New Rosa loves T-Shirt

Our friends at Rosa Loves created this shirt to help raise $4,0000 to pay for Hussein's heart surgery. I heard about Rosa loves through their partnership with The Preemptive Love Coalition in making this shirt. They exist to tell the stories of people and organizations who are doing something good and call others to get involved.
They make these awesome looking shirts that graphically tell the story of the organization and then on the inside of the shirt right where your heart is, is the written story in this case of Hussein.


They will continue to make and sell the shirts until they reach their goal to fund Hussein's surgery. So, get yours today and get one for your friend for Christmas and not only will you have an awesome shirt but you will have helped save Hussein's life. Click here to purchase this shirt.

What you really want for Christmas

Christmas is - at its historical heart - the celebration of a life;
namely, the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary.

But even in its contemporary form, Christmas is a celebration of life and living; for even those that do not celebrate Jesus at Christmas do celebrate the memories and warmth of family, the assurance of another year successfully completed, and the hopefulness of a year ahead.

There is no gift greater than the gift of life.

All the decorations, the songs, and the gift-giving are meant to say one thing: “Life is worth living and it’s great living it with you!”

This season, share that message in a meaningful way with your loved ones and with Iraqi families on the other side of the world. With an inherent emptiness to so many of the gifts we reach for at Christmastime, this Gift of the Heart is assuredly one of the most impact-making gifts you can give this year, providing hope, real medical relief, and peace to mothers, fathers, and their children waiting in Iraq for a spot on the coveted Surgery List.

All Gifts of the Heart funds will cover medical, travel, and hospitality expenses for an Iraqi child and mother.
Give Life!

When you make a donation in honor of someone you will receive this "In your honor" gift certificate. You will also receive a:

- Softcover coffee table book of Preemptive Love Art commissioned and culled from Kurdish artists supporting PLC in Iraq

- Free PLC 3X4" vinyl stickers

- Free "Buy Shoes. Save Lives." campaign bracelet.

So, click on over here and give the gift of life this year.

Pics from MEW at UMHB

We had a good time last week hanging out with students at Mary Hardin Baylor and telling them about the work we will be doing in Iraq and what is currently going on with The Preemptive Love Coalition.


This is a canvas I made for the event to showcase some of the latest stuff from our website.

The following are pics of pinwheels our sunday school class help make for the event. PLC has a new Pinwheels program to help advocate for these kids in Iraq and give people some really tangible ways to get involved. Did you know that most of these 3000+ Iraqi children in need of heart surgery aren't even strong enough to blow a pinwheel? So, if you can blow a pinwheel then you can make a pinwheel, sell a pinwheel, get a bunch of people together to make and sell or showcase pinwheels on behalf of these kids who need our help!


Aren't these fun?!



This is us at our booth for the ACT Now event

If you don't have a buy shoes. save lives or preemptive love T-shirt yet, the new V-necks are on the website and they're pretty awesome!

