st agnes

(agnes is pictured in pink)

my friend shanley founded a beautiful organization. it's called nakate and she employs 40 ugandan women from wherever she happens to be at any given moment. these women use discarded paper to make beads. they string these beads into stunning necklaces and those of us with disposable incomes get to dress up our everyday outfits and support ugandan women at the same time. brilliant, says i.

a vagabond by nature, shanley moves about every couple of months. while she might not have a bed to lie down in at night, she is never without her phone. shanley tweets and posts more than anyone i know, however i'd say roughly 83% of those tweets are informative updates in regards to her organization or some other way to help those in need. she truly wants to ease the burden of others.

this week, nakate (pronounced "NAH kuh tay") is partnering with an ingenious fundraising platform called the tipping bucket. this site promotes simple, grassroots fundraising by encouraging contributors to donate a dollar each. just one dollar. how easy is that? but here's the catch: nakate only has 1 week to meet their goal. if they don't, all the money goes back to the contributors and nakate doesn't earn a cent. their goal? $2000. this money will be used to ship the next order of jewelry from uganda to the US, to pay the women who did all the manual labor, and to pay agnes.

ah, agnes. at last we come to the point. you see, agnes is a ugandan missionary and i have the extreme privilege of helping her out this week. agnes oversees the nakate project in its entirety in uganda. she visits the women, finds out their needs, ministers to them, prays for them, and advocates for them. agnes was doing all of this free of charge until her husband lost his job. now we want to bless her in return. we are hoping to raise $300 for agnes, which would be her salary for two months. agnes and her husband felt called to live among the poorest of poor in their village and minister to them. let's do something wonderful for her, shall we? let's raise a mere $300 and send it to her.

the bible says that those who are loved by God are called saints (romans 1:7). it also says that we are supposed to "contribute to the needs of the saints" (romans 12:13).

instead of merely tipping her bucket, let's make sure it runs over! give here.