As many of you know I am all giveaway crazy at the moment because of the launch of my new start up Big American Giveaway. Whilst researching today I came across a couple who are giving away an ipad in order to help raise money to adopt a child. The ipad bit is irrelevant, but the story, the journey and the passion is quite exciting.
The Tucker family, a white, middle-class, Christian all American family have launched a website Subtracting by Adding in order to raise money to help adopt a child from Taiwan. The introduction that I have just given could sound quite negative, the Tucker family already have two biological children and it could easily sound like ‘White middle class Christian super-hero couple save the day’. But, you know what, that is exactly what it is and I would love to see more couples think about adoption.
One of the comments that the family have put on their website is a comment that I wholeheartedly believe in – they have two biological children and, there are heaps of children around the world without a family so why not provide a loving family for one of them. What a great sentiment!
I have seen, first hand, the sadness of children living without families in orphanages. Many orphanages do an incredible job and fair play to them. Nevertheless, children were built to be loved, to have the loving support of a family and they were created to bloom in such an environment. I will never forget time that I have spent in Kenya. I was in a boys orphanage talking to the children about how they are unique, they are individual, they exist for a very special purpose and, even without natural families they are very much loved. As I ended my talk the children came forward, they wanted to be hugged! As a small 5 year old boy wrapped his arms around my legs, he would not let go. This little boy could not speak a word of English and I have never been fluent in Swahili, but, nevertheless, we had shared an incredible moment. Not only was this orphaned boy loved, but, so was I. Needless to say, I was in tears!
The Tuckers’ goal of adopting a child, ‘Cambell’ from Taiwan is a powerful example of how many other couples could reach out and change lives of young children around the world. I remember reading a book on the work of Tearfund, a Christian organisation and one of the titles of the chapters seriously stood out, “They can’t eat prayer”.
Whether we are of a religious background or not, the sentiment is the same. We can look on in despair at those who are less fortunate, who need help, who struggle to survive or who need a little bit of love and we wish them all the best, “they can’t eat wishes”.
Well done and congratulations to the Tucker family, we are right behind you. May your example be a shining one, to many.
I had a conversation with a friends Mum this weekend, and, don’t get me wrong, I am not going all ‘religious’ on you, but I think that it is a great shame that the UK has moved away from it’s Christian foundations. Please allow me to explain why.
We live in a greed obsessed society. We want what we cannot afford to have and, as we have seen, those who cannot afford their ‘wants’ resort to other means to ensure that they get them. We loot, whether it is young people on the streets or MP’s who go against the rules that they created in order to make more money. Our marketing is highly consumerised (my spell check tells me that no such word exists but please go with it). If we are not happy with our partner we trade them in for another model, or many have their cake and eat it. Family values have been exchanged for gang alliance. The religion that we worship is the football team that we support. Our nation is fame hungry. We update our Twitter and Facebook status’ in the belief that ‘my story’ is the only story that needs to be heard.
Let’s face it, in many ways, collectively, we have become immoral. Not only are we becoming immoral but our collective moral conscience is slowly being worn down.
Of course, I am not perfect, I am by no means a saint. It would be easy to read this post and agree that ‘they’ are like that. However, I am a firm believer that, wrongly, our morals are flexible when it comes to our own self interests.
So, back to religion. I am not saying that in an age before ours, when the accepted behavior was that families attended Church, was a perfect world. It wasn’t. But there is something about being reminded of good Christian values that reminds us as individuals that we are part of a whole, that the world does not revolve around ‘me’ and our outlook on life changes.
Basic Christian values can be exchanged for a ‘good’ moral code. Gluttony, greed, selfish ambition, pride, jealousy, envy are all common traits in today’s society. However, at least hearing about Christian values, being reminded of them by family, at Church, at school provides our minds with a moral ‘check’, a simple reminder of the way that we should live our lives.
We do not have to subscribe to the whole package. The whole Christian story is not one that we have to believe in, however, at a very basic level, whether purely as a man who existed or as a character in a book, the person of Jesus maintained a life-style that we would all benefit to follow both personally and as a collective.
I have spent some time in some poor countries, Kenya and Fiji, whose residents still remind each other of basic Christian values and, in all honesty, they are seriously humble places to live. I have met people who have nothing, but what they have they would not hesitate to share. I have been involved in business deals (with Tribewanted) where an individuals word is the basis of an agreed contract. I have seen, first hand, communities where they consider each of their children as their own. There is no selfish attitude, only an attitude of greatfulness and otherness.
I know reading this post, people will comment – why does it have to be Christian and not other religious beliefs. I know that there are many perceived flaws in what I am saying because, as individuals, we now have an in-built intolerance to anything relating to ‘God’.
