arrived, better than she had in months. Maybe it was the change in medication's, my brother insisted on (thanks Ron) or just maybe seeing her 2 sons together (she hadn't seen me in 2 years), somehow encouraged her to not give up. I can't say for sure.

But lets push forward one year later, to just last weekend. I get a call from my brother that my Mom had just been visited by Mrs. Oregon International Debra Gilmour, who came to present her with a boquet of flowers and a tiara, and to tell her that she had been nominated to be the Marquis Rose Queen and ride in the Portland Rose Parade in May.

What? Say again! The woman who was days or weeks away from dying could be riding in a parade??

You see my mom not only didn't give up, but she recovered well enough to be a helper and encourager to many others in the Hospice Care facility she is in that were discouraged or just needed a hug. So they nominated her for for this award. With simple gestures, she bore Fruit, she "changed lives".

My next story I won't explain in writing because this video tells it all. It's only 5 minutes and if it doesn't touch your heart in someway, you'll want to wonder why. I picked up on it at Tangle.com.

A simple gift from one person to another, Mallory to Sara, almost strangers in fact, in front of a small crowd in a small town in Washington. And if the story never left that field, never got on Tangle or ESPN or wherever its been in this internet world. If no one but those hundred knew, it was still a Home Run, a gesture that bore fruit, that "changed lives".

So, who are you going to pick up today, whose life are you going to touch, who will you help touch a base, whose life will you change?

Or for you linear thinkers, another quote from Peter Drucker I like says this

"What are you going to do on Monday, that's different?"

Eaar

P.S. You don't really think that Sara missing that bag and turning back was just some weird accident, do ya? That there wasn't some greater purpose at work?

Mango Seeds

Is There Hope in These Eyes?

Ok, no comments yet on the first post. Come on people, don't be shy. I was sure some, smart somebody was going to ask why it was named "Seeds" and what does that have to do with Five Talents, Africa, etc. And now this post is named "Mango Seeds"! I'm sure all of you who know me well are wondering if Watermelon Seeds is next. Well, it would be but I really prefer eating seedless watermelon, and there is no future in that. So, here is the correct story.

As I was flying to Kenya last year I was reading a book called "The Forest In The Seed" (you can download a free copy here at disciplenations.org) and on one of the inside cover pages it reprints a traditional Kenyan proverb. "You can count the number of seeds in a mango, but you can't count the number of mango's in a seed." That really struck me as I played that over and over in my mind stuck on the plane for 20 hours and I almost made that the opening scene of my video. I visualized an animated Mango tree shaking back and forth like Elvis, dropping fruit and then all these cute little trees growing up around it.

Still a little lost? About five years ago I produced a pro-bono video for an organization called Setting Captives Free. At the time the video was made into DVD's for people to speak with and to put on their website www.settingcaptivesfree.com. The video had to do with pornography addiction, not a very popular subject to talk about publicy at the time, but something I had personally struggled with. After a year or so I kinda forgot about it. Then, right at the time I was struggling to make the decision whether to go to Kenya to make the video for Go and Do Likewise, I saw a testimony from someone who said they had found freedom from their addiction through this ministry of Setting Captives Free and that they had learned of it through a video on pornography addiction on YouTube.com. Curious me, I went to the internet to see who and what this was and lo and behold it was my video. It had been placed on YouTube for over a year before by someone I didn't even know (and still don't) and already over 25,000 people had watched it and I hadn't even known it.

Here is that video:




I planted a small seed, someone else did the watering and now many people are being blessed.

Now in my first post I said I wasn't pushing everyone in my world (just some of you, and you know who you are) to go to Africa. I say that because while I live in a relatively affluent part of Orange County, California called Fountain Valley. I live just a stones throw away (literally) from a city known for its pockets of deep poverty called Santa Ana. Just five minutes from where I live, in the middle of one of the poorest areas of Santa Ana, is an organization that is doing some of the best work to lift people up I have ever seen. The name of the organization is Kid Works and it reminds me in many ways of the work the organization I serve with, Go and Do Likewise, is doing in Rionchogu, Kenya. Focusing on children and families, education and health.

Kid Works mission statement is to:

  "Restore at-risk neighborhood's... one life at a time".

Wow, is that a great mission statement? It's clear they know what their are charged with and how they are going about it, just in that one simple but profound sentence.

Here is a video they did called "This Is My Neighborhood"

And here is a link to an article about them from the front page of the Orange County Register.

So, as I sit here and write this blog I am feeling moved to write a personal (and family) mission statement as clear and focused as the one Kid Works wrote. Perhaps one that includes my Five Talents or has a vision for the next 10 years of my life. When I read theirs I was moved and I am sure many people have been moved into action to help with their mission because of that simple yet powerful message. In fact, a good friend of mine Ric Seaver interned there for a month and was so impressed with the work being done there, he now works for them and is their Volunteer Coordinator.

Now again the point of this blog is not to get you to move to Santa Ana and volunteer at Kid Works (but you could! just contact Ric@kidworksonline.org). The point of this blog is to ask what are your Five Talents, or Three Talents or One Talent and are you using them to serve others? Or are you using them only to serve yourself?

I remember a church I visited in Washington while attending the wedding of a friend of mine's daughter, that had posted right over their door as you left, a sign that said this:

"You will have your needs met,

on the way to meeting the needs of others".

You know, I couldn't say it any better!

Eaar (pronouced Ecar)

P.S. Don't forget to sign up to follow my blog if this is speaking to you in any way. Just click on the link near the top right.