Young Christian Woman

A P U B L I C AT I O N O F O N M Y O W N N O W M I N I S T R I E S A P R 1 1

www.o n m yo w n n o w . c om

Fashionand your

future

Crazy Waysto Make Money

Eventuallyspring!

A Great Way to become a single mom*

single!

STRAIGHT TALK FROM THE PROVERBS

It’s Who You Know... Until They Find out Who You AreBy Donna Lee Schillinger

MOVING OUT ... SETTLING IN

Eventually SpringBy Kimberly Schluterman

CENTER RING Here’s a Great Way to Become a Single Mom By Donna Lee Schillinger

SPARE CHANGE

Crazy Ways to Make MoneyBy Julie Ann

FASHION DIVINA

Fashion and Your FutureBy Donna Lee Schillinger

THE RECAP

@StickyJesus and iFaithBy Sandra Heska King / Keiki Hendrix

JUST WHAT YOU NEED

Handy Dandy Disposal TipsBy Jeffrey Bridgman

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EDITOR IN CHIEFDonna Lee Schillingerwww.twitter.com/D_L_Schillinger

ART DIRECTIONDaniela Bermúdez

APR 2011

A publication of ON MY OWN NOW MINISTRIESwww.onmyownnow.com

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single! Young Christian Woman

p.8

Fridge-worthy.

“In this interesting and thought-provoking exploration of the book of Proverbs, Schillinger takes young women along a journey that will help them to make better, saf-er, and more sound decisions.”

Cheryl C. MalandrinosThe Book Connection blog

Now Available at www.onmyownnow.com,at Amazon, B&N and a library and bookstore near you.

Straight talk from the proverbs for young Christian women who want to remain pure, debt-free and regret-free.

We see high drama in the movies all the time, but in real life, big acting does not win awards.

It’s who you know

until they find out

who you are

STRAIGHT TALK by Donna Lee Schillinger

DO NOT EXALT YOURSELF IN THE KING’S PRESENCE, AND DO NOT CLAIM A PLACE AMONG GREAT MEN; IT IS BETTER FOR HIM TO SAY TO YOU, “COME UP HERE,” THAN FOR HIM TO HUMILIATE YOU BEFORE A NOBLEPERSON.

PROVERBS 25:6-7

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I used to produce a publication for an organiza-tion that had a dream of finding the perfect ex-ecutive director – or so it seemed. To that end,

they would fire one, hire another, fire that one, hire another, and so on – about once a year. It made my life difficult as I had to contend with different person-alities and agendas and orient each new director to their own publication. With each change, I started out with high hopes – maybe this will be the perfect director – maybe this is the one who will bring stabil-ity to the organization and make my life easier.

One new hire seemed particularly promising. She had a personal connection to the mission of the or-ganization and had long been actively volunteering for related causes; she was also an attorney and well connected in New York City. However, after my con-versation with her, I recall thinking to myself, “That woman doesn’t translate to Mid-America.” The mat-ter was a somewhat curt style of communication and a bad case of name dropping. But with a board that proportionately favored the Northeast, I thought maybe there were enough people who could relate to her – maybe it would work.

This director took a particular interest in the organi-zation’s publication. I think more than any other, she really saw the potential it had. She was going to get it on track, fix what was wrong. I had a lot of sugges-tions on how to go about that, having worked with it for five years, three as editor, and she told me to write up my feedback and she’d take it to her publications expert friends at Booz Allen Hamilton who were going to help the organization “pro bono,” she said, calling from the lexicon of her former profession. She added that Booz Allen (for short) was the largest some-thing or other having to do with magazines, by way of explanation, in case I didn’t know what Booz Allen was. Of course, I had heard of Booz Allen before, but I didn’t bother to mention it, just as I wouldn’t go out of my way to tell someone I knew that DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. The director also felt par-ticularly qualified to take on the task of revamping the publication because prior to going to law school a decade or two ago, she had worked for Revlon for 18 months analyzing magazines for strategic advertis-ing placement. I was happy to hear she was bringing some resourceful contacts and personal experience to the table; it would make my job easier. I was happy to hear of it, that is, the first time.