Art * Music * Justice

Last night Jeff & I had the opportunity to attend the final night of the Art. Music. Justice tour in The Woodlands. The proceeds from the event benefited the International Justice Mission and the World Hunger Relief. It was an incredible night of worshiping with some of my favorite artists and hearing about what is going on around the world and how to get involved. It was a really renewing time that made me feel really alive! I think in America it is easy to hide or insulate ourselves from the realities of the rest of the world, sometimes even things that are happening in our own backyards. It is really good for me to be confronted with these things - poverty, famine, slavery, sex trafficking of children, orphans, widows, the hopeless, women and children dying of AIDS, or 3000 + Iraqi children waiting for a heart surgery or death. I know it seems like a paradox, but these things make me feel ALIVE. I was telling Jeff last night through tears about how THIS is what we were made for, this is what it means to be human. It is to LOVE, to show COMPASSION, to give ourselves away to the broken. I was so challenged by these songwriters who sung about how 'No amount of green, gold or silver will replace the peace of God." It is so easy for me to hedge myself and begin to believe that it really is about the stock market and my future retirement, or it's about feeling good, or it's about my family, or maybe it's about power and wealth. That's not how God made us! Over and over throughout scripture we are exhorted to:
"Give counsel, grant justice, make your shade like night at the height of noon, shelter the outcasts, do not reveal the fugitive. Let the outcasts of Moab sojourn among you, be a shelter to them from the destroyer. When the oppressor is no more and destruction has ceased and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land, then a throne will be established in steadfast love." Isaiah 16:3-5 Amen and let it be!
I was challenged with the question of To what end have you groomed your personal walk with God? Because the TRUTH is that we are not powerless, not in the least! Let us not become so numb to the injustice in the world that we decide it is NOT our problem, that we have no power to affect change in the world - friends, that is a lie! To every single follower of Jesus - the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, the sick, the orphaned, the dying - these are your neighbors and we have been called to action:
'For by grace you have been saved though faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we SHOULD walk in them.' Ephesians 2:8-9
Not only do we have the promise of God that these good works exist, but we have the POWER of God to accomplish them! We are not powerless! But we must be obedient, we cannot claim our money as our own, our time as our own, our very lives as our own! Most of you know that Jeff & I are moving to Northern Iraq to work with The Preemptive Love Coalition to fund heart surgeries for 3000 + Iraqi children. We are less than 3 months from our departure and you know what? We are SO grateful for this opportunity! We would not choose anything else right now - not career, not 'home', not comfort, not family, not safety. That's not because we are some strange breed of holy or anything, but it's because of the grace of God in our obedience. We decided to obey God in his command to seek justice and love mercy and to give ourselves away for the least of these - for us that means going to Iraq. And God's grace is sufficient because last night we were filled with hope for the people of Iraq and for the broken around the world. God is healing, restoring, and drawing these people to himself and we get to be a part of that - it is SUCH an honor. It is an honor to go to Iraq and speak peace in the midst of violence, hatred, oppression, it is an honor to follow Jesus there.
All of the evil in the world, it is not a burden, it is not a burden to go with Jesus there and bring light and hope and freedom! Don't believe the lie that you can't do anything, that God can't use you, that the evil cannot be overcome - TAKE HEART Jesus already overcame the world! We have nothing to fear, and we have no excuses. Christian, you have no excuse. I have no excuse. We must respond, how will you respond?

Good Search

I wanted to tell you about an easy way for you and anyone else to raise money for The Preemptive Love Coalition, just by doing what you normally do everyday!

- Go to www.goodsearch.com
- Type in “Preemptive Love Coalition” in the box that asks “Who do you goodsearch for?”
- Click Verify

GoodSearch is a search engine powered by Yahoo! that donates money to the charity that you choose for every internet search that you do through them.

So if you make at least one search a day, and tell everyone you know about goodsearch, PLC will be well on its way towards funding a heart surgery for a child in Iraq, just through a few clicks of a button!

So please forward on the link to others who would join our cause, and start “good search”ing!

963 Coffee

Our friends over at 963 Coffee have started this wonderful business to facilitate the fair trade of coffee so that you get your daily Joe and coffee farmers get their fair share of what would otherwise be a $5 cup of coffee. Instead of beans on the dollars, they get a fair wage, good working conditions, the right to organize themselves into unions, and a host of other benefits not afforded by other coffee companies.

In addition to what is already a great product, the 963 Coffee guys have set up an affiliate program through which all of your purchases made by linking from I Heart Community 4 Life will go into an account with the Buy Shoes. Save Lives. name on it. Buying coffee and helping South Americans and African will now fund heart surgeries for Iraqi kids to boot!

Here's our coffee campaign: We get 40% of sales from the store through this affiliate program. If you buy 10 bags of coffee for $10 each children in Iraq will receive $40 of your purchase.

If you are an addict, we recommend you to sign up for the Monthly Obsession (like a subscription to coffee!). If we get 63 friends signed up for 2 bags of coffee a month, that would be $6,000 to children in Iraq in one year alone! That's an entire heart surgery funded by drinking coffee!

