social justice | Kevin D. Hendricks

Tomorrow I’ll be making an appearance at the Social Media Breakfast – Minneapolis/St. Paul (or the SMBMSP) to give away a few copies of Addition by Adoption and offer a special SMBMSP discount for the book.

The book is normally $9.99 on Amazon and $2 of every copy goes to charity: water to build a well in Ethiopia. But at Friday’s Social Media Breakfast you can get a copy for $8 and $4 of that will go to charity: water. It’s cheaper, no shipping, no waiting and double the money goes to charity. Score.

This is a very generous community that has supported charity: water before, so I hope we can get a little closer to our $5,000 goal with this special SMBMSP offer. The discount is only good at Friday’s event. Be there or pay regular price. For the rest of you, there are a number of other ways to get the book and help build the well.

Tomorrow’s event is being held at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis, home of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Last time I was at the Target Center it was for Sesame Street Live (which gets a nod in the book). Before that it was U2. Oddly enough, I’ve never been to the Target Center for a Timberwolves game. The size of the venue will have little to do with the size of tomorrow’s crowd, which is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view (my fear of public speaking and my desire to raise cash for charity: water are clashing on this one).

I’m hopeful tomorrow’s event will be a good chance to connect with people and get closer to building a well in Ethiopia. You can read more about the discount or learn more about SMBMSP.

Last week I couldn’t sleep and started writing the following to express the doubts and frustrations I was feeling. I’m not sure if any of it makes sense or if it’s accurately communicating what I’m thinking, but I wanted to get it out. Sometimes these kinds of doubts and frustrations do best when they come to the light, as opposed to just keeping them to myself. So here they are. Please read them with a little grace. Thanks.

I remember a late night during my freshman year of college when I sat on the floor outside my dorm room and poured my heart into a little notebook. I still have that notebook around here somewhere. I remember being so frustrated with life and so eager to do something but having no idea what to do. I felt like the day to day things I was doing had no relation to my faith.

Not long after I started this blog and those thoughts would continue in a stream of consciousness mishmash that nobody really understood (thankfully this blog has morphed into something a little more pragmatic).

But it’s been 10+ years and I think those thoughts are still rattling around inside my head. I find myself wondering what the point of all this is. My head is consumed with things like finding a babysitter for a conference call tomorrow night, figuring out when I can catch that new sci-fi flick District 9 I’ve heard so much about, and wondering when I’m going to get around to trimming that giant lilac bush in the back. None of that matters. What does matter are the stories I catch glimpses of, Mark Horvath traveling the country and meeting homeless people, the stories of the struggling unemployed, the people in Africa that will likely live half as long as I will.

Continue reading Is That the Gospel? →

A work-at-home dad wrestles with faith, social justice & story.