The second time, I admitted to knowing what Booz Allen was to save her the explanation – which it didn’t. The third time my eyes were rolling back in my head. And the fourth time she paraded her Booz Allen friends and Revlon experience, I just wanted to say, “Alright already! I get it! Can we get to work now?”

Booz Allen and Revlon weren’t the only names the di-rector dropped. It seemed she had a name for every occasion. None were too impressive – wasn’t like she was weekending with the Kennedys or lunching with Giuliani. I concluded that name dropping in New York City must be a lot more important than it is in Arkan-sas.

Seems I was wrong. Before that meeting with the Booz Allen consultants ever happened, before we moved off of “start” on her ambitious quest to revamp the magazine, the board decided that she was not the perfect director. It didn’t take them very long at all – about three months. Big-name company she used to work for and the large corporation consultants who were willing to work for free were not reason enough to keep her on. To be fair, she seemed to be a hard worker and I believe she was let go because she didn’t share the board’s vision for the organization. She had different priorities and tried to advance them with her own people. She wasn’t hearing what the “king,” in this case the board of directors, was trying to tell her. In fact, she once so infuriated a board member that the lady hung up on us! It occurred to me that day that she was a bit confused about how the hier-archy in an organization works. She had put herself in the position of trying to lead the board. Many or-ganizations with weak boards do function this way. However, the correct relationship of an executive di-rector to a board is one of advising and assisting – it’s a subordinate position. The fact that they hire and fire the director is the first clue.

A little bit of knowledge and a few good contacts can be dangerous if we allow them to inflate our ego, and particularly in the presence of a person or persons with true authority. Do we think they arrived at their station in life without impressive experiences and getting to know a few important people?

Trying to impress people with who and what you know is a temptation that results from low self-esteem. People don’t care in the end anyway. What they really want to know is who you are. If you are a person of strong character, you don’t need to drop names, places or experiences to be respected by oth-er people of strong character. Don’t think your strong character should garner you the seat next to the king either. Humility from the beginning is a great policy to avoid humility in the end.

HOLD THIS THOUGHT:It ’s not who you know, it ’s who you are.

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eventuallyspring

MOVING OUTby Kimberly Schluterman

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Well, it’s that time of year again. After a re-cord-bustingly cold winter, during which my town was colder than the South Pole for at

least one night (and Single! editor Donna was hap-pily in sub-tropical Brazil for its 70-degree summer), spring has finally arrived. I hate the winter. I hate all the bare trees, the grayness of the bark and the air and the ground. I hate being able to see my breath. I hate having to cover my arms and legs as if the air itself is somehow toxic to them. Why can’t I just go outside, let my body absorb a little of the sun’s magi-cal Vitamin D-producing properties, and embrace the beautiful world around me? But that’s not what win-ter is. Winter is when everything is dead. Errrg.

One of my most favoritest conversations I’ve ever had with my husband was a couple years ago, when I asked him one cold day, “Do you think it’ll ever be warm again? I really hate to be so cold. ” I’ll never for-get his simple yet profound reply: “I assume there will eventually be spring.” It made me think of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when, in the years be-fore Aslan came to Narnia, it was always winter but never Christmas.

But now it’s finally spring, just as my wise husband predicted. The daffodils are blooming, the irises are peeking up, the tulips are thinking about it, and all the trees have the tiniest little buds on them. The air is fresh and warm, ready to greet my occasionally ex-posed arms and toes. I guess that’s the thing about the non-Narnian spring: no matter how long it takes to get here, you know it will eventually come. It’s a guarantee that unless the rapture happens, there will eventually be spring

That’s how life is too. Life has seasons apart from na-ture’s seasons. Sometimes it’s a little rough and you experience seasons that are hard to understand. Just as the animals head south and the flowers retreat, sometimes it feels like all the good and wonderful things have bailed on us. A friend of ours is having a really hard time right now as his wife of three years, and the mother of his child, has recently left him. Judging by his Facebook posts, his heart is stuck in the pre-Aslan Narnia and he has no hope that spring or Christmas will ever come again. But even though he can’t see it right now, there will eventually be spring for him too.

