“Osaka Castle & Halftecture” photo by hiromitsu morimoto (creative commons) via flickr

two and half of my lifetimes ago, japan didn’t play well with her neighbors, especially korea and china. she’s still having a hard time owning up to her bullying and such. that japan hasn’t gotten around to fully apologizing for its wrongdoings — or even recognizing them as such — isn’t a surprise; it’s become the awkward part of the dance that is korea-japan relations.

so last night when i saw on the korean news ticker that the mayor of osaka said that the “conscription of comfort women” or really, the trafficking of women for the purposes of sexual exploitation, was necessary for discipline, i first thought, “another item added to the laundry list of ‘stupid things people say’”. then i read the new york times article on the mayor’s statements.

there’s plenty of anger towards the denial of the truth, and this gives me hope in the future:

“The comfort women system was not necessary,” said Banri Kaieda, president of the opposition Democratic Party. That Japan was the clear aggressor in war “is a fact we must face up to,” he said.

the latter part of the article is what really stupefied and enraged me, so much so that i reacted in korean — “어머, 말도 안돼”:

Mr. Hashimoto also said Monday that he had told a senior American military official at the Marine Corps base in Okinawa that United States soldiers should make more use of the local adult entertainment industry to reduce sexual crimes against local women.

“We can’t control the sexual energy of these brave marines,” Mr. Hashimoto said he had told the American officer, whom he did not identify, on a recent visit there. “They must make more use of adult entertainers.”

is this man for real?

firstly, if i were a male marine, nay, even just male, i’d be insulted.

a man who applies himself to discipline in order to be marked as one of “the few, the proud”, would be miffed at the notion that he can’t exercise self-control over his libido — am i just speaking for myself and projecting?

am i the only one who would expect any man, but especially one who joined what arguably would be the most storied, elite branch of the american military, the one that claims a monopoly on honor, has the character and integrity to conduct himself in a befitting manner?

how would i reconcile being called “brave” and associated with the branch of the armed forces that markets themselves by saying they “don’t accept applications, only commitments”, only to be considered by the mayor to be nothing more than a brute with a guns, a walking blob of id trained in combat?

no thanks, mr. mayor.

secondly, the notion of proffering commercial sexual exploitation to reduce sexual crime? ridiculous, so much so that my head is nearly spinning.

let’s just suppose that the local adult industry is regulated as it might be in, say, amsterdam, or las vegas. the industry in those cities aren’t immune to trafficking — in fact, the industry in these places are fueled by and fuel trafficking.

and, do these cities enjoy a reduction in sexual crime? because this a rant, a very extemporaneous one, i haven’t done any preliminary research, but i’d bet that at least the reported rate in sexual crime remains static. the rates might be higher if one estimates the unreported incidences. and i’m asking because i don’t know — are sexual crimes higher in legally sanctioned red-light districts? is there a direct correlation/causal relationship between high rate of sex crimes and legality of “adult entertainment”?

thirdly. the cowardice of suggesting prostitution as a deterrent to sexual offenses. wow. is being mayor in japan a mostly ceremonial position? does not your title afford you with authority?

i grant that i’m ignorant on matters relating to military criminal justice and int’l law. i mean, is there really no recourse for charging and punishing foreign military with crimes committed in your city?

do american soldiers enjoy the kind of immunity that diplomats enjoy — is that the part i’m missing? like johnnie cochran would’ve said were he a prosecutor, “if you do the crime, you do the time” — does your justice system not work that way? the navy has jag officers that are posted overseas, doesn’t it? don’t some of them function as their defense attorneys and such, or don’t they?

i wish i weren’t so baffled by this so that i can think of an analogy to illustrate the ridiculousness of this. is this not what is meant when people talk of robbing peter to pay paul?

this guy. this shit.

now that i’ve been sufficiently riled up, time to get on with my lsat studying, which i hope lands me in a school that will help address the ignorances revealed in the writing of this rant, and give structure and utility to this otherwise hapless indignation.

i proceeded to read the article and the following graf made my jaw drop:

It reported $158 million in real estate revenue for 2011, the majority of which went toward maintaining and supporting its real estate operations, the financial statement indicates. Of the $38 million left for the church’s operating budget, some $4 million was spent on communications, $3 million on philanthropic grant spending and $2.5 million on the church’s music program, church officials said. Nearly $6 million went to maintain Trinity’s historic properties, including the main church building, which was built in 1846; St. Paul’s Chapel; and several cemeteries, where luminaries including Alexander Hamilton and Edward I. Koch are buried. The remainder went into the church’s equity investment portfolio.

holy mother of pearl.

• are tithes and offerings considered part of a church’s assets?
• f’reals, $158 million only from real estate revenue?
• so $2 billion minus $158 million equals…?
• are there multiple parishes? how many parishioners? is the vestry, described in the article as “an august collection of corporate executives and philanthropists”, representative of the demographics of the parishioners?

i had skimmed the article again in the process of jotting these thoughts down and this part caught my attention again:

Some details are not included on the form, church officials said, like Mr. Cooper’s $475,000 annual salary — which rises to a total compensation of $1.3 million when his pension and the estimated cost of his residence in a $5.5 million, church-owned SoHo town house are added. For at least some of the defecting vestrymen — who complained Mr. Cooper was circumventing them in decision-making, subverting a review of his leadership and de-emphasizing religious education and philanthropy while obsessing about reconstructing the church’s administrative headquarters at 74 Trinity Place — those numbers rankle.

Mr. Cooper said he believed the church had the right balance between ministry, charity and its real estate business.

• forget law school, get me to the seminary. (kidding! mostly.)
• i don’t object to the multiplication of resources through smart investment at all and am in fact glad that this part of the body of Christ is stewarding the gift of financial savvy (see: the parable of the talents). what i find questionable is the amount of the resources being allocated to giving compared to operations and investment.
• would not “the right balance” between the three categories of expenditure/whatever have the money divided equally? or is that just me taking the word “balance” literally?
• speaking of the word, to pull a slight Jesus juke here, i find it challenging to imagine Jesus divvying up himself like this congregation here. i’d go out on a limb and say that he’d give away — charity, as it were, or charitable outreach, like microfinance or empowerment programs (y’know, not just handouts but restoring/edifying the imago dei and all) — a disproportionate amount of the assets. i think there’s definitely disproportion with trinity’s numbers, but i daresay it’s not a Christ-like disproportion.
• i haven’t even visited the building and i feel riled up; i think i’m getting a lick of the saltiness of the situation. that a parishioner felt that he had to resort to litigation, that this disagreement dissolved into dissension that must now look outwards for some kind of damage control. this must grieve God.
• i am thankful that trinity has been giving towards charity, and it’s not been chump change: “The parish’s good fortune has become an issue in the historic congregation, which has been racked by infighting in recent years over whether the church should be spending more money to help the poor and spread the faith, in New York and around the world.” (emphasis added)
• however, still am sad at the lack of consensus to give more. “let’s not get too carried away with ourselves, now,” a plurality of parishioners may reason. i think we forget who we claim to follow. suppose he paused to do the sensible thing — we would still be left in need of rescue.
• not to advocate reckless or witless giving, mind you. those decisions, too, must be submitted before God, wrestled through the wisdom he imparts to us through the Holy Spirit. yet i wish our nature were such that we’d let our generosity run as rampant as our greed — at the personal and corporate levels.
• so, i get it, new york is an expensive place to live. given that my church hasn’t disclosed, as far as i know, each staffperson’s salary — only the total amount of the budget spent on salary — i’ll try to be as diplomatic as i can on this point… and i’m struggling. i want to avoid relegating pastors and missionaries and church-workers and missions mobilizers to living the “locusts, honey, and not even an extra tunic” lifestyle. i’m not advocating that his salary skirt as close to the poverty line as possible; in fact, if i were hard-pressed to put a number on ministry, i’d say $475,000 is a pittance. with that said, i wonder if the rector had considered taking a pay cut like a certain elected leader within the executive branch.
• this serves as an example of the church-as-business paradigm, with the rector as ceo and this saddens me. i’d love to hear stories of the rector spending his days and nights prophesying over his parish and the surrounding community — comforting, encouraging, strengthening the people — rather than strategizing about “development”.
• the church’s business ought to be the preaching of God’s Word, healing the sick, and the deliverance of evil spirits, at home and abroad, gathering believers and growing them into followers all the while. financial capital in and of itself doesn’t yield much, but financial investment into spiritual enterprises yields both natural and supernatural dividends, right?
• i get the wisdom of growing the church’s investment/asset portfolio so that there continues to be a portfolio. but i’m concerned that we (we’re all one in Christ, yes?) are putting too much weight and pressure on ourselves to provide and sustain the endowment. the professor quoted in the article said that the prosperity of the church is queen anne’s legacy — and at the outset, he’s not wrong. but we as believers and followers of Christ ought to recognize that the Father had expected as much? surely the Creator and Sovereign of the universe, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, was not surprised by this bounty.

yet i could totally see God, sitting at the edge of the throne, eagerly anticipating his children wielding the authority that the Son has shared with them. i can see him gritting his teeth as he cheers us, Christ’s co-heirs. like a coach, even, yell-whispering courtside,

“Remember, you can’t serve me and money. I meant for the money to serve you, to serve me; don’t let money rule you!”

“Remember, too, that whatever you do to the least of these, you do onto me.”

“Yet still, nothing you spend on me will ever be too extravagant. Since you’ll always have the poor among you, refer back to that last thing I just said.”

i wonder if it’s possible for God to be wistful, waiting for us not to trust in riches or investment strategy or trends in the real estate market but solely in him — his dreams and love for us — waiting for us to invite him to show off. i think just maybe God is giddy and eager to make room for him to display his glory, to reward our faith.

does he get sad watching us hedge our bets and settle for sufficient, robbing ourselves of the joy of being blown away by his abundant goodness?

maybe this is my holy dare to the vestry and rector of trinity church: i want to watch what God does when we decide to give away more than what we keep (er, invest).

On Saturday, as Mom was flipping through the channels, we got drawn into the latter half of Overboard on abc family. Legally Blonde was next and we watched the first couple of scenes.

Then Mom saw that the Masters was airing on CBS, so she switched channels; by the time I flipped back to Legally Blonde, you see an aerial shot of Cambridge, specifically Harvard, and Elle Woods is introducing herself to some of her cohorts. [I can't embed the scene so you'll have to watch it here.]

We had missed the montage of Elle studying and her video personal statement to the admissions board at this point. Mom hasn’t seen this movie, so she didn’t catch that Reese Witherspoon’s character, at this point of the film (we didn’t continue watching long enough for the arc to unfold) is, prima facie, a very unlikely candidate for admission to this top-tier law school (even back in 2001, when the film was released). She says,

So she studied hard then…

All she’s observed is that Elle Woods is a student who studied hard, ergo got into Hahvahd Lawuh. Never mind that she’s only going in pursuit of a man, though given my current marital status and age, almost anything that would help me change said status would be amenable to my parents. But that’s another rabbit trail to pursue another day.

This vignette with my Mom took place after practically having been badgered — for the 37652983475th time — by two attorneys and a law student about the perils of pursuing law school the night before. Wanting, nay needing, to go to law school in order to prepare to practice law in such a way that allows me to do more than just vigorously, indignantly (good gravy, that is a word, yes?) shake my fists while reacting to injustice seemed to pass muster with them.

It must be a truth universally acknowledged that any practicing attorney must dissuade any and every prospective law student from continuing on the path to the J.D. Their cynicism, like others’, stung initially, but I realized I need not receive it as naysaying to my pursuit. I think I detected a sliver of encouragement beneath the warning of the uphill battle I face breaking the 90th percentile on LSAT being my Everest.

And I’m quite tempted to channel the cynicism as anger towards applicants who are motivated thusly – I think I met a few of them in class I took months ago — and making it that much more difficult for those of us who are rightly motivated yet slightly lacking the wherewithal. I think, WTF, get outta my way.

Ultimately, I can’t afford to give into comparison and let it steal my joy. It’s not the vast yet dwindling number of applicants I’m up against. Or the dismal odds of landing a public interest/government attorney position if I don’t graduate from a top-tier law school. Or the vast financial expense of law school.

The powers, principalities, and the devil seeking to steal, kill and destroy are part of the opposition. But mostly, it’s on me to stop listening to other voices that are (unwittingly) psyching me out. No one else is responsible for my continued trust in, search of, and abiding with God but me.

So there’s a chance there’s some nugget o’wisdom from my mom’s summation, albeit incomplete, of this early 21st century cinematic masterpiece. Perhaps.

It’s been just over two weeks since I’ve moved forward home. I’ve been unpacking slowly and steadily. I’ve visited two churches thus far and yesterday’s sermon at the second one got my mind reeling. more on that later.

As I write this, I feel guilty for pausing from my LSAT prep — earlier today, I took inventory of the LSATs I’ve already practiced, which I’ve not yet practiced, counted the weeks ’til the test date. Yet whenever I sit down to study, I feel guilty for not writing: posts on this blog, thank you notes, letters in general, an email newsletter updating how I’ve really been since the quasi-abrupt transition.

Filed my taxes and I’m bewildered by the inverse proportion of my income to my refund, which, if I make obvious, was actually negative. I’m thankful that there were no penalties in addition to what I owed.

[Opened a tab to Facebook and news of the explosions at Boylston Street in Boston during the marathon populated my news feed. Now that is so bewildering. Why, why?]

Glad I’m around to offer feedback on brother’s cover letter.

I love being nurtured and cared for. Mom made 김치찌게 early on and Dad’s been cooking, too. His skills are solid, but we found out that one 반찬 he prepared was no bueno for my estomago. Note to self: record name of culprit plant.

I’ve yet to take the opportunity to prepare a meal for my parents but for now I’m enjoying this side “regression”. I’m also enjoying the choice not to drive to places; usually during the week, I study at Starbucks. There are two nearby, both walking distance; ironically, the one in Great Neck is much closer to me than the one in Little Neck.

Fitting in the exercise is a great excuse for me not to drive and walk instead. Having to find parking and avoiding parallel parking are also my excuses for using public transportation to get into Manhattan. I wish the LIRR had discounted monthly tickets for underemployed/not-quite-students.

I really need to break this late night sleep cycle.

I think this weekend’s trip to northern Virginia comes just at the right time. I think I’ve made my choice but the aforementioned sermon has me taking pause about making it my “final answer.” The message also reminded me of life on Springvale Road. That was a sweet season that I’m grateful that it happened and can’t be taken away.

I am excited but patiently so for this new season I’m dipping my toes into, I’m trying to enter it with as few expectations as possible save for trusting in God’s faithfulness and that though it’ll take on a different flavor of His goodness.

Anyhow. I‘ve spent more time on this postgot more distracted than I intended.

The one thing I wanted to touch on: my One Word for 2013 [drumroll]:

confluence

I’ll elaborate more post-LSAT. I’ve asked a friend to guest post here so I’m looking forward to sharing that when it’s ready, but for now, I am liberating myself from the guilt of not-blogging. I am renouncing the lie that I have to write down every thought I have rightnow.

I am beginning to make a habit of keeping a notebook handy or using Evernote on my phone to scribble down (or “capture”) the moments that surround, the thoughts that fill.

Speaking of words, thanks Jane for coordinating and everyone who populated my card box; they’ve been my heart’s reinforcement.

Ciao luego, y’all.

P.S. All four of us gathering around the table for dinner tonight: no small blessing.

P.P.S. Grateful for DVR. I never did resume studying tonight so I proceeded to watch this week’s episode of Call the Midwife. Dad appreciates the styling of the era (post WWII, London). I think I’d rather like to dress that way, too — there ought to be a way to adopt that style without it being costume-y, right? Also that show never fails to beckon me to consider a career in nurse midwifery…

P.P.P.S. And to seal the deal of the unlikelihood of me studying: watched two episodes of two Korean dramas with my parents.

thank God for pinterest.

i’m not good at goodbyes; actually, i’m quite awful at ‘em, and i’m going to blame that on the world race.

between applying and departing for the race, a year elapsed, months full of anticipation, planning, prayer, preparation, uncertainty, and wonder at the great unknown. it took me a year to prepare to travel the world as a missionary for a year.

my life then was an inverted variation of the parable of the prodigal son. here i am today, almost five years later, living the latter part of the inverted variation of the prodigal story.

you see, a couple months ago, i resigned from the job i thought would tide me over ’til law school and my last day was friday.

in four days, i’m moving out of dc+nova back to nyc.

here’s a quasi-tangential excerpt from one of my favorite films, a few good men, written by aaron sorkin (copy+pasted from this here website):

KAFFEE [to JESSUP]:
…You were leaving for one day and you packed a bag and made three phone calls. Santiago was leaving for the rest of his life, and he hadn’t called a soul and he hadn’t packed a thing…

earlier this month, i agonized for a week in deciding to uproot myself from a place and people i had been grafted into for over a decade. unlike santiago,

• i know i’m coming back at least twice in the next three months
• i told a handful of folks and emailed 200+ people of the news
• i’ve donated/lent some of my bigger ticket items and right after i publish this post, i’ll proceed with sifting through and organizing personal paperwork stuffs.

for better or worse, my departure from the dmv (dc/md/va) will feel like tearing off a bandage. the next few days: packing, laundering, with coffee/lunch/dinner dates interspersed.

i apologize to those who are just finding out through this blogpost by way of social media and are shocked by the turn of events. i myself am still reeling, even if mostly internally. i’m betting by my third or fourth day home, i’ll fully implode. i hope can channel that energy into regrouping for the lsat and applying for law school… i mean, properly grieve this beautiful season and gracefully transition into this new beautiful season.

i thought i would exit ninja-like, figuring my absence would go unnoticed for a little while so i’ve been quite amazed by the shock i was met with when told/confirmed the news with a few people at church yesterday.

i’ve been meaning to extrapolate on how i inversely identify with the parable of the younger (prodigal, lost) son but in typical world race fashion, i’ve already procrastinated the odious, tedious work of packing for longer than i’d intended — more for fear of the collateral catharsis than the task itself.

if you aren’t subscribed for my emails and would like to be, you can sign up on the bottom of the page; i’ll also send you the previously sent emails. and if i don’t see you before i move out, let’s meet during future visits.

when sal pal invited me to guest post on his blog, i immediately accepted, ’cause that’s what the cool kids do.

then he gave me a topic — community — and i froze. i didn’t finish the post until earlier this week and i attribute most of the delay to work & lsat-prep. also, i had no idea what i would say on the subject that hadn’t been said and/or match my fellow contributors’ brilliance. 

this experience reminds me when i took forensics sophomore year of high school and my teammate and i were going to debate, in modified lincoln-douglass fashion, affirmative action. at first, neither of us were keen on arguing the merits of the practice; throughout the course of researching, writing and eventually presenting our speeches, however, i changed my tune on the issue.

similarly, in proceeding to write about community regardless of how unqualified an authority i deemed myself, God revealed a nugget or two anyway. God is gracious, isn’t he? i suppose this is one of the few instance where procrastination paid off.

i mean…

what?

i hope it’s as enlightening to read as it was for me to write. without further ado:

ah, community. was ist das? on nathansalley.net

on sunday, i sat in a different kind of class that confronted me with another beautiful, mysterious reality that reminds me of the wave-particle conundrum: the incarnation. Jesus: fully God, fully man. the light, the center of the universe condescends into darkness. the Creator of everything enters into creation, becoming like his favorite flavor of creature — human. the most transcendent being of all steps into time and space and becomes the ever imminent, intimate one.

on wednesday, i reached the age Jesus was when he began ministry — though, thankfully, i don’t look much older than i was when i was trying to survive regents level (versus advanced placement) physics. the more i unravel and wrap my mind around the beautiful tension of Jesus, the more wonderfully incomprehensible and elusive He seems.

the more he reveals of Himself, the more i realize how little my knowledge and experience of him amounts to. yet i’m intrigued all the more for it. he ever beckons me to find my rest in him and to wrestle with him.

this weekend was our church’s renewal weekend. i had the opportunity to fill a one-hour slot during saturday afternoon’s prayer burn: a time where the sanctuary became a prayer room. and as i sang and played and somewhat forgot about the handful of people in the space, those sixty minutes dissipated.

i was reminded that any and every moment i’ve spent worshipping God through music has passed quickly. that’s not to say i am always fully focused in the activity or that i love every praise song that’s ever been written. but feeling like i had just gotten started, or that i can’t get enough of praising God has grown all too familiar with me.

after i came home from church, i craved more worship time. so i sat at the piano and played and sang. the two hours that had elapsed felt more like twenty minutes.

yet another physics concept being illustrated in my life: the theory of relativity.

it might’ve been the first time i wasn’t overwhelmed at the thought of unceasing praise of God. that’s not to say that all we’ll do in heaven is sing as part of a giant chorale. but if a lifetime spent singing for God seems insufficient, it’s no wonder that we’ll spend eternity adoring Him, always ascribing worth and honor to him.

one day that semester, before dr. hampton (yes, our physics teacher held a ph.d.) handed back our exams on this rather avant-garde branch of the science, he announced that only one student scored in the 90s. a sense of dread filled me, and i hoped that i hadn’t failed too disastrously.

“and that student is…” he said as he walked down the aisle between desks. “bingo!” he said as he plopped the exam in front of me.

relief became astonishment as i realized the quantum physics wunderkind to whom he referred was me. thirteen years later, i am still as surprised but less so.

it’s not because i actually understand the nitty-gritty — i don’t. today, the formulas are an even more mysterious smorgasbord of greek alphabet soups garnished with math symbols; at least then, i memorized what greek letter stood for which constant.

nevertheless, here are a couple of oversimplified explanations of two concepts from my humanities-inclined brain:

• heisenberg principle: you can’t know the exact position and the exact velocity of something
• matter (in layman’s terms, “stuff”), e.g. light: wave or particle? quantum physics says, “yes.”

i didn’t then nor do i now possess the logical prowess to comprehend these rather complex ideas. so if my science-y muscles had already begun atrophying then, what explains this ephemeral flash of brilliance in a notoriously challenging subfield of physics?

perhaps intuitively, viscerally, i understood even then that empirical analysis would not allow me to grasp the matter (pun unintended); instead, i relied on faith.

rather than trying to deconstruct the tension, i assented to the mystery. i simply accepted it.

and if i can resign myself to the notion that i can’t know the precise position and precise speed of a particle, should i not also be at peace with where i am right now, even though i don’t know the pace at which my future is unfolding? if i’m following a God whom i believe to be supremely loving, utterly powerful, and completely sovereign, then all my concern, efforts, and worry regarding the matter (hah! pun unintended) of knowing exactly where i am and exactly when i’m going to get there are measly and futile, aren’t they?

to be continued.

p.s. here’s my birthday wish.

after a three-month hiatus from worship team, i’m helping out during our church’s renewal weekend — even leading at least one set solo. also, i’m trying to suck less at taking the lsat, which happens in 15 days. as an extrovert, the thought of whittling down my guest list for my birthday dinner hurts my brain. and, i’ve some decisions to make (one by today) and they all seem woven together.

in spite of all that, i interrupted my work so i could remind you of my birthday wish: for 30 people to donate $30 to one of these 3 ministries with each ministry receiving at least $300.

• justice ventures international (jvi) last week, jvi participated in the rescue of 45 children from bonded labor in northern india. per the international labor organization, 56% of child labor in the world is concentrated in india. by donating to jvi, you participate in the rescue of men, women, and children from slavery.
• unique learning center (ulc) i was invited to help out yesterday afternoon. before we began book club, the kiddos were doing homework; if they’re not assigned homework, the staff have prepared work for them to do.
  one particular kindergartner gravitated toward me. since she didn’t have homework, she practiced writing numbers (1-10) and letters (a-f) in two workbooks that included stickers. i’m convinced that stickers are magic; they kept her motivated, page after page.
  she shared a couple stickers with the other girls sitting at the table and stuck one near the corner of her left eye and one on her right cheek. these precious displays of sweetness and silliness were even more poignant to me against the backdrop of her mother’s sudden death last month.
  i shudder to wonder how she and her siblings would fare if not for the presence of ulc in their young lives. i was reminded that ulc is not just another inner-city ministry – it’s family. safety. solace. a wellspring of hope. will you strengthen ulc’s impact with your resources?
• the journey of kingdom, inc. is pioneering ministry — a self-sustaining community center — in the thailand/burma borderland. i know most of the folks in this inaugural group of missionaries, but i’d like to highlight my world race trainer, former housemate, sister and friend jenny brown in particular. help her focus her energies and creativity on ministry by investing in her!

it was quite difficult to whittle this list down so what if we took this a step further… as in, if throughout the year, people gave $30 to one of 30 organizations.

how could we make something like this work?

1. photo shoot: click on photo for more of jackie kwon’s photographic goodness!
2. festivities: hopefully a handful of you will be available the night of the actual birthday for food. the next day, i’ll be feasting on korean bbq.
3. tattoo: concept complete; design in progress.
4. fundraising: in progress?

i should’ve started this campaign as soon as i had thought of it. thank you if you’ve already participated. i totally would’ve used causevox if it supported a campaign for multiple nonprofits.

my birthday wish is for 30 people to donate $30 to one of these 3 ministries with each ministry receiving at least $300. it was super hard to narrow it down so may i present again (with fixed links):

• justice ventures international (jvi): if nonprofits were like kitchen utensils, jvi would be a fork because of the multi-pronged approach it takes to secure justice: partnering at the grassroots with ngos along the avenues of law, advocacy, and business.
  p.s. jvi would also gladly receive pro bono/deep discounted web design expertise.
• unique learning center (ulc): this ministry is a living example of Jesus feeding the multitude. 2 women take on the primary role of cultivating the lives of 40 school-age students; there are about 40 men & women who tutor them weekly.
  p.s. air mileage would make a great donation, too — students who successfully complete the book club program are rewarded with travel to somewhere in the contiguous u.s.
• kingdom, inc. this ministry is a growing tribe, committed to mobilizing missionaries and raising disciples.