John Marshall's Blog

The world is full of sad stories.

Dust-covered skeletons crawling through another drought…boats packed with refugees staring at storm clouds….shell-shocked children surrounded by rubble. We see them all the time and usually, they are just extras in The Big Sad Story of life.

Usually, we can live as if all the pain and despair and suffering in the world is far away, a fiction that is terrible but not personal; no more urgent than a sad movie. Because really, what can you do? Maybe you say a prayer or you shake your head or you lament the random unfairness of life. And then…what? You move on. You focus on something else. You forget about The Big Sad Story until it shows up again.

What I’ve learned from living with orphaned children for the past five years is this: All it takes to care about someone is to actually meet them, not as a statistic or as a spectacle, but as a person. No one cares about a billion people living in poverty. But one person? Now that’s a story we can actually do something about.

This is Venmathi. When this picture was taken, she was maybe 8 years old. She lived in a small village in southeast India with her parents and her younger sister Kanchana. When I look at her in this photograph, she seems filled with potential, her eyes clear and blazing with the same intensity my own daughter’s eyes had at her age. Her family is poor, but I can imagine a future filled with hope for this girl. What will she become? What impact will she have? Venmathi means “a pure soul” in Tamil and that’s what she looks like to me.

Sadly, I’ll never get the chance to meet her.

Venmathi appears in the first ten minutes of the film Blood Brother, a documentary chronicling the life of Rocky Braat who left his home in America to serve AIDS orphans in India. As the movie begins, Venmathi has fallen ill and her parents are keeping her at a local temple, praying for the Goddess Mother to heal her.  When the Goddess is slow to act and Venmathi’s condition worsens, Rocky convinces her father to let the local hospital have a try.

In desperation, the three of them hop on Rocky’s motorcycle and race into the night. But on the way, stuck at a train crossing, despite Rocky’s own prayers to God, Venmathi dies in her father’s arms.

Rocky, Venmathi and her father waiting at the crossing, out of time.

Venmathi gone far too soon.

Venmathi’s mother when she heard the news.

This little girl and her brief tragic piece of The Big Sad Story sticks with me. I can’t shake her. It’s not because of her beautiful face. It’s because she died right in front of me as I stood there watching her through the camera lens, waiting for the train to come. I was there at her burial. I eavesdropped on her parent’s grief. It doesn’t get more intimate than that.

For me, the Big Sad Story disappears when we meet the individuals that make it up. Then, it’s not difficult to imagine I am Rocky, racing against time on my motorcycle, desperate to save the little girl I can feel burning with fever behind me. Or that I am Venmathi’s father on the back of the bike, clutching my dying girl, praying I’m not too late.

Ever since I saw this movie, I’ve followed Rocky on Facebook and today, I saw he’s trying to raise a little money for Venmathi’s family. Their house is a shell and needs all kinds of finish work; tiles, doors, windows, beds, refrigerator, everything. Rocky has raised about $1000 and estimates he needs another $3500.

So I’m getting involved. Maybe you’d like to as well. (Click HERE or the button below if so.) If you’ve seen Blood Brother, you are a part of this story already. You were there too, watching it all happen, right beside me.

And though we couldn’t do anything to help her then, maybe we can do a little something now.

FOR VENMATHI

For all donations, put “FOR VENMATHI” in the comments section so they know what it’s for.

Note: All images are screen captures from the powerful film Blood Brother. 

If you haven’t seen it, this link will take you there.

This is a Christmas story to be sure, and like the original one, it starts with the birth of a child.

A girl, actually; one girl out of billions. Perhaps one of the least-remarkable, most-invisible girls on the planet. Her name is Masum which means “Innocent” in Bengali, and she was born on a day that was certainly a huge disappointment for her parents. Wherever they are now, they left Masum under a train seat, then disappeared into the anonymous overcrowded vastness of Kolkata.

Being a girl alone in India is hard enough, but when you have the most advanced and most debilitating form of Cerebral Palsy, no one expects you or even wants you to live for long. There is no shining star overhead. There are no wisemen on the way. What hope is there for an abandoned girl like this?

Which is when, in this Christmas story, the angel appears.

Her name is Michelle Harrison and she does not have to care for Masum. She’s a medical doctor, a mother, an author of many books, a fellow at Harvard Medical School and a teacher at the Kennedy School of Government. Her life was the envy of everyone who dreams of climbing society’s ladder. She was well off, accomplished, in need of nothing.

But still…something was missing. Her bank account was full but her heart was empty. She had everything she could ever want, but her soul was crying out for more, for meaning. Souls are funny that way.

And so Michelle moved to India in 2006 to help needy kids—but not just any needy kids. “I wanted the children that no one wanted,” she told me. “The hardest cases. The lost causes. Those are the ones for me.”

The organization she founded and mostly self-funded is called Shishur Sevay which means “In the service of children.” It specializes in the care of girls with extreme disabilities. Masum is one of the youngest members of this unique family.

Now nearly eight years old, life for Masum isn’t easy. Her lungs are weak and pneumonia is a constant threat…as is choking…as are seizures. Things most bodies take for granted are hard for her, like holding her head up and swallowing and just about everything else you and I do on a daily basis. Masum can’t walk or talk. She can’t feed or wash herself or use the bathroom.  She’ll be in diapers her whole life.

To make matters worse, her low-rent wheelchair provides minimal support and not much comfort for her fragile and twisted frame.

Still, Michelle fights for her.

Once while Masum was hospitalized for one ailment or another, Michelle asked the attending doctor for an MRI to take a closer look at the little girl’s brain. The doctor just asked, “Why?” summing up in a single spoken word what many people secretly think about these children.