As Relient K reminds us in the lyrics of their song “In Like a Lion (Always Winter),” the deep hope within us is what will sustain and keep our hearts warm in the midst of the ice and snow.

The coming of spring seems a fitting time to an-nounce my life-changing plans I mentioned a couple months back. I am happy to report that I am no longer a working girl and am once again a college student! Weird, right? I know. Weirder still is what I picked to major in. I used to make fun of business majors, but now I am one. I should graduate in about two years with a B.S.B.A. in accounting, and then maybe I can get a real job. Maybe in that job, winter won’t come out of season. Man, am I glad that spring is here.

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CENTER RINGby Donna Lee Schillinger

single mom

Here’s a great way to become a

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Being a single mother isn’t easy—especially if you’re just 22 years old. Now imagine be-ing the single mother of 14 children at that

age. Seems impossible, but “with God all things are possible.” But wait, how could it be God’s doing for a 22-year-young woman to be a 14-time single mother?

Meet Katie Davis, mother of 14. When Katie was a junior in high school, she went with her mother to Uganda to serve a couple of weeks at an orphanage (OK, you guessed it!). She was immediately captivat-ed with the people and the culture. After graduating high school, she went back to teach Kindergarten at an orphanage. As she walked the children home, she was shocked to see the sheer number of school-aged children sitting idly on the side of the road or working in the fields. She learned there were very few govern-ment-run public schools in Uganda, and none in the area where she was working. Most schools in Uganda are privately run and therefore require school fees for attendance, making impoverished children unable to afford an education.

God laid it on Katie’s heart to start a child sponsor-ship program, matching orphaned and vulnerable children who are unable to afford schooling with sponsors anywhere in the world. She didn’t go in-tending to start the non-profit organization Amazima (which means “truth” in Luganda), she was just re-sponding to God’s call on her life. She saw needs, she wrote friends and family, she blogged, and as friends began to give financially, the ministry emerged. Since that time Amazima has grown exponentially, serving through sponsorship, community outreach, medical care, discipleship training, and vocational projects. In her post as executive director (not bad for a 22-year-old single mom), she continues to look at the needs around her as she lives in Uganda, building relation-ships and problem-solving, working alongside a team of nationals, and trusting the Holy Spirit to guide her in Amazima’s outreach.

In three short years, Amazima has developed the fol-lowing ministries:

EDUCATION SPONSORSHIP:

Currently, Amazima sends approximately 400 or-phaned and vulnerable children to a Christian school through an education sponsorship program. These children receive three meals a day, school supplies, medical care, and spiritual discipleship.

MASESE OUTREACH:

Amazima feeds lunch to over 1,600 displaced chil-dren in the slum community of Masese every Mon-day through Friday. A majority of these children are from the Karimojong tribe. The people who live in Masese are the poorest of the poor. Providing lunch keeps many of the children from begging on the streets. With Amazima’s help, some of them also at-tend school free of charge and all of them receive free medical treatment. Once a week Amazima also sends food home to their families.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH:

Amazima hosts Bible studies, worship services, meals, health training, and gardening at the Amazima chapel and fellowship site. In the slum community of Masese, Amazima offers a free clinic where basic hy-giene education and HIV counseling is offered once a week. It also has a preschool where the children get a jump on early childhood education as well as receive nutritious food.

VOCATIONAL PROJECTS:

Amazima partners with the local Ugandans, imple-menting self-sustaining vocational programs so the people can have the joy of providing for their own families. In one such initiative, women from the Kari-mojong tribe make Ugandan bead necklaces and sell them in the United States.

DISCIPLESHIP:

Amazima fosters spiritual growth activities and Bible studies in six villages.

And in 2011, Amazima plans to open its own school in Uganda.

