Why I Do What I Do pt.1

This could end up being a long blog entry.
Soo, I'll break it up into a few parts to keep you reading over the next few weeks.
I was inspired to write this after my friend Jessi Connolly blogged about her calling as she started her business. Check it out at Naptime Diaries.

Why I do what I do: pt.1
I was inspired to start REDEMPTION soap this past January of 2011. 
How it began? My dear friend Rob Chifokoyo came to visit us for the month of December alllll the way from Zimbabwe, Africa. (Best Christmas ever!!) He shared about his ministry that he an his fiance Lisa Rouse (check her blog at Redeeming Love) has started back home in Zim. Their hearts for their own people melted mine. They are loving on the "forgotten" people of their country. Orphans. Widows. Elderly. Prostitutes. They are unashamed of the Gospel and when I think about their ministry I just picture Jesus smiling. Sometimes crying because of how beautiful their love is. Their team that makes up Dare2Serve is passionate about being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.

 Rob with sweet orphan kids

And like all ministry, it costs money. Nail polish to paint nails with the prostitutes, pizza to hang with the orphans, small gifts to the elderly. We have seen and learned in all of our short years of ministry that it costs. Time, money, or hearts. So Craig and I live, work and do ministry here in NH, how in the world could we help support Dare2Serve? I prayed and prayed and prayed asking God to show me how I could support my brother and sister.

I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I want to contribute to my family financially (more on that in pt 2). I just didn't know where to begin. I needed vision. I needed passion. 


REDEMPTION soap was born in January 2011. It was literally all of a sudden. I learned of a friend who started a cloth diaper store Petite Bottoms in NH. I was like "WOW I should do something like that! I am passionate about health/environmental stuff." And literally my next thought was laundry powder. I had heard of people making it themselves, so I started experimenting. After countless recipes and trying to just get back to the basics, keeping it pure, simple, inexpensive and mission minded. 

The name REDEMPTION soap came a little later. I asked a friend for some ideas. One of which was Mother Earth's Redemption. I didn't like the Mother Earth part for obvs reasons but I couldn't stop thinking about REDEMPTION. I wanted the name to reflect the heart of the business. I wanted REDEMPTION soap to share the gospel and how fitting- redemption made me think of clean, white as snow. Perfect.

So that was the very start of it. The motivation to start a business and the name behind it.

I am eager to share the mission of the business. Where the moneyssss go and why I am crazy enough to keep on doing what I launched on April 1, 2011.

I try to keep each entry a less than 5 min read, so I'll stop here, write the other parts and post them over the next few days. Check out the links attached and show some love/ support to the people/ businesses mentioned!

Time + Money

I was recently talking to a friend who is considering cloth diapering. People were discouraging her saying that it is too time consuming, messy, you don't actually save money because of start up costs and the washing process.

WRONG

From my experience cloth diapering. Making food from scratch. Making laundry & dishwasher soap from scratch. Making home made cleaning products. My oh my, the money we have saved. It pays to put a little elbow grease and carve out some time to do it home-made. Most of the time anyway.


I was recently asked to share my "money saving tips" with another stay at home Mom. I wrote up my list. Several pages later... She told me that I should blog about it. I thought blogging was weird. People just write on the internet for the whole world to see? They share their thoughts and lives with people they don't even know? Weird. Maybe you think so to. Yet, here you are. And here I am. Writing a blog. I have been inspired by two blogs that I follow and have peeked at a few others via their suggestions.


So here it goes. Not my effort to blog in general. But to blog with purpose. I actually wrote up a list in my personal journal of "goals" I have with my blog. Here is a little looksie at what I hope to write about:
- Our family and ministry. (www.cwtrials.com)
- My passions (too many to list write now)
- How we choose to live intentionally (we are talking about MONEY here. Resources. Food. Clothing. Etc.)
- Recipes and ideas of what I make from scratch/ repurpose.
- And to tie it all up and the #1 reason why we do what we do- our love for Jesus and passion for sharing the Gospel by living it out in EVERY area of our lives. This is a daily, moment to moment effort. And we fail a lot of times. But this is about the hope we have found in Christ.

I am working on the whole posting pictures thing. I really would love to have a pic or two to go with what I write about. We recently got a Mac (awesome story behind that!) and I am still learning it. My camera is dying... and not just the battery here. We have poor internet connection. So, I'm working on it. Hang tight. I promise to put some serious effort into this rather difficult task for me.