Its been awhile since we’ve posted here on the Home blog, but we wanted to let you all know that all of us are back in the country and excited for the rest of this year! We’ll have a lot to tell you as time rolls on, so stay tuned to this blog for more here very shortly! We have a lot going on with Know.Think.Act., Red Earth Trading Co. is starting to pick up momentum and we’re gearing up for our Partner Appreciation Events!
We just want to thank you all so much for your support, prayers and kind words while we were in Africa. We appreciate them more than you know and are so thankful to have your support! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
We’ve been planning and planning and now the time is upon us! In a few short hours, myself, Travis, Maggie & a couple of volunteers will be boarding a plane to Washington DC, from there to Ethiopia and finally ending up in Uganda!
We’re incredibly excited for this trip. We’re going to be meeting with our current Affiliates in Uganda, Tanzania & Kenya as well as beginning talks with several new potential Affiliates. A lot of vision casting, looking at the present and towards the future, as well as just enjoying being a part of these communities and being able to be with our extended family in these nations.
Another huge aspect of this trip is multimedia content. We are going to be finishing the Malaria DVD, as well as gather many, many stories to share with you. I am fully convinced that the power of story has the ability to radically change lives. From the local leaders who are doing incredible work into their own communities, to those that have been affected by HIV/Aids, Malaria, lack of clean water, etc. They run the full spectrum of emotions and NEED to be seen and heard. We cannot wait to share them with you!
We’re looking forward to helping you get to know the local leaders of these organizations. Faith in Uganda, Pastor John in Tanzania & Peter in Kenya are doing absolutely incredible work. They have given and sacrificed so much for the sake of their people. They have amazing hearts and souls and we believe you are going to be just as inspired as we were when we heard their stories and met them firsthand!
I’m off to finish getting ready for the flight! We’re going to stay in touch with you all so PLEASE check back with our Abroad Blog often. We’ll be updating that one from this point on while we are in Africa. You can also keep up with us on Twitter and Facebook as well!
A huge thank you to everyone that has made this trip possible! We are absolutely stoked for the adventure ahead!
We’ve had an incredibly busy season here at GSM. We had our annual “This Is Love” banquets in Nashville, Biloxi & Orange County, CA as well as a smaller event down in San Diego. A huge thank you to everyone who was able to make it out to the events!
To see all of the photos from This Is Love, please go to our Events page.
We’d also like to send our gratitude to Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson, who was our Keynote Speaker for the Nashville Banquet. He delivered an incredible and challenging message and was gracious enough to give everyone in attendance a copy of “The Hole In Our Gospel” by Richard Stearns.
Another huge thank you to Nathan LaGrange of City Community Church in Indianapolis who did an incredible job speaking at the Biloxi banquet. Nathan & Erik of City Community have been amazing friends and supporters of GSM and they inspire us to no end!
A big reason for these banquets and events is to impart vision for who we are, where we’re going & how you can be a part. We’re happy and humbled to say that we had a large number of new Development Partners. These are people who believe in what GSM is doing and want to help develop, sustain & grow our programs here in the U.S. and abroad and begin supporting us monthly. A lot of people start at $10 a month and grow from there! So thank you, thank you, thank you to all of our new Development Partners. I can honestly say that we cannot do this without you and that Global Support Mission does not exist without your support.
We also cast vision for the future of Know.Think.Act. As of this blog, we’ve had $26,446 given for specific needs of our Affiliates on the ground in Uganda & Kenya. In a future blog, I’m going to share with you EXACTLY what all of this money has accomplished. I’m hoping you’ll have the same reaction I did upon seeing it!
We’re also getting ready for our trip to Africa, which I’ll be blogging about next week! We’re raising funds for all of the multimedia gear we need to acquire all of our new media for the next year. We are going to be telling stories, showing the communities we’re working into and completing the first DVD in our upcoming series, the first of which will highlight Malaria.
We are needing to raise $5,000 for all of the cameras, batteries, hard drives, etc. necessary to do all of this with excellence. If you’d like to contribute to our multimedia fund, please get in touch and let us know. You can also make a one time donation by clicking here.
Once again, thank you to EVERYONE that made this banquet season amazing. We are excited to have met so many of you for the first time and are honored that you would choose to partner with us! The rest of this year is going to be intense, starting with our trip to Africa coming up in a little over a week! More to come on that in our next blog!
It’s such a busy time here at Global Support Mission. Banquets are rapidly approaching, plans for the rest of this year unfolding, and a huge trip to Africa planned for March!
This trip is incredibly important, maybe the most important, in the history of GSM. We are going to be meeting with our current Affiliates as well as expanding into new areas, establishing new relationships and looking at bringing several new Affiliates into partnership with GSM. Another main focus for us is creating content for us to use Stateside.
We have a big dream of creating a DVD series, highlighting very specific issues such as Malaria, HIV/Aids, Clean Water, etc. In these DVD’s, we want to tell specific stories of those that have been affected by these issues, what causes them and give ways for people to respond. We are also in need of creating new videos for Know.Think.Act., as well as photos for all of our needs, both pending and met on KTA. For all of this to happen, we desperately need new gear. With technology racing ahead and what we are able to harness visually, we cannot fall far behind and be relevant both now and in the future.
We are using an interesting and exciting approach to raising funds for this project. I was introduced to a website called KICKSTARTER. This site allows you to raise money for a creative project by people “pledging” a certain amount of money towards it. Once the goal amount is met, everyone’s credit card’s are charged their pledge amount. If the pledge is not met, no one is charged. We’ve also created several incentives for you to donate!
I cannot express to you how deeply vital this is to us. Coming from a film background, I have seen the power that visual forms of communication can hold. For those that cannot go and cannot experience firsthand, it has the power to convict, to empower, to change lives at a deep, core level.
So, please consider pledging. We have 30 days to meet our goal of $11,000! You’re not just giving money towards pieces of equipment, you’re empowering us with the ability to tell incredible stories of lives and communities changed and of hope restored.
A new year has begun! And for us that means it’s time for our 3rd annual This is Love banquets! This year we’re doing three events in three different cities: Nashville Feb. 4th, Biloxi Feb. 9th and Los Angeles/OC Feb. 11th. Plus, we’re doing a small fund raising event in down town San Diego on Feb. 15th. For more info and to purchase tickets checkout our This is Love website. We hope to see you there!
*If your planning on coming to the Nashville banquet hurry up and buy your ticket! We’re almost sold out! It’s going to be an incredible night… walk the red carpet, dinner, the moonlighters (20 piece big band), keynote by Michael Hyatt and as a thank you gift Thomas Nelson has donated “The Hole in Our Gospel” by Richard Stearns, to everyone who attends. So what are you waiting for… go buy a ticket!
Working on building some really cool signs for the This is Love banquet. This is 3/4″ oak plywood that we got discounted and tax free from Home Depot. We are tracing our logos on it then we’ll cut it out with a router. After it’s cut out we’ll stain it with an ebony finish and mount frosted plexiglass behind it. It will be back lit (kinda like a light box). It’s going to look pretty sweet. Come to the banquet and check it out. Do you have a creative idea for us on how to build other creative signage on a budget? Let us know, we’d love to hear it!
(AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Montreal La Presse, Ivanoh Demers)
It’s with a heavy heart that I write this. I have been completely overwhelmed by the devastation in Haiti. I’m sitting here, staring at the images, reading the stories, desperately clinging to every new bit of information.
These are not times to shake our heads and say that’s a shame. Not moments to insulate ourselves from the hurt, the pain, the tears. This is a time for action.