OK, so who’s tired just reading this? Building a non-profit of this scope seems like it would be all a per-son could do in three years, but right alongside the organization, Katie was building her own family as well. Katie became a mother for the first time in Janu-ary 2008 when she adopted three orphaned girls. “If you’ve never considered the miracle of adoption, I would highly recommend it,” Katie says. Now she is mother to 14 daughters ranging in age from two to 15. And in 2010, she did the unthinkable for most moms—she started homeschooling!

“My family is all things unconventional. But it is real. Real because God has knit our hearts together in a way that only He can and real because no matter what else anyone says, or thinks, I am their Mommy and they are mine.”

“People tell me I am brave. People tell me I am strong. People tell me ‘good job.’ Well, here is the truth of it. I am really not that brave, I am not really that strong, and I am not doing anything spectacular. I am just do-ing what God called me to do as a follower of Him. Feed His sheep, do unto the least of His people.”

Fourteen mouths to feed at home and a couple of thousand more in the neighborhood is a heck of a lot of sheep to feed. “It can be overwhelming (at times) knowing that so many children rely on us for food ev-ery day. But we love to see the joy in their faces as they receive food for their bodies and food for their spiritual hearts. God is always faithful,” says Katie.

It’s not all joy on faces, however. In the stark reality of underdeveloped Uganda, Katie has born witness to starvation, untimely deaths, the injustices of the lives of children with disabilities (who in that culture are deemed cursed) and the effects of corruption. The latter she felt acutely when one of her own heart daughters was taken away from her. Katie’s blog, Kisses from Katie (see excerpts below), is rich with real-life joys and heartbreaks and is wonderfully illus-trated with the faces she has come to love.

“Sometimes God gives me these assignments and I wonder if He knows what He is doing. Shouldn’t He choose someone older, or at least wiser? Someone smarter or more patient or… something? But I offer

all that I have to the greatness of His plan,” Katie re-marks, alluding to Amy Grant’s “Breath of Heaven.”

Katie is an amazing example of the impact that one person surrendered to God’s will can make. If you’re thinking, “I could never do that,” I challenge you to contemplate why not. If we are honest with ourselves, we may find that the reasons could also serve as a checklist of aspects of our lives we don’t trust God to handle, or things we have not yet surrendered to God’s will. What might God be able to do in each of our lives if we were ready to surrender our career, plans for family and marriage, “me time,” our com-fortable environs and every last cent in our pocket-book to Him?

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“My family is all things unconventional. But it is real. Real because God has knit our hearts together in a way that only He can and real because no matter what else anyone says, or thinks, I am their Mommy and they are mine.”

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BLOG EXCERPT

My darling Karimojong sister Maria, who is battling severe, gripping alcoholism, and her sweet baby are living with us still. People wonder, even gasp, that I would let her join us at our table. Isn’t she a poor ex-ample? Why would I subject my girls to that?

i want to see jesus.

Newborn baby Noah snuggles to my chest as his mother lays dying in a hospital bed. He cried through the night and I feed him and kiss his pink toes and pray over his little life. Why do I do it? Don’t I have my hands full enough already?

I want to see Jesus.

Zulaika, her severely malnourished baby and her 8 year old daughter move into our home while we teach Zulaika how to care for her children and find her a job so she can continue to do so. They have lice. They do not bathe. Fear creeps up the back of my throat and I wonder, what if all my children get sick? But we have taken in sick people before, and each time He hedges us in protection. People ask, do I feel that I am being responsible?

I want to see Jesus.

Jane and her birth mom spend the weekend in our guest room. I figure if I cannot parent this my daugh-ter, the least I can do is teach her mother about our Savior, invest time in their lives, pray over them while we love them. My heart breaks in two as her high pitched, breathy giggle once more fills my home and the pain threatens to paralyze me, but I won’t let it.

I want to see Jesus.