That's a great cup of coffee!

So forgo your Starbucks today and drink some 963 Coffee instead.


I have personally been a 963 coffee customer and have been very pleased with the product... and I'm kind of a coffee snob (starbucks = gross). I also have written Starbucks (and spoken to several store managers) about brewing fair trade coffee in their stores. Due to the amount of money it would cost them to make a significant investment in fair trade coffee, they are currently unwilling to switch to fair trade. While they sell some fair trade coffee in some locations, they do not currently brew it in their stores. So - not that I'm saying Starbucks is bad or you should not go there...but maybe you could think about investing in the lives of coffee farmers and their communities simply through choosing fair trade, and while you're at it you can help fund a heart surgery for an Iraqi child. Have you had a better cup of coffee than that? ... I didn't think so.

A History of Oppression, A Legacy of Hope

This is a painting I did for the Global Celebration at Woodway this week. It is about the Kurds of Northern Iraq. The theme is in the title of this post. The idea is this: the Kurds have endured a lot of pain, horror, war, and terror in their history. The left side of the painting shows the darkness, pain, blood, and struggle they endured. The pictures on the canvas were taken by Cody Fisher (Michelle's boyfriend...smile). Cody even went on assignment and took a picture of a statue in the city, that is the pic in the middle of the canvas. The pictures were all printed on fabric and then attached to the canvas so they didn't come out as clear as I had hoped but wanted to add a consistent texture to the work. The picture on the top left is of one of the weapons left at the 'Red Prison' in Northern Iraq - you can see the prison in the background. It is one of the largest prisons he built while he was in power and hundreds of thousands of Kurds were murdered there. The second picture is of Aras, one of the children in need of a heart surgery. While Aras is receiving funding that will hopefully lead to a successful surgery, there are still thousands of children who are dying because of a lack of medical care available in Iraq (re: www.buyshoessavelives.com). The tree in the painting is there because I wanted to link the two sides, oppression and hope are not independent - they usually work together. Part of the beauty of the Kurdish people, their brokenness and openness lies in their pain ... but there is so much hope on the horizon. The right side of the painting is slightly larger than the left, because there is always more hope than oppression - because of Jesus. The statue in the middle is of a woman who had shackles binding her arms but she has her arms over her head and it is as if she has just broken the chains of oppression! I love this statue, it is a constant reminder that even in dark places in the world Jesus still wants to bring freedom to the captive and has asked us to do the same. The pictures on the right side are more hopeful. The one on the top is of a bunch of children, I think they are refugees living in a camp that Cody visited. The bottom was not taken by Cody, but a friend of his and it is this older couple and on the wall behind them there is a heart that says 'luv' in it.
There are a lot of things I would love to tell people about the Kurds. They have a history certainly... but they also have a legacy, and it is my prayer that it will be full of hope, love, and Life in Jesus Christ!

Get em while they're hotttt

Not that saving lives ever goes out of style... but these shirts are hot off the... place that shirts come from. If you haven't heard about buy shoes save lives, allow me to inform you (and inform yourself at www.buyshoessavelives.com)
There are these awesome handmade shoes called 'Klashi Kurdi' that are made in Northern Iraq by the Kurds. They are beautiful, not to mention stinkin' cool looking. I hear Justin Timberlake wishes he had some Klash...
So, the saving lives part...Medical care in Northern Iraq is not up to par and there are TONS of kids that have heart problems and without a heart surgery they will either die or suffer from an otherwise curable heart condition.
In collaboration with Brothers Together (www.shevet.org) Buy Shoes Save Lives is using the proceeds from the shoes and T-Shirts to fund heart surgeries for these Iraqi children.
What is even cooler... The doctors doing the surgeries are Jewish and the children receiving the surgery are Muslim. It is a really incredible way to bridge the cultural and religious gaps that have historically existed. So buy some gear - the T-shirts are brand new and even cooler in person and the shoes are custom made to fit. What are you waiting for? go to www.buyshoessavelives.com NOW