I don’t have all the answers and, in no way, am I suggesting that we should all be going to church on a Sunday morning. I just merely believe that or moral framework has suffered in direct correlation towards a decline in our attitude towards the church and our engagement with anything ‘christian’.
Something has to change, for the sake of individuals, communities and generations to come. If our moral code only reduces, where do we end up?
Please do feel free to comment, add your thoughts, agree, disagree in the comment section below. It would be great to hear, listen, learn!
War fatigue. Charity fatigue. Famine fatigue. Compassion fatigue. Just like every other fatigue that is out there we can suffer from rioting fatigue. The images have been spread far and wide, I am currently in Australia where the rioting has been branded ‘civil unrest’. I have contacts in America who thought I was back in London and emailed to see if I was okay. We have had open letters to David Cameron’s parents. We have had the comedy of rioters vs photoshop. We have had the the angel volunteers via riotcleanup. We have had those who are raising money for those who want to raise money for something nice for Ashraf and those who want to Keep Aaron Cutting. So many people, have said so much that it is easy just to start to switch off but, seriously, what the hell is going on?
Like many I have heard the racist arguments referring to rioters as “ethnic dole-ite scum” (when a millionaire’s daughter and a school mentor got arrested for looting). I have equally read Nina Power’s Guardian article entitled, ‘There is a context to London’s riots that can’t be ignored‘. So much has been said and, in all honesty, there is an element of truth in most of it as people speak from their own perspective.
We can hunt these kids down and we can lock them up but, in my opinion, this will cause a greater number of young people to rise up en-mass with an even bigger revolt. Maybe not this week, or next week, but at some point. I have heard many comments referring to consumerism and greed and how are young people want what they can’t have or can’t afford as a symbol of status and so they take it. Perhaps it is even the taking of the object that adds to the status. Nevertheless, in my opinion there is this deep, deep feeling of dissatisfaction, of emptiness, a lack of vision, a lack of understanding of worth and potential.
It took a very personal, powerful event in my life for me to realise that we ‘live life, once’. I truly believe that if we can grasp the reality of the concept that we live this life only once then we will realise that our potential knows no bounds. This potential is not based upon what we have or have not got. Our potential is not based upon where we were educated, our upbringing or the mistakes that our parents or even government may have made. But when we grasp the reality of the fact that we are on planet earth, merely once – dreams are within our reach, ambition is endless and our potential is unlimited.
Imagine a country in which the very same young people who put effort, energy, attention, drive and focus into rioting and looting placed the same amount of energy and dedication into the discovery of their potential. We would see new businesses, new opportunities, new employment, new world records, new sports champions, new olympic hopefuls and on and on.
Of course these are my thoughts, based upon my belief of what could truly happen if understood that we are not futile but grasp the power of our potential with both hands and not stop. I don’t know how we get there, I don’t know how we educate, how re-educate, from the ground up. These things I don’t know.
The one thing that I do know is that humanity has been created with awesome potential and if we could just tap into that, in these young people then something damn well powerful could take place.
Remember my blog post about Kyle MacDonald’s Storebuyout.com Well, I and many others received the following email this week:
Here’s a video of a chat we had with Hercules.
The original sales receipt is currently being auctioned to help buy
Hercules the store of his dreams. Please spread the word!
http://cgi.ebay.com/
have fun,
Kyle
So, currently the auction stands at $1,025 with the reserve not met. I can’t wait to see what happens. Whether this receipt is sold for heaps or it isn’t I love Kyle’s approach to the world and there is heaps to learn from him so check out www.storebuyout.com and get learning!
We all know Alex Tew, in fact, many of us are green with envy whenever his name is mentioned. Alex Tew is the guy who created milliondollarhomepage and made a million dollars in the process. Alex has also had a number of other viral successes including donothingfor2minutes.com
What some of you may or may not know is that Alex Tew has moved to American to become Product Manager of Monkey Inferno which, according to it’s website is a ‘place where we dream up cool internet projects, develop them, nurture them into successful businesses’. How cool?!
But there is more, Monkey Inferno, is self-funded by Michael and Xochi Birch who sold Bebo in 2008 for a cool $850million! Basically, what this means is that Monkey Inferno can a) never go bust and will b) never need investment.
Alex Tew is a genuinely nice guy who dreams up big ideas and ensures that they happen in practice. I cannot think of a more perfect fit for Alex to be working with Monkey Inferno. A massive congratulations to you Alex!
I am pretty sure that Alex Tew + Monkey Inferno will = a shit load of cool stuff!
All of the above, must be true, it is on Alex’s Twitter bio: @tewy