Strangers eat at our table, bathe in our showers, sleep in our beds, share our everything. And I fleetingly wonder if it wouldn’t be better for my girls if I main-tained some semblance of normal, but He shows me that HIS definition of family is not at all limited by my own.

I want to see Jesus.

I want to see Jesus and if I don’t step out, how can He come in? If I don’t give all of myself, my home, even my family, how will He be magnified?

“People tell me I am brave. People tell me I am strong. People tell me ‘good job.’ Well, here is the truth of it. I am really not that brave, I am not really that strong, and I am not doing anything spectacular. I am just doing what God called me to do as a follower of Him. Feed His sheep, do unto the least of His people.”

Text and images from Amazima.org and Katie’s Blog are used with permission of Amazima Ministries.

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SPARE CHANGEby Julie Ann

CRAZYWAYS

to make money

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In Spare Change we are always discussing ways to save money, but this month I thought we would shift gears a little and talk about making money.

Oh, but I’m not talking about making money at bor-ing 8-to-5 cubicle jobs, taking orders at Applebee’s or folding clothes at Forever 21 in the mall. I’m tak-ing about the crazy ways people make money and the jobs that make you say, “You get paid to do what?!” I asked my friends and family to share some of the craziest ways they made money or the weirdest jobs they’ve ever had and I got some pretty funny respons-es that prove that when you need to get the rent paid, nothing is too lowly.

Children can sometimes come up with some pretty funny money-making schemes since gainful employ-ment opportunities are few and far between. For example, my great-aunt Patty decided that she had hatched the perfect money-making scheme when she was eight years old. She carefully picked the prettiest flowers from yards within her neighborhood. She then put the flowers into bouquets and went door-to-door selling them to the very same neighbors whose yards she had plucked them from!

Of course during college is often when the weird jobs and money-making schemes are at their height. For two summers during college, I sat at a scanner for eight hours a day, five days a week pulling photo-graphs of New Mexico prairie chicken habitats out of folders, scanning them into a digital format, and put-ting them back in the folder. Try making that sound impressive on a resume! I do consider myself a prairie chicken habitat specialist now.

My friend Rebekah faired only slightly better. Dur-ing her undergrad, she recorded herself reading text books onto cassette tapes for the visually impaired.

“My favorite books were a medical terminology book and a book on refrigeration repairs,” she said. “I think I even fell asleep while reading once.”

Not even Donna, our fearless editor at Single!, was ex-empt from crazy money-making schemes during her college days. In need of a little extra cash she stum-bled across an advertisement for a personal products company asking for guinea pigs to test products. The company put 20 dabs of product on 20 different band aids across her back and after two days (with no showering) they removed the band aids and looked for irritated skin. She earned $25 for her efforts.

Oh and if you think the crazy jobs will end after col-lege and you can get a “real” job – think again. For example, after graduating college, my friend Laura found herself cleaning hotel rooms. She eventually found a job in her field, but you can bet she felt pretty frustrated making beds and cleaning toilets with a college degree. I found myself working at Hallmark and then as a paid church nursery worker for a while after graduation. I needed my brand spankin’ new journalism degree for neither.

Yup, crazy jobs are out there just waiting at every stage of life. Just ask Leah, who sewed corners onto waterbed sheets, or Stephanie who sold hotdogs, nachos and soft drinks one summer outside a home improvement store, or Jeff who got to be the guy to dress up as Popeye at Popeye’s Fried Chicken.

Of course, if you ask my Aunt Jeanene she will tell you that she once had a job that was “da bomb.” Liter-ally. She worked in a dynamite factory.

So if you have a wacky job, are submitting yourself to medical tests for cash, or are the person in the gi-ant panda suit waving to passing traffic, know that you aren’t alone. We’ve all done some crazy things to make money and aside from keeping us in food and clothing, they give us something to laugh at and great stories to tell our grandchildren.

I do consider myself a prairie chicken habitat specialist now.

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fashionand your future

I’m filling in this month for our regular fashion diva, and I need to make one thing clear: I don’t have good fashion sense. In fact, I look best when someone else has picked out my clothes. But I am a great resource person, so that’s what I want to hone in on this month:

resources for those who think they might have fashion in their future… as a career, that is.

