1 Corinthians 13:
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,
and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give
my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth
not itself, is not puffed up
,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily
provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail;
whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge,
it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part
shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now
I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest
of these is charity.
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Hello! Bruce Macomber @Gospel_Tweeter, here.
http://twitter.com/Gospel_Tweeter
SisterTA Fund Drive ~ Part 2
For newcomers to this page, the full story is below. The short version for those already familiar with this particular drive is that there have been some new wrinkles in the original plan. Life is complicated that way sometimes.
I have set up a new $600.00 goal. Please do what you can and please, please make a concerted effort to ReTweet the drive tweets and to spread the word about @TweepleFund.
This could all be so painless and easy with a large follow-base...
*******
It has come to my attention that a dear Sister in Christ and her three children must move out of their home.
They lack the resources to do so. Left unchecked this situation will lead to homelessness for them.
Many of you, I am sure, follow her tweets as I do.
Every fiber of my being wants to shout out the name of our Sister
and say "LOOK! Here she is and she is hurting! And over 2000 of you
Tweeple follow her Tweets every single day!!! Where are you??"
My brother @McProdigal
has taken a somewhat saner approach, and I am thankful that he has graciously
taken the time to blog about our dear sister. Please read his piece and
gain some insight into the nature of this child of God => And
Then There Was One
Praying is a wonderful thing that we can do for one another. And so we should.
We are taught to count on God's provision.
Our Lord is faithful and just to provide for our needs.
The question is, will you put hands and feet to your faith and allow God to work through you today...right now?
I know many, many folks are financially hurting today and have little extra to spare.
If a multitude of Tweeple gave a dollar or two, we could make a meaningful impact in the life of our Sister and her family.
Please use the Donate button - way at the bottom of page - to give a little...and then retweet this page location....
http://christiansoldiers.real-estate-investors-resource.com/tweeple_fund/index.html
Thanks and God Bless!
Our Sister MUST vacate current residence by Sept 15!
The good news: Our Sister has received a gracious extention of ONE week to vacate current premises.
The bad news: We haven't raised enough to secure the minimum affordable residence for her, yet. I'm estimating the cost to be about $2000.00 for application fee(s), first month's rent and security deposit, and utilities deposit, hopefully with a bit in reserve, depending on what is available. I have been scouting the rental ads in her area and praying that she is having better luck than I am finding something suitable and affordable.
This additional week is a huge blessing \0/ and we need to make the most of it.
Please note that this dear women is not hopeless and helpless, but just one of an ever growing number of folks whose income has been suddenly and drastically reduced by the economic down turn. She is a vibrant, strong child of God fully capable of fending for herself and is facing a challenge that she need not face alone. Not while there are true brothers and sisters to stand with her.
No amount is too small and every effort to ReTweet and other wise recruit help is appreciated and needed!
The short URL for this page is http://bit.ly/z2jOY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On an individual basis, the contributions have exceeded the requests for a dollar or two and that is AWESOME...thanks to all of you and Glory be to God!
However, given the thousands of folks who have now seen the numerous tweets and retweets for help...not such a great overall response.
I know that it is difficult to put ones trust in an largely anonymous request for financial assistance - the Internet and life in general is filled with scams.
I'm praying that enough ( as in hundreds and hundreds) folks will suspend disbelief long enough to risk $1 or $2 dollars for this cause.
It is also my prayer that Tweeple Fund can grow into a full-blown ministry with the goal of impacting lives, one at a time.
The results of this 'pilot program' will be the basis for continuing on or scrapping the program.
Update: 09/07/09
I am increasingly seeing the vision of Tweeple Fund as a viable long-term ministry effort of Christian Soldiers Word of Mouth Ministries and have reserved the Twitter account name TweepleFund towards that end.
The goal will be to gain a following for the soul (sic) purpose of gathering $1.00 from each follower per Tweeple Fund campaign, creating a life changing event virtually over-night, while burdening no individuals, and with 100% of collections going to the subject of the campaign, w/o percentages siphoned off for over-head and administration fees, etc. that are usually associated with fund raising.
That is my dream. It will take time to gain that kind of following to create that kind of Tweeple Power.
It is purely by the Grace of God and the gracious generosity of the relative few who have been donating towards this first spontaneous effort to change a life and keep our sister from going off a metaphorical precipice, that we are gradually accumulating enough so as to secure a place for her that she will be able to then maintain on her own.
I invite you to be among the first to follow the new TweepleFund account at http://twitter.com/TweepleFund where:
It doesn't have to hurt to help!
