Wednesday, September 24, 2008

I can count on one hand the people who have had such an effect on my life as one of my best friends, Bill Cummings. He used to be my youth pastor and then a little later my young adult pastor. He moved to North Carolina with his beautiful wife Cherie and twin boys Ben and Alex to start a church called Merge. While waiting to adopt a child from Guatemala (which turned into an adoption from Nepal-they adopted a precious little girl named Miyah) they got hooked up with a woman named Tita who started a school in Guatemala. (Still following me? hee hee) Well, Bill took teams of people to help Tita and to love on the kids there and over the years his heart exploded more and more for the children there in La Limonda. You see the police won't even go to La Limonada. There wasn't even a school in this part of Guatemala. And we all know without education you don't stand a chance in this world.
This weekend Bill was at ValleyChurch sharing his heart and a video that Donnie made to gather support and prayers for these children who would otherwise have absolutely no hope. I believe that God sent Bill, Donnie and Leah to this desolate valley to bring hope, healing and life. The three of them started Lemonade International. You can support a child by going here. They also take one time donations. I see this as an opportunity to give hope into the life of a child that has no hope. As an American I feel like I have hope thrown at me from all angles and I would like to share some of that hope. Can you imagine being born into a family who could barely survive? Can you imagine the hopelessness? Wouldn't you feel like life was totally worthless? I would. So this is a way to show that God does care and he helps the needy through people like you and me.







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just love your heart.
And I just love you.
period.

:)

Bill Cummings said...

I just read this for the first time tonight. You are awesome... and one of my best friends in life too!

Thanks so much to you and Ryan for sharing so much of the day with me on Sunday when I was there. It was so relaxing and peaceful to hang out with you guys for the afternoon (and early evening).

Thanks so much for sharing the passion of our hearts for Guatemala and La Limonada...

Much love...

Bill