First of all, you must know that the fashion industry is huge and is not going away. Talk about job security—it provides a basic need for humanity: clothing! Secondly, don’t let it intimidate you. If you sometimes daydream about working in the fashion industry but don’t actually believe it is within your grasp, you just need a better understanding of what the fashion industry is. I’ve already admitted I’m clueless with clothing, and yet I worked in the fashion industry for more than three years for top names in fashion, such as Bloomingdale’s. Breaking into the fashion industry is incredibly simple; it is rising to the top where you would determine what hits the run-way in Paris, or being one of the models on the runway, that is incredibly difficult. Your fashion daydreams can be a reality, if you just keep them realistic!

FASHION DIVINAby Donna Lee Schillinger

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As you flip through the pages of a magazine or admire an outfit on television, you probably don’t grasp the immensity of the machine that is the fashion indus-try. It is everything from the seamstress in an Indian sweatshop to the graphic designer who creates the mail order catalog, with designers, business manag-ers, retailers, photographers and models in between. And we’re not even taking into consideration all the supporting industries, such as import/export, tex-tiles, dyes and warehousing! There are so incredibly many types of jobs that relate to the end result – the purchase of a piece of clothing or accessory – if you want one, you can have one. But where to start?

If you are at a crossroads and prime to dive into a fash-ion career, then get up to speed quickly with a book like In Fashion: From Runway to Retail, Everything You Need to Know to Break Into the Fashion Industry. Af-ter a weekend of reading, if your heart jumps when you open the closet, you need to take the next step, which, depending on your present level of education and experience, could mean taking a class or starting a degree program, getting an internship in the fashion industry, or getting an entry-level fashion job that will serve as a stepping stone to later greatness. All three of these steps require little to no prior experience with fashion. Your enthusiasm for a career in fashion should be enough to get you in the door.

FashionCareerCenter.com lists some dedicated fash-ion schools (but misses some pretty important ones too, like Savannah College of Art and Design), but there are many more options for studying fashion, probably including your local community college or university. Find an internship in fashion in metropoli-tan areas at FreeFashionInternships.com. For a small investment of $1.99, you can also have access to the FashionJobsToday.com database of internship and job opportunities for four days. However, if you live outside of a large metropolitan area or don’t want to relocate to a fashion mecca, you will need to be re-sourceful in finding a fashion internship near home. Check with professors of fashion classes at local community colleges and universities for ideas. Visit the Web pages of national chains that are in your area and look for internship opportunities. If you see some listings, but they are not in your area, call the local presence of that company and pitch them an intern-ship idea that another branch in the company has available. Read more tips on creating an internship where the hasn’t been one before.

If you have bills to pay, then it’s going to be an entry-level fashion job for you. One of the easiest to get is the position of sales clerk in a retail clothing chain. Go for a job in a large national chain and be the best darn clerk they have seen in a long time. Even though folding sweaters and cleaning out fitting rooms may not seem like a step to fashion-industry fame, a lot of higher-ups started out just this way. Don’t wait to be

approached for a promotion either. Check the com-pany’s Web site for more openings in other stores or even in headquarters. If you don’t sense that promo-tion from within is going to be an option, start work-ing one of these other schemes for folks who are not at a crossroads and have bills to pay, but keep this ex-perience, which is a good start for any fashion career.

If you currently have a job that is not fashion-related, start looking for a job that is fashion-related that re-quires some of your same skills and experience. Just about any position you hold now can be the build-ing blocks for a job in fashion. For example: Are you a teacher? Redirect to home economics, then pitch the school administration a class on fashion. Are you a hotel chamber maid? Start vacuuming the floors of Dillard’s or Lord and Taylor. Many large corpora-tions such as these have “promote from within first” policies, which would make it easier for you to get a clerk job if you’re already cleaning their toilets than if you just came off the street with only chambermaid experience. Are you a bank teller? Look for business administration orz accounting jobs at places like Rag-TradeJobs.com. In fact, check out their categories and subcategories in the search feature to get ideas on how your current job could be redirected into the fashion industry.