AWE GOD!!!
A HUGE thanks to all who have been so generous over the past few days.
09/05/09
Additional thoughts:
I've been reflecting upon the responses over the past few days, praising God for His children who have recognized a need and attempted to fill it, while wondering about the reasoning of those who have not.
Is it a credibility issue?
I embarked upon this effort with 15,000+ Tweets under my belt, mostly into the general tweetstream, but also building relationships, hopefully, along the way.
I had hoped that I would have been enough of a steadfast Twitter presence to have earned some kind of name recognition, if nothing else and that my endorsement of this cause would be enough to allay any apprehension about contributing $1 0r $2 dollars.
Perhaps I should have built a pageview counter into this page...could it be that far less people have visited the links I have been relentlessly Tweeting and that others have retweeted?
My quandary is this:
I currently have 1379 "followers".
31 people have contributed something, as of this writing.
1348 of current followers have either not seen this page, do not care to contribute, or do not trust me.
If it is a trust issue than I see no point of following me at all.
I would rather Tweet to 31 folks with a heart for God and call it good. I would then understand who I was tweeting with.
If it is a 'do not care' issue and you profess Christ with your lips, kindly read "Sheep or Goat: Which Are You" and reflect upon your walk today.
Search your heart and do what you think is fitting.
As for me and my house, we will do our best to help our sister keep a roof over her head, even if it is in our living room, if that's what it comes down to.
My greatest fear is that my sister-in-Christ will live in a cardboard box rather than "imposing" upon another soul.
She never asked me for help. I am asking, on her behalf.
The power is yours to be a blessing and Glory be to God.
I was trying to sleep, w/o much success, as various trains of thought clamored along these rusting rails I call a brain. I finally gave up and here I am trying to put them to paper...well...virtual paper.
I was thinking about the follower base of Oprah and Ashton whatshisname there...2-3 million followers, each. I'm not sure what the attraction is, but, that's another matter.
What I was musing on was the life-changing power that resides there.
One casual tweet about someone needing a lift and you just know dollar bills would go flying. They could create a few new millionaires everyday, with a few mentions.
But, why would they? They only follow back a handful of people and its not as if they even man their own accounts, do they? Fans are merely the faceless beings that create celebrity wealth.
As my thought train rumbled on, I began thinking and wondering if there was anything more I could do to garner more interest in helping out our Sister, in the short term and recruiting followers for the long term @TweepleFund ministry. I reflected back on a Direct Message I had received from a Twitter friend. She had simply said: "I just don't get why more ppl aren't giving." I know that this dear lady not only gave generously, being one of the top two single contributors, but that she did so, not out of excess, but from a fixed income. She is a genuine "2 mites Christian" (Mark 12:41-44)
I answered her: "I thank God those who are, are being generous - praying to establish thousands who give $1 - will take time - Pray w/me"
While my answer was true and reasonable, the question still haunts me. Why, indeed?
In addition to my own @Gospel_Tweeter follower base, currently at 1408, I am certain that the numerous tweets and retweets have now reached thousands of eyes. "I just don't get why more ppl aren't giving." Skepticsm? Fear of being scammed for a buck or two? After all, who am I? I'm some guy with a Twitter account asking for money.
I pondered ways in which I might lend more credibility to myself.
The thought occured to me that I do have a couple or few web sites that have been online for some time now, which might demonstrate that I'm not a fly-by-night presence.
In fact, this page resides within a sub-domain of one of my original sites, REI Resource which has been around, in one form or another, for years.
As my focus became more centered on The Kingdom, I established Christian Soldiers Word of Mouth Ministries which can be reached via either of two URLs: http://christiansoldiersonline.org or http://christiansoldiers.real-estate-investors-resource.com
Christian Soldiers Online also has a related blog, (sorely in need of updating) as well as a Ning fellowship site located at http://christiansoldiersonline.ning.com
It occurs to me that I have an introductory post that tells a bit about myself at http://christiansoldiersonline.ning.com/forum/topics/about-christiansoldier
I can be reached via email at bruce@christiansoldiersonline.org with any questions, comments or concerns.
I can't stress enough the need for Tweets and ReTweets for both the immediate needs of our Sister and for the long-term goal of the @TweepleFund ministry.
You have probably seen a variety of my tweets flying by, ad nauseum. If you like, you can download the text file I grab them from at http://christiansoldiers.real-estate-investors-resource.com/tweeple_fund/docs/tweeplefund.txt
Thanks for reading all of this!
In His Service,
Bruce Macomber
Gospel_Tweeter