Lifestraw

On Christmas Eve, as has been our tradition here at Westwinds, we gave a special offering dedicated to impacting our world in a significant way by adopting a specific cause. This year, we chose to raise money to purchase LifeStraws®.

Clean water initiatives have been a passion at the Winds for the last four years ever since we went through a series on the elements. Roughly 6,000 people—mainly children, die every single freaking day because they don’t have access to safe drinking water. Crazy. That’s like 16 747’s going down every day. Or, the equivalent of two 9/11 attacks a day. Sick and wrong.

I am so happy we will be able to purchase over 1,600 straws with the offering.

LifeStraw® was listed as “one of the ten things that will change the way we live” by Forbes Magazine. These straws are simply stuck into yucky water and people can drink through them and get the same quality water as per EPA guidelines for microbiological water purifiers! One straw lasts quite some time allowing 18,000 liters of water to be purified.

One of my favorite musicians, Peter Gabriel is a big proponent of the cause and I am excited an influential and creative musician is giving this a platform.

Westwinds has not seen the end of LifeStraw® offerings. Many at the Winds are talking about their businesses partnering with the church to match contributions.

The most touching story I heard this week—and in a long time—is the story of one young boy in our church who made LifeStraw® his birthday wish. This 9-year-old boy called me on the phone a few days ago to tell me he saved all his birthday money in December and wanted to by LifeStraws®. I teared up on the phone as this young man told me he was giving $200.00 towards the cause. He delivered the money to me this weekend. I love it when our kids teach us how to be Jesus and teach us about sacrifice. His contribution adds nearly 70 straws to the initial offering.

Check the site out. Consider what you might do.