If getting a new job isn’t happening, try adding a part-time job in fashion. And if you can’t stomach yet another J-O-B, create your own place in the fashion world by starting a small endeavor related to fashion. With nothing more than Internet access, you could start your own fashion blog. It’s more likely to take off if it’s specialized, like these unique blogs: I Am Fash-ion, My Lovely Big Feet, and Steel This Dress. Inter-ested more in design? Then just do it! Start designing your own clothes. Don’t sew? Connect with a seam-stress through the local sewing machine repair or fabric shop and have her bring your concepts to life. Wear them and toot your own horn. If you’re good, it won’t be long before you’re designing for others. How about breaking into supplying fabrics for other local and regional personal designers? Getting into busi-ness is as simple as filing a “Doing Business As” form at your county clerk’s office. Then read up on how to import the exotic from lands far away.

Yea, it all takes effort. A career in fashion is rarely as easy as being discovered as you walk through the mall. But it is very doable, so the question is then: How badly do you want it? If you dream tonight of beads and baubles, it’s time to take the first step in a journey of a thousand miles.

If you currently have a job that is not fashion-related, start looking for one that is.

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“More people will log on to blogs, Facebook, and Twitter this Sunday than will go to church.”

@stickyJesus

My blog is not quite 3 months old. I’ve had visits from 44 countries and 48 states. (Where are you Vermont and New Hampshire?) I’m just a pinhead in “the Land of Shiny Things.” I had no illusion that anyone (except maybe my mother and sister) would be interested in anything I have to say.

I did not fully grasp the fact when I began to “book” and tweet and blog that I would be a “digital scribe.”

I did not realize the potential snowball effect of a sin-gle post or tweet.

I had never heard the word “sticky” used in a context other than those such as dried orange juice on my kitchen floor or hair matted with gum.

And now Tami and Toni present a field guide for Christ followers in @stickyJesus: How To Live Out Your Faith Online, for those of us who want to be online light shedders and dark shredders using social media to share our stories and offer hope to those who hurt. For those of us who seek and share. For those of us who long to share the stickiest of messages.

This book drips Jesus and challenges us to stick to Him as we build and interact with our online com-munity. Tami and Toni call their chapters “files” and summarize each in a “download” and end with an “upload” prayer. They include stories of real people making a difference online for real people. They pro-vide hints and helps for dummies and geeks in an easy-to-read, hard-to-put-down format.

“This book is for every Christ follower residing on this side of heaven. It’s for those who realize–and those who have yet to understand–the awesome moment into which we’ve been born. It’s for technology novices, casual surf-ers, and those already folded comfortably into the online world. Wherever you are in your skill level, it’s time to direct your heart toward the sticky things of God.”

@sticky Jesus

The ends of the earth sit at our fingertips. And we are here for such a time as this. Do you want to make a difference for Jesus as a “digital scribe?” Get. This. Book. And check out the @stickyJesus website.

THE / RECAP

@stickyjesusby Tami Heim and Toni Birdsong

Review by

Sandra Heska King

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Daniel Darling has his finger on the pulse of today’s technology. In his newest book, iFaith: Connecting with God in the 21st Century, he speaks to the “card carrying members of the instant generation” among us with sound biblical advice on the basics of Chris-tianity.

In iFaith, Dan Darling uses the language of social media and delivers sound, biblical truth on a variety of subjects such as waiting on God (Chapter One: Read Receipt), being angry with God (Chapter Three: Prayer in ALL CAPS), and my personal favorite be-cause it includes advice on social behavior in a digital world (Chapter Ten: Friend Me.)

There are several witty illustrations throughout the book, some public and some personal. All are on-point. Scattered throughout are select Bible verses (ESV, NLT, and KJV) and quotes from some of my favorite authors like Josh Harris, E. M. Bounds, Ray Prichard, and Oswald Chambers. The writing is wit-ty, genuine and honest.

