$8 hot dog

(This was originally posted to renown November 12, 2009.) 

We're getting ready to kick off Advent Conspiracy... You'll be hearing A LOT more about it... just like I wrote a lot about it last year.
One of the founders is this guy Chris Seay. He's the man. And this video is awesome. I remember how it affected me the 1st time I saw it... and I met Chris right after that. He really lives what he's talking about...



what did you think?

happy birthday = clean water

my birthday is almost here & i definitely don't want any gifts. (just read HERE or HERE.)
same for Christmas. you're invited to join the conspiracy.



But you can even give gift cards now to help build a well = HERE.

advent conspiracy year 3

It's time for my favorite thing of the year again! = Advent Conspiracy! (In order to save some time in this blog you can read what I wrote about Advent Conspiracy HERE, HERE, HERE, & HERE. If you read those I won't have to repeat myself a lot.)

Here's a short video that will give you the scoop too:


So that's what we're about in this conspiracy. It's a conspiracy because it is sooo counter-cultural. It's a rebellion really. We're trying to take Christmas back!

Here's the bottom line if I can summarize it really quickly:
Dirty water is killing more people than anything on earth! People just don't have access to clean water. 5,000 children die every day because they don't have water to drink! That's 1 child dying every 15 seconds because they don't have something we take for granted. That does something in my soul. That makes me outraged and devastated all at the same time.
Jesus SAID that if we see someone thirsty and give them water it's just like we gave the water to Him! And if we don't give them water it's like we refuse to give water to Jesus when He's thirsty. not cool. (Matthew 25:31-46)

It would cost $10 billion to give everyone on earth clean water... & just in America we spend $450 billion on Christmas crap every year!!! Something is jacked up with that & you know Jesus agrees.
So, 2 years ago I jumped in on this advent conspiracy. For my birthday (december 3rd) & Christmas all I've asked for was for people to take the $ they would have spent on buying me a gift AND GIVE IT TO ADVENT CONSPIRACY, so that Living Water International could use it to build wells so people could have clean water! People did it and in 2008 almost $1,000 was given to build a well! It went to rebuild a well in Nicaragua and over 450 people in the San Rafael village of Leon now have clean water! - All because of this little Christmas rebellion!

Last year I did it again. I was feeling really rebellious. I also invited all of my friends in Student Impact (our student ministry at Ridge Church). It was awesome.

So, we're cranking it up again this year with Student Impact.
It would be so awesome for us as a student ministry to say in a couple months - "Because we did Christmas differently this year, we helped a whole village have clean water!"
I know... that's a pretty audacious goal for a handful of broke middle school and high school students. But I think we're up to the challenge!
& that's advent conspiracy in a nutshell.

*So, let me be clear (this is my open letter to all of you) - I do not want anyone to buy me birthday or Christmas presents! The only gift I want is for you to give money for Advent Conspiracy so that Living Water International can build a well with it! SO THAT people can drink clean water and stop dying from dirty water.
You can click here and donate or you can give it to me & I will add it to our water cooler in Student Impact to help us build a well.

In case you missed it at the top, below are 4 articles I wrote last year about advent conspiracy. check them out!
ADVENT CONSIRACY
double advent conspiracy
happy advent
best Christmas EVER!

ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE JOINING THE CONSPIRACY?