I’m No Superstar

I’m No Superstar is a blog for people like me who want to make a difference in the world but know they aren’t activists. Each post contains a social action idea that most of us could do, a book that’s worth reading, or a link to a website that offers other ideas. Oh, and it’s all introduced by a sometimes quirky story from my life.

Gifts That Give Hope

This year the adults in our family are giving alternative gifts for Christmas. To make it more meaningful, we are choosing a charitable gift that somehow represents the person the gift honors. It’s been fun trying to figure out what to give that says, “I understand what matters to you.” And sometimes it’s just frustrating. I

A Little Child Shall Lead Them (to Compassion)

We opened our Christmas presents from Joy while we were together in Williamsburg at Thanksgiving. Both Les and Ashlee got flannel jammy pants (I already had some). Earlier this week I bought us all new slippers with my $10 coupons for a couple of stores. It’s been so cold here this week, we’ve all changed

Back to the Everyday Whining

Okay, Thanksgiving and the parades, football and overeating are finished for most of us. Now we’re in Christmas shlepping, I mean shopping, mode. And that leads to whining when the store is out of stock on the sale item you drove there especially for. Or sarcasm when the salesperson is less than interested in helping

Picture Perfect

I’m not much of a photographer. I took some photos with my phone when I was at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico last year. Les made fun of me because most of them have my finger in them, as you can see in the photo at the right where it looks like a giant

A Victim For Life

Several weeks ago Ashlee’s Sunday school class took on the Heifer Read to Feed program. As part of the program, which raises money to buy animals for families in need, the kids were to read books and ask for donations for each book read. Heifer provided a suggested list of books that would help kids

What Do You Know?

A few weeks ago we attended a missions conference where one of the speakers was Kurt Graff. Kurt and his wife Nancy spent years in Russia and Central Asia starting churches. Now they are working with an organization that encourages young people to invest their lives in countries within the 1040 window. (If you want

I Can’t. Really?

How often do I make excuses for why I can’t do something for the world? I am easily overwhelmed by the immensity of the problems. Really, what kind of difference can I make anyway? Take the Haitian earthquake and the new cholera epidemic, for instance. I don’t have any medical skills, and I don’t do

Wandering Back Into the Light

  Debby Howell-Moroney, her husband Michael and their, at that time, small children Maddy and Ian, were part of our Delaware church while Michael was getting his PhD. They moved on to Birmingham many years ago, but we were so thankful to see them this summer when they visited the Mid-Atlantic region. Debby is a

Déjà Vu

Ever since Ashlee won the whole series of Little House on the Prairie books in her first month with us, she has been fascinated with Little House. We got the first season of the TV series and have been watching it together. Last weekend we arrived at an episode called “Plague” about the spread of

 

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