AIDS Walk and Ride 2008: Report

Hey everyone,
We just wanted to say "thank-you" for your support for us and the Aids Alliance and their annual Aids Walk and Ride.Your donations and support allowed us to take a team and walk 3 miles through downtown Raleigh in support of Aids awareness and the organizations that work with those living with HIV/AIDS. This is a fantastic organization, and it is a privilege to participate in this wonderful event.

In total, we raised $340 for the Aids Alliance and their work. I haven't found the total amount raised at the event yet, nor the total number of participants, but I know it was a very successful event. I am just proud of those who walked and those who gave in support of this worthy, often ignored cause. I am proud of the number that we raised, and have each person to thank, as well as the change jar from the Divine Conversations group! I hope each of you celebrate with me in this fantastic event and celebrate the part that you played.Thanks again from Alison and myself, as well as everyone involved both physically (walking) and financially (giving).

with much love,
Justin
http://www.camelbo.blogspot.com/

UPDATE: part of an email about the event:
Our event was a great success, with more than 700 walkers and 150 riders. We had balloons, snow cones, llamas, hot dogs and so much more! We will report on our fund-raising when we finish the accounting. I hope you will join us on May 2, 2009 to do it all again on Halifax Mall! We are always looking for volunteers to plan and create this event, and for volunteers on the day we put it all together, so if you have interest please let us know!
Until next time, and with my great thanks for your warm and generous hearts!

Jacquelyn Clymore,
MSExecutive Director
Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina

Religion and Politics

We've been talking lately on politics and the role spirituality can/should play in our this political season.

Last week we passed out an article, and we will focus our conversation around this article from Christianity Today. Jim Wallice is a name that is seen on the news a lot during this election time... He is the author of two books; God's Politics and The Great Awakening.

He makes some interesting comments in this article, any are open for discussion this week.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!

Also if you are interested in joining in the AIDS walk this sat. Sign up HERE: select join a team, then in "please select a team" drop-box click on Divine Conversations. Then fill out the info.

You can also register there. Registration is at 1pm and the walk starts at 4pm. Information found HERE.

You can also give donations on the site, or bring it for the change jar on thurs.!!!!!!!!!

Everyone is invited to join in!!! Hang out after!!!!!! for dinner.

Giving Back

UPDATE ON RANDOM CHANGE JAR (RCJ)

The money that we collected before the holidays ended up not being needed for the person that we were going to donate that money to.

We've been looking for a way to use the $110+ that we collected in a way that is both positive and can achieve the maximum effect for the $. What we've found is this:

There is a hispanic-American 3rd-grader in the Willow Springs community (Between Gardner and Angier) who has a rare disease that does not allow him out of the house very often. He cannot even attend public school and is forced to be homeschooled. The disease, Skins Crohn's Disease, is severely debilitating this child's life.

Partially because of the expense of this disease(treatments, doctors, tons of bandages), the family is having a hard time financially. Both because of his illness and his family's money situation, he misses out on common activities that we take for granted (he's never had a birthday party).

His birthday is coming up soon, and there is a group working on helping the family with that. Our plan is to take the money and get them gift cards to a grocery store to help free up some of their funds to focus on other needs. We hope that this gift will help not only the child, but the family as a whole!

If you still would like to give to this specific gift, please call or email Justin by wed. March 26th at noon! You can PLEDGE the money and by Wed. @ noon, and we will add it to the count out of our pocket. You then can reimburse us Thurs. when we meet, or call and we will make some other arrangements if you can't make it out Thurs. but would like to give.

EMAIL Justin cucamel@gmail.com

The money in the RCJ that we began collecting last month will not go towards this and instead will be left alone, continue to be collected, and will go to a future endeavor of the group's choosing.

Thanks again for your willingness to help, your conversations, and your friendships!
feel free to leave comments too!

love,
Justin and Alison

Questions On Suffering, Evil, Love and Justice

Possible topic this week as we look into recent headlines. The timeless questions on suffering, evil, death, war, Love, humanity, justice, etc... Here may be some starting points in the news recently.

Shooting of a gay middle-schooler by another middle-schooler.


A BETTER Video is found here on CNN.

Eve Carson's death, Student Body President for UNC.


Lauren Burk, 18, was found shot on a side road, and her car was found burning in an Auburn University parking lot.


See full story of both here!!

And of course we can't ignore the War in Iraq: From REAL NEWS

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Also don't forget the Questions project mentioned last post, and we are beginning the random change jar back up. If you have any place you would want our random change to go to in the next month or so, we are taking requests now!!!!

see you Thurs, or on the blog discussion!

A Questionable Project?

We want to begin a new activity in our discussion process. But we need your help!

What spiritual questions do you have in your own life?

these thoughts need to be heard, although we won't "Answer" them, perhaps we can spend some time discussing them. We are going to begin collecting these questions this week. Your job is simple. Start writing down ANY questions or doubts that you may have and we will have something to place them in this week. This will be an ongoing activity, and all questions will remain anonymous! All questions are valid and will be treated with respect!

I truly have missed you all and hope to see you this thursday@ 7:30. We will prob. go grab dinner after and anyone is invited to join us!

contact me for more info or questions!
on facebook or at divineconversations@gmail.com

peace and love.
Justin

Passionate Conversations

"Passionate Heart", by Marco Schmitt

Hey all!

We are glad to be back up and running with our conversation group again, now meeting on Thurs. at Southern Roast Coffee Co. in Holly Springs from 7:30-8:40 pm.

We are continuing to meet this week with a spicific topic in mind. We want to discuss what you are passionate about! What are the things lin life that you feel strongly about and what do you do about it. How are we each living out our passions?

This will be a good open topic that can go in endlsee directions. It will also open up the door for some other things that the group may do and discuss later on.

Hope to see you there!!!!

Meeting Again (Finally) This Week!!!

We apolojize for the delay in getting restarted after the holidays. We ran into some slight problems with our usual location. The good news is that we will begin meeting again on the 21st of Feb. Many people mentioned that thurs. nights would be better for them than wed., so we are moving to thurs. nights.

We are also moving locations. we will still be in holly springs about a mile or so from our previous coffee house spot. we will still meet from 7:30-8:30, so please try to get there before 7:30 so you can have your order filled and we can begin on time. Our new location is called Southern Roast Coffee. It is beside the Moravian Ch. in Holly Springs. Here's the website with address and you can get directions.

http://southernroast.com/

Thanks for your patience, and again we apolojize for the problems. But we are excited to get going again and perhaps have some new people join us as we continue to discuss where our spirituality meets reality!