Because each of the ten chapters end with a list of discussion questions and a resource list, this book is ideal for a youth or young adult bible study group. The timeless truths presented in the book would make it perfect for any Church library. I recommend it highly.

We’re a generation raised on instant: Instant formula. Disposable diapers. Satellite TV. GPS navigation. Online check-in. Automatic everything. We’re always plugged in and wired. We’re accustomed to having answers at the snap of our fingers. We’re used to being in control.

How does this affect our communication with God? This is the question iFaith seeks to answer. What has life at warp speed done to our souls? Has faith been replaced with a false sense of security? Has the digital and technological revolution made us more impatient with the God who delights in making His people wait?

THE / RECAP

iFaith:Connecting with God in the 21st Century

by Daniel Darling

Review by

Keiki Hendrix

These are among the many Christian book reviews available at The Vessel Project. Reviews used with permission.

18

JUST WHAT YOU NEEDby Jeffrey Bridgman

Danger, warning, corrosive, flammable, irri-tant, hazardous, poison, explosive, harmful, and yet, right under your sink or in your ga-

rage. You’d be surprised how many household items have those words on them. From leftover paint to used cooking oil, and all kinds of batteries in between, there is just a whole lot of trash you can’t throw in the can. Okay, you can, but it’s neither legal, ethical nor moral to do so if you know to do otherwise. You don’t have to be a tree-hugger to do right by your garbage. Here are some common sense tips that can keep the harmful impact of our modern chemistry at a mini-mum.

THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU BUY.

Maybe you don’t really need a high-powered chemi-cal; can you get the job done with a little more elbow grease? Or maybe a less “powerful” product, like soap or laundry detergent? If the answer is no, pur-chase the smallest amount of product that will do the job. Here’s one time when paying for 12 ounces and getting 16 is not a great idea… if you only need two ounces. Also check to see if there is a formula that is less toxic. Lots of companies are becoming environ-mentally responsible and cutting down or altogether out on their use of the worst still-legal pollutants.

MAKE IT GOOD TO THE LAST DROP.

If you do buy, making sure you use all the product be-fore throwing it away helps keep harmful ingredients away from the environment. Give it some thought; it’s not the packaging that’s a hazmat, it’s what’s inside. The residue of harmful chemicals won’t do as much harm as a partial or full bottle would. If you find your-self stuck with a product you really only needed for one occasion, try taking it to church to give away, of-fering it to a neighbor, or if it’s not prohibited by law in your state, selling it at a garage sale for a quarter.

GET READY TO HURL.

There are some things we can do to prepare chemi-cals for disposal. For example, certain glues and paints become safe if you let them dry out first. Ex-amine labels for how to properly dispose of the prod-uct. It’s a boring read, but it’s the responsible thing to do. Some items can be returned to the store when you are done. For example, when you buy a new car battery, they normally recycle the old one for you. And did you know that you can take old rechargeable batteries to Radio Shack, or old printer cartridges to Staples? Find a recycling center and inquire if they have a household hazardous waste (HHW) disposal day. A student organization I’m in hosts an electronic waste disposal day twice a year on our campus. Your area may have similar events. Log on to Earth911.com, type in what you’d like to recycle, and your ZIP code to find a nearby location. For batteries and cell phones, check out www.call2recycle.org. Just enter your ZIP code to find a nearby recycling location.

The City of Phoenix has an excellent guide on how to properly dispose of various household products, explanations of why they are dangerous, and recom-mendations of nontoxic alternatives. And what about alternatives? Grandparents can serve as an excellent resource for this sort of thing. Ask them what they used before modern cleaning products. You can clean a lot with simple solutions using cheap and readily available ingredients like baking soda, salt, vinegar and borax (yes, you can buy borax at the grocery store!). The Sierra Club has a downloadable pam-phlet with some simple recipes and uses.

Handy Dandy Disposal Tips