Why all the effort and concern?

Why look for something that isn’t there?

Why fight for something that is already lost?

Masum is slumped and strapped to the last wheelchair on the right

But Michelle knows why. “Masum may be limited in all motor functions,” she told me, “but that is how she is, not who she is. She radiates joy. She laughs and engages. She responds differently to different people and has her favourites.” In short, Michelle sees past the physical limitations to the soul within…which is what all of us really want, isn’t it?

Call it my letter to Santa, call it my holiday prayer to God, but this Christmas, I wanted to find a new wheel chair for Masum. The thing is: a good one costs more than $6000 USD! So I wrote a single email to a friend, explaining this story. Perhaps she and her church would like to get involved. You never know until you ask…

Which is when more angels appeared.

I won’t give their names; they asked for anonymity, but I’m happy to report Masum’s Christmas gift is on its way! Not only is she getting a world-class wheelchair, custom fitted to her unique body, but the orphanage she lives in is getting a new roof, all part of a generous end-of-year donation from a family in the USA with a big heart.

“I am smiling,” Michelle wrote to me when she heard the news. “Masum is smiling too.”

Dr. Michelle Harrison and Masum at the Shishur Sevay Orphanage in Kolkata, India.

It reminds me of what Jesus said in Mark 25:40. “Truly I tell you,” the passage begins, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sister of mine, you did for me.”

Well, Masum is the least. Compared to the world’s powerful and connected, the rich and successful, even compared to you and me…she is nothing. Why is she even here? What’s the point?

I don’t know for sure but maybe, like the original Christmas baby, she is here to teach compassion. Maybe she is a living example of how blessed we all are; of how grateful we all should be. Maybe she is a reminder that we honor God this time of year not just by singing carols about Him on high but by serving Him here on Earth. Maybe she’s just a girl who needs love, like we all do.

And so, with respect and hope, I encourage you to find your own Masum this holiday season. Someone small. Someone invisible. Go find them. They are everywhere. And when you do, give them your voice, your time, your money, your love.

Because every Christmas story needs an angel, and maybe this year, that angel is you.

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I hate being lied to.

As a parent, it always drove me crazy when my kids lied. It was usually when they’d done something wrong, and it always felt way worse to me than whatever they were actually lying about. Because lying is an insult. It screams of deceit and low character. It breaks trust. And it hurts. Every parent knows this.

I think that’s why, when the 10 Commandments were written, lying was included on the list, right after murder, adultery and theft. We shouldn’t do it. We teach our kids this: Don’t lie. It’s such a basic thing.

And yet every day, from the President of the United States, the lies are so obvious and so consistent, it defies logic. It’s maddening. Does he think we are idiots? Does he not care what the truth is? Has he lived so long in a golden bubble that he thinks he can say whatever he wants and we’ll all just nod in agreement? Or is he simply not talking to all of us? Is he only talking to his supporters who don’t really care what he says so long as he Makes America Great Again…whatever that actually means?

In case it isn’t obvious, I’m not a Trump supporter; I didn’t vote for him. He basically stands for everything I oppose. But this isn’t about his politics. Or his habit of bullying or name calling—which are two other traits parents punish their children for. I’m just talking about his lying.

Because Trump lies all the time.

It’s not spin or sarcasm or political positioning or any of the usual half-truths we typically get from Washington. I’m talking about bold-faced lies with a capital L.

For example…

Watching the way Trump handled the “Children being separated from their parents at the Mexican border” controversy lately was like watching a child with a chocolate-smeared mouth deny he ate the tray of brownies. It’s embarrassing. And it’s on camera.

When confronted by reporters outside the White House on June 15th about his cruel policy, he made the following statement with a straight face. Here’s a 9 second video so you can see the direct quote:

“No, I hate it. I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.

You can’t do through an executive order.”

Then, five days later, on June 20th, after increasing outrage from most US citizens and the Pope and the UN and Amnesty International and every living First Lady including Melania…guess what? He signed an executive order stopping the policy change his own team implemented back in April.

Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

But I thought you couldn’t do it by executive order.

Oh, that’s right. He lies.

I’m not even going to bother listing the pig pile of lies that are such common knowledge. Pick any topic and Google it. The Stormy Daniels payment. His tax returns. Obama’s birth certificate. Illegal votes. Biggest crowd. Most Time magazine covers. Blah blah blah. Enough already.

There’s even a data base being kept by the Washington Post that lists all of Trump’s false or misleading statements since taking office. Apparently, he hit 3251 in the first 497 days! (Of course, this only covers up to May 31st, so we’re due for an update. No doubt the number will rise.)

Are we okay with this? This is our President. Lying. To our faces. Don’t we expect more from this office? George Washington is famous for saying, “I can not tell a lie,” when caught chopping down a cherry tree. And Abraham Lincoln is known as “Honest Abe.” What will Donald Trump be remembered as? Dishonest Don? President Pants-on-Fire?

How and why do we insist our children tell the truth, but don’t hold the leader of the free world to the same standard? And how do we inspire honesty in future generations when their President lies like it’s his job.

No matter what your political affiliation, you know this is true: If Trump was six years old and he was your child, you would punish him for lying. Maybe you’d spank him, if that was your style. You would certainly stop trusting him. You might even take him to a counselor. And when that didn’t work, you’d probably begin to suspect there was something seriously wrong with him.

All of which makes me wonder: Are we being conned? He certainly knows he’s lying. Can he not control himself? Is this part of some master plan? Or is he just lying because that’s the kind of person he is?

Because the sad truth is: I’ve stopped believing anything the President says…or his Press Secretary…certainly his lawyers and sycophants…but especially Trump. After so many statements that are so