The radio-thon season is upon us! Between September and the end of the year i58:10 Media will facilitate numerous radio-thons for a variety of our clients. We have already completed two such events in September and I wanted to pass along some of what we’ve learned.
read more
Job elimination. Workforce reduction. Terminated. Laid off. Let go. Dismissed.
Hearing any one of these words can strike fear and uncertainty in the life of an unsuspecting employee who hears it.
For me, the word was ‘restructuring.’
In January of 2008, I was summoned to a small, bare conference room at the end of the hall in the office building I had called home for the past 23 years. Although I was anticipating the news, it still came as a shock to actually hear someone across the table say that ‘restructuring’ was taking place and that my services as a radio program producer would no longer be required at Crown Financial Ministries, the place I had served for over two decades.
read more
My most recent trip to Haiti is serving to further sharpen my emerging thoughts on the issues of poverty and how to effectively help anyone ensnared in it. With our a wealth and knowledge (and by “our” I mean the US but it applies to all developed countries) how do we avoid creating dependency and instead empower a developing people? How do we retain the dignity of the individual and not run roughshod over their culture?
Haiti has had a problem even before the earthquake. In fact, this problem is common throughout the developing world because I have seen it in my trips to Africa as well. The problem seems to be us – the ones, like me, who like quick fixes, and easy answers. After the earthquake Haiti clearly needed short term help. But what about now? Our “help” needs to be much less about giving things to those who are poor and much more about empowering them. All we do is create a dependency when we do for Haitians what they should be empowered to do for themselves. We can become the problem – and there are those who say we have!
read more
This past weekend my wife and I were in Mexico City, where I was photographing a wedding for some friends of ours that we met during a missions trip a couple of years ago.
On our way home we spent a couple of hours in the Mexico City International Airport. In the middle of one of the largest cities in the world, filled with both poverty and wealth, sits one of the busiest airports on Earth.
To my surprise, in of one of the biggest and most impoverished cities in the world I discovered beautiful architecture in the ceiling of an airport. I was impressed by the design and imagination that was used in the creation of what in most buildings is a boring necessity of infrastructure. With 238 days a year of clear skys the Mexico City International Airport is filled with light by the 1000’s of skylights that hang above the heads of weary passengers headed to their temporary or permanent destinations. We find beauty where we least expect it and are often inspired by things that have no connection to our passions or work.
Are you looking for inspiration in the every day? Are you allowing God to show you his magnificence in the inanimate?
Jordan Chesbrough – Creative Director | Web & Design
Grace Village, Haiti
Yesterday, my last full day in Haiti, I experienced something I never want to experience again. News reports predicted it. I knew that it was just a matter of time. Still, I was unprepared for the intensity of what I experienced and felt. It rained.
On this recent trip to Haiti I spent my time in Grace Village, the 2nd largest refugee camp in Haiti after the earthquake. As the rain began Sunday evening about 20,000 displaced Haitians ran to take cover under tarps, in tents, and even under a scraggly tree in the middle of the compound. The light rain intensified into a storm, then a downpour, then into what I can only describe as an onslaught of rain, wind, thunder and lightning. The makeshift roads and pathways in this seven month old community soon became a decent size current of rain and mud sweeping through and between the thousands of tarps and tents. I was in one of those tents. I heard the rain slam against the roof and like thousands of others in that storm, I prayed that the tarp would hold.
read more
