Make a Difference Spotlight-Heifer International

It's Monday! And it's been a marvelous week. I'm not sure how to adjust this early morning routine, since I'm not getting eight hours of sleep with getting up at five. The kids don't get home from their various activities until almost nine three or four evenings a week. I am just not getting to sleep until almost ten. Fortunately, I am able to grab a quick nap most afternoons.

I am feeling much more coherent than I was last week, and I'm getting much more done than I was before, so I persist in the experiment.

As the Make-a-Difference spotlight tradition continues (okay, so it hardly qualifies as a tradition yet, but. . .), I bring this week's focus to Heifer International.

I first heard of HI when my sister bought me a chicken for our traditional family gift exchange in 2004. (I don't think she won the least-expensive category for our theme gift contest-see Christmas blogs.) It wasn't the best gift for our strict vegetarian household, but we loved the idea. So our reply was to buy bees and trees.

Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, Heifer International goes into developing/struggling communities, teaches a group of villagers how to care for the Heifer animals, and then provides them with animals. As the animals multiply, the villagers teach their neighbors and "share the wealth" by passing on the young in a ceremony/celebration. In this way they build self-sufficiency and hope among the world's poorest citizens.

If you are interested in more information, I invite you to visit their website, and check out the article about Heifer International in Reader's Digest (December 2005, I think).