You are Cordially Invited....

To a Bloggy Baby Shower!!

For Bill and Lynsay *******

Don't know Bill and Lynsay? Me neither.

Now why would we want to go to a baby shower for someone we don't know? In real life that would be awkward. "Hello, I know you don't know me, but a friend of a friend that I met on the internet told me you were having a baby shower, and...well...I wanted to give you a gift." Yeah. Awkward.

But in this case it's not awkward at all. My bloggy friend Linny at A Place Called Simplicity is co-hosting a baby shower for her friends Bill and Lynsay.....who, by the way, are not having a baby.

Ok, so let me get this straight. We are being invited to a bloggy baby shower for people we don't know, who are not having a baby?

Yes. :)

Let me explain.

Bill and Lynsay live and work with special needs orphans in Ch*na. They have recently opened Morning Star Family Home, a f0ster home where they are currently caring for 5 of these sweet babies, providing love, food, nurturing, and medical care for them. Last December, they began renovating MSFH in order to provide more space, where they will be able to care for up to 25 babies at a time.

And so the baby shower is a way we can shower them with blessings, providing the things they will need to care for and give a home to all of these precious little ones.

Current estimations say there are 147 million orphans in the world. 147,000,000. That is such an enormous, overwhelming number that we can often feel helpless to do anything. It may seem like any small effort we could give would never be enough to make a difference.

Have you heard the story about the starfish?

The Starfish Story
Loren Eiseley, while writing his book The Unexpected Universe, was walking along the ocean in Costabel early one morning. It was shortly after a storm had subsided and as he continued walking, he noticed that thousands of starfish had been washed up on the beach. Ahead of him was a gigantic rainbow of incredible perfection shimmering into existence. At the base of the rainbow stooped a little boy, gazing fixedly at an object in the sand. Eventually, he flung the object far beyond the breaking surf.

Eiseley went up to him and asked, "Son, what are you doing?" The little boy answered, "I'm throwing starfish back into the sea because if I don't they're going to die."

"But there are thousands of starfish. In the larger scheme of things you're not going to make much of a difference to all these starfish."

The little boy looked up at him, stooped down again to pick up another starfish and, gently but quickly, flung it back into the ocean. "It's going to make a big difference to that one," he replied.

Eiseley was embarrassed, uncomfortable with the contrast of the little boy's youthful, innocent love for the living with his own hardened, "mature" indifference to death. He had nothing to say and left, continuing to walk on the beach but unable to get the picture of the little boy out of his mind. It was a moment of truth for Eiseley, of deep soul searching and self-confrontation.

In time, he returned to the star thrower, silently picked up a starfish and spun it far out into the waves. "I understand." he said quietly. "Call me another thrower." Together, still under the hues of the rainbow, they spent hours throwing starfish back into the ocean. It was a task not assumed lightly, for it was men as well as starfish they sought to save, sensing intuitively that man cannot exist spiritually without life.

I have so often felt like the one gift I could give...the small amount of money I could send...the one person I could help wouldn't really make that much of a difference in the world. But it makes a difference to that one.

Jesus said, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for Me."

Bill and Lynsay are making a difference....one baby at a time. And we have the opportunity to help them.

You can read more about their work by visiting the Morning Star Foundation website here, and why they do what they do here.

Visit Bill and Lynsay's blog here.

Read about the bloggy baby shower and how you can participate on Linny's blog, here (AND...she's having a give-away related to the shower! Don't you just love shower games?).

See the list of items they need here.

I sure hope you'll join us. You CAN make a difference in the life of a little one who needs love and care and the hope of Jesus. And....baby showers are so much fun!