Live simply so others can simply live

Dear readers,

Three years and 975 blog posts later, we hope you are growing ever closer to the one true God who sees you where you are and loves you. These blogs are mostly memos to challenge ourselves, a journal of God’s goodness to us through these three difficult years through cancer and life threatening blood infections.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.

These same three years mark the birth and growth of the Go Light Our World (GLOW) nonprofit ministry. Originally focused on bringing practical expressions of God’s love to the most poor and outcast Quechuan people in Bolivia and the unreached Romani people in Bulgaria, we now also support vital gospel ministries in Corinth and Athens, Greece; in the poorest neighborhoods of urban Scotland; an outreach to the Digo people group in Kenya, and a number of missions in the USA to the homeless, people in prison, college students (USA and Puerto Rico) and those in New Orleans who don’t yet know Jesus and others beginning their faith journey with him.

Some of you already support GLOW in yearly or monthly donations. Thank you! You know your gifts go directly to the mission field, not to salaries, insurance plans, buildings or other admin costs. Your gifts have provided native language bibles to 100 people who were so excited to have a bible they can read!

You gave a little boy his first pair of leather shoes, medicine for a teenager who helps in the Josias program we support. You have literally clothed the naked and fed the hungry with nutritious meals and the hope Jesus offers. You have taught them to read and write – one has gone on to nursing school. You’ve visited “the least of these” in prison.

We continue to offer the free daily devotional blog to all. And we invite you, (no obligation), to consider supporting the GLOW ministries in 2016. A monthly recurring gift of just 25 cents per post ($6/month) provides a nutritious meal for 5 hungry children each month. 50 cents per blog ($12/month) provides 144 meals over a year. One dollar per post ($24 per month) provides needed educational supplies and basic medicines where access to clean water is difficult.

We invite you to partner with us in 2016 in following Jesus when he said:

“In as much as you do this to the least of these you do it unto me.” – Matthew 25:40

Tax deductible gifts may be made online through PayPal or credit card: Go to www.GoLightOurWorld.org/giving OR by check to: “Go Light Our World” 1020 N 5th Ave W, Newton, IA 50208

Rejoice! Always rejoice in the Lord!

And there are three other ways to partner with GLOW that don’t cost a penny:

1. Join us in regular prayer for GLOW and its recipients. Email us if you want to receive regular mission updates: thayers@GoLightOurWorld.org

2: Simply press “Forward to a friend” or “Friend on Facebook” (bottom of this post) to others you think might be blessed by our daily message. Spread the light among your friends and build the GLOW community.

3. Read and write your own review of Go Light Our World at Great NonProfits: http://greatnonprofits.org/org/go-light-our-world.

We are blessed in order to bless others, to live simply so others can simply live.

Marcia and Bryan Thayer for Go Light Our World (at Mercy Hospital)

Thank you for prayerful consideration of partnering with GLOW.

It’s not too late for a one-time or recurring gift that begins in 2015 and continues bringing the light of Jesus to a dark and needy world in the new year! Be blessed in your daily reading and in growing closer to God.

Many years ago I was inspired by a book called Living More With Less. It was written in 1980 by Doris Janzen Longacre before “living green” was in vogue. Her premise is that we live “more” when we live in ways that honor God’s creation, are mindful of the plight of the poor, and in keeping each other in mind. She asserts we can live more when we live with less. Her book describes practical ways to “live simply so others can simply live.” (You can get a copy here.)

I was thinking about this yesterday when reading about “income inequality” in the USA. I was reflecting on our observations in Bolivia where world poverty reports list 45% of people there living on $2 or less a day. In fact, much of the world lives on less than $1 per day. We read about it in the news – children going without food and medicine, no access to clean water, no hope for sustainable living – and yet such news is quickly shoved aside. After all, we live busy lives and what could we do about such things anyway?

We could live more simply so others could simply live.

We went on an experiment in living more simply, first by choice and later by conscription to a situation. What we found is that there is often more in less. For example, if you enjoy an income of $30,000 and you find a way to live well on $25,000 you have $5,000 more, not less than you had before. If you live on $50,000 and live on $40,000 you have $10,000 more. If you live on $100,000… well you get the picture. People think they can’t afford to tithe or give to others. They think they couldn’t possibly live on any less than what they have. But we can and maybe we should if we are really interested in Jesus’s commands to look after the needs of the poor. We all have more available to share when we live with less.

Living with less doesn’t mean living with nothing or even living less. It means living well with a clean conscience, celebrating what you have that you value most. There’s no inherent value in living a minimalist life-style as a goal in itself. But living with less can help you – and others – live more. Buying less things means having less things to store, less space to store it, less to insure, less to break, and less to worry about. Living with less not only provides more savings, but also more enjoyment of what you have, more awareness of the simple things, more of the beauty around us. Making more money doesn’t always allow us to live more. But living more with less might. Living more with less contributes less to filling the landfill and more to filling our lives with the best God really intended – for us and for others in need.

I know this sounds crazy and maybe impossible. We’re conditioned to follow the pattern of this world in always wanting more. Having more makes us happy – we think – until we tire of what we have and yearn to replace it with something better, something more. Too often more is less and less is more. By renewing our mind, there is a transformational power to live more, even with less…especially with less.

What would living more with less look like for you? Imagine how it would simplify your life and fill it with more satisfaction and meaning.

Here’s to living more – with less!

Go Light Our World

Helping Families Discover God's Best For Them

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It’s not too late to be a blessing!

Living more…with less