Buy a Bible for a Student in Ghana. And four inspiring books on global awareness.

JOIN OUR BIBLE PROJECT THIS WEEK.
We would like to ask you to help us with a little charitable project, a brief partnership with a publisher who is raising money to help send Bibles to the Republic of Ghana, hoping to give one to every one of the 500,000 high school students there.  The Prime Minister and First Lady of Ghana have initiated this, and Tyndale Publishing House has published a handsome, inexpensive New Living Translation hardback with an African cover design, a letter from the First Lady, Her Excellency Dr. (Mrs.) Enestina Naadu Mill, and a few study notes and extra helps for those unfamiliar with the message of the Bible.  It’s a very cool project, organized on the ground by the good folks of Scripture Union, and it seemed like a nice opportunity to give back a bit.

As the First Lady Dr. Naadu Mill writes,

“The Bible addresses the kinds of challenges we face in Ghana: inter-tribal and communalFirst Lady of Ghana.jpg peace, poverty, disease, responding to the HIV/AIDS endemic, reconciliation, and developing sound human capitol for national development.”



She continues,

 “As a young person, my own personal encounter with the Bible was significant, and it transformed my life.  I therefore urge you to read this NLT Bible that I am placing in your hands…”
 

HERE IS WHAT WE INVITE YOU TO DO. 
You can help us get Bibles shipped by doing one of two things, or both.

First, Beth and I personally promise to buy a Ghana Student Edition NLT Bible, costing $5.00, sending it out in honor of anyone who orders from us any of the books I’ve listed below this week.  We’ll do this all week, until midnight Sunday May 27th.  You buy one of these fantastic, mission-themed, “make-a-difference” books and we’ll contribute the cost of one of these Ghana-bound Bibles on your behalf.  You get a book, we donate a Bible.

Or, you can just use our certified secure Hearts & Minds order form page (like you do when ordering books) entering your credit card info.  We will charge your card $5.25 and will, again, send a Bible on your behalf. (The .25 covers some of the cc costs.)

In both cases, we will send to those shipping the Bibles a nice, full-color card we have in the store with an X marked on a U.S. map showing where the donor of this particular Bible came from.  You hope you consider leaving your X marks the spot.  Some future leader in Ghana just might thank you some day.

If you would like to buy one of these Bibles for yourself, perhaps as a reminder of this project—perhaps you will think and pray for Africa as you read it each time you pick it up—you could pick one up for yourself as well. They sell here for $5.99. It also counts as one of the books for which we will send a Bible to Ghana.  You can see it shown below.

So, buy one of these books shown below, we’ll contribute the Bible.  Or just donate the money outright: $5.25 will buy one Bible, $10.50 will obviously buy two.  Wanna join us? We thought you might.

If you read any of the books I’m suggesting, you’ll want to do something, that’s for sure.  They are motivating, inspiring, informative; each one is more about learning how to take steps towards involvement than academic treatises on the profound complexity of global problems.   They are upbeat and interesting and, I think, very helpful to have.  Pass ’em on and help encourage others to keep the world God so loves front and center in your own hearts and minds and giving.  Thank you very much.

HERE ARE THE BOOKS THAT QUALIFY.  FOR EVERY ONE YOU BUY, WE WILL DONATE A BIBLE TO A STUDENT IN GHANA ON YOUR BEHALF.  While supplies last.

awake.jpgAwake: Doing a World of Good One Person at a Time  Noel Brewer Yeatts (Baker) $12.99  What an inspiring set of stories, from an inspiring young woman.  (We met Noel at the QDC event a few weeks ago, by the way, and enjoyed chatting a bit with her.)  Can you see the world map in the coffee cup?  Can this cuppa joe wake you up a bit?  I am sure it can. 

Yeatts is the vice president of World Help (worldhelp.net) which is a faith-based humanitarian organization that serves the physical and spiritual needs of people in impoverished communities around the world.  She also direct an initiative around clean water (caselife.org) through World Help.  She documents all the obvious concerns—HIV/AIDS, disease, poverty–and tells gripping stories of those who are doing something about it.  Wholistic, Christ-centered mission, designed to create social change for justice.  Very nicely done.  This is a great example, I think, of the way in which conservative evangelicals have grown into a more wholistic approach to missions, not forsaking solid doctrine or evangelism, but also waking up to issues of poverty and structural injustice, and taking steps to work for social and cultural change, including fighting for rights to clean water.  Praise the Lord!

GSM-Cover-196x300.jpgGlobal Soccer Mom: Changing the World is Easier Than You Think  Shayne Moore (Zondervan) $14.99 I love this book, even if the subtitle is a bit glib.  Ms Moore does know how hard and overwhelming this work is, but she allows her mother’s heart to be touched, and shows how to get involved making a difference on global concerns, even as a busy, upbeat mother of three in a mini-van.  I’ve written about this before as her work has been in view for a while now: Moore was one of the original members of the ONE campaign, works with Grower’s First and World Vision.  She has an MA in theology, is a member of the Redbud Writer’s Guild, and she is well positioned to make a difference and to help ordinary folks do likewise. These stories are truly inspiring and the theme is that a full-time mid-West home-maker, involved in ordinary stuff in a real town and a regular church, can make a difference. I love the Bono quote about her: “Politicians watch out: Shayne Moore is an unstoppable force.”  How did she journey from the rather insular suburban world into the arena of global advocacy?  (And how did she get to become friends with Bono?)  Read this and learn.  You can visit her great webpage here.  Be sure to see the video of her “Mission Possible” CNN interview. Great!

go and do.jpgGo+Do: Daring to Change the World One Story at a Time  Jay Milbrandt (Tyndale) $14.99  I briefly reviewed this book the week it came out in my Comment magazine column, and although I was brief, I was sincere: this is an amazing book written by a friend and guy I truly admire.  Milbrandt works at Pepperdine School of Law, directing
their Global Justice Program (and is an associate of the Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics.)  Does the name Bob Goff ring a bell?  Goff has been influential in this program and an inspiring mentor to Jay as he helps young, eager law students to gain legal experience in developing countries.  If you follow the extraordinary work fighting sexual trafficking and child slavery done by the likes of International Justice Mission, or have read the groundbreaking books by Gary Haugen, you may realize some of the very heavy, cutting edge, life-saving, socially and politically vital work Jay oversees.  His stories here are riveting, his analysis crisp, and his invitation for all of us to make a difference as we align our lives with the purposes of God, well, it is really, really great.  As we step into this transforming journey, he notes, “we discover an incredible truth: our need for purpose matches someone else’s need for survival. And there is nothing more fulfilling than that.”  He dares readers to ask big questions, to witness the “raw edges of humanity” and to do something about what you see.  Go and do is his slogan and Go + Do is a very, very impressive book. First step: go to Jay’s cool website and check out the book, watch the fast-paced, surreal video, and then come back and buy the book from us.  It’ll rock your world.

Love_Does_240_360_Book.625.cover_-196x300.jpgLove Does: Discover an Incredible Life in an Ordinary World Bob Goff (Nelson) $15.99 I hope you read my review of this a while back.  I had fun writing it, and enjoy pushing this great little collection of stories.  I laid off mentioning and re-tweeting Goff for a bit, though, as I didn’t want to sound like too much of a groupie.  He is an amazing man–fun and funny and kind, and a born storyteller. And he likes us, which is cool. So we’re fans, and this motivational book is loaded with insight about taking steps to enter the story of God’s redeeming work, so it fits this post’s theme.

Further, as a lawyer, human right activist and humanitarian, Bob has worked all over the world. In this book he recounts a bit about Uganda, mostly, so, again it makes sense to link it to this Bible give-away for Ghanian students.  Like the above books about making a difference, this is upbeat, practical, inspiring, and full of great stories. The stories are from his own life (mostly not about development work, but more about his childhood or escapes and capers he’s undertaken in recent years.) They are flat out hilarious, and his joy is contagious.  His commitment to whimsey, showing grace in creative ways with energetic joy, well, it makes for really fun reading.  Love isn’t just a feeling, you all know, but we nonetheless sometimes fail to get to the “do” part.  The kind of life we get to live as followers of Jesus, well, it can be a blast.  Goff reminds us of that and more.  If you haven’t picked this up yet, do it.  You won’t regret it.  Check out his website to get a glimpse or to learn more about Restore International, the organization he founded and runs.

lord and his prayer.jpgThe Lord and His Prayer  N.T. Wright (Eerdmans) $10.00  Of course you know how we celebrated our time with Bishop Wright last week and as you may suppose, we are still energized by his gracious visit and powerful presentation at our Dallastown store. (There are some pictures at my facebook page, too, if you want to see our backyard, or year Wright sing Bob Dylan!)  Although his focus in his last two serious HarperOne books have been on Jesus, the gospels, and the Biblical teaching of the Kingdom of God, it is clear that Wright the scholar and Bible guy is also Wright the pastor and shepherd.  He cares about spirituality and prayer and the classic Anglican disciplines for spiritual formation. This is a book he wrote years ago, and it is a favorite on the topic. 

And (I hope you recall that I mentioned) Wright is quite an advocate for renewed economics, and has been a vocal proponent of initiatives like the Jubilee Campaign to cancel the third world debt.  And so, we list this book here, now, a book on the ethics of the Kingdom, found in the Lord’s Prayer.  This is short, solid, would make a fine devotional study and is ideal for small group us.  The reminder that the Lord’s Prayer is a Kingdom prayer, which calls us to pray and work for a “estoration of the created order” (his words) and involves our bodies (!) as we become a church of “healed healers” is very rich and very wise.  We really do commend it to you, especially as you consider these other books that propel us to care about God’s global mission for international justice.

ghana bible.jpgHoly Bible New Living Bible Translation (Tyndale) $5.99  This is an exact example of the edition that we are sending to the kids in Ghana. It’s a handy size, hardback and a fantastic price.

The NLT, by the way, is a real translation, based on years of work by a large team of impeccable evangelical language scholars. It is very modern, and very well rendered in easy-to-read, contemporary language. (It is not the old Living Bible paraphrase from the 70s!)  Good, good folks (like Al Wolters, Gordon Wenham, Tremper Longman, Willem VanGemeren  D.A. Carson, Joyce Baldwin, Dale Brueggemann, and other brainy women and men) worked on this translation and while it is dynamic, it is reliably accurate.  We love it.  This edition is trim size, hardback (case bound) with this colorful African fabric-looking cover.  I think it is a nice Bible (although the print is small.) Using it might help remind you to pray for our brothers and sisters in the world’s most complicated continent.

BookNotes
We will donate one NLT Bible to the
“Bibles for Ghana” program
 for every book purchased from this list.
Offer expires May 27, 2012.

order here
takes you to the secure Hearts & Minds order form page
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inquire here
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Hearts & Minds 234 East Main Street  Dallastown, PA  17313     717-246-3333

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