I am really enjoying Paul Richardson’s book A Certain Risk: Living Your Faith at the Edge. Paul has always been someone I’ve admired since his days here in LA at Mosaic. He reminds me a gentler and yet more intentional version of Indiana Jones.
Paul, along with some other activists, has started a new website featuring their thoughts from lessons learned in Southeast Asia. If you haven’t already, check out Faith Activators!
“The Divine Artist” by Paul Richardson
I ENJOY WORKING WITH PAINTS, mixing colors, experimenting with the effect they make on the canvas. In the past, I worked with acrylics and water colors. Now, finally, I’m beginning to experiment with oils. Oils are more difficult, but they offer so much more potential. One difficulty with oils is that they take so long to dry. Recently, my daughter Katie picked up one of my paintings. She felt horrible when she realized that her fingers had smudged up the paint. I told her not to worry about it. After all, the painting should have been dry. It had been sitting there for days!
With some of us, God is painting with oils. Metamorphosis doesn’t always happen overnight and God is a patient artist. As I look back on my life, I am now conscious that God has been moving to create within me since I was a child, and this process will continue until God’s work has been perfected. Admittedly, I’ve been running interference, too often choosing to trust in myself. My fear and pride clogs up the Spirit’s movement. Faith releases his artistry within us….
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“Social Entrepreneurship” by Mike O’Quinn
Welcome to the world of Social Entrepreneurship. It’s a blending of the best in business with a heart for community development. It’s fueled by people who launch small start-ups to give others a leg-up.
We started brainstorming with some members of our English Club on how to start a business here that would give poor people better access to internet-opened opportunities. We kicked around a few ideas and finally settled on starting a graphic design outsourcing business. Our focus became doing high quality PowerPoint presentations at affordable prices. Our promise to clients was to us send us your notes, and we’ll take it from there. Slam bang presentations delivered back to you within 48 hours. Our vision was crafted as “empowering the poor through excellence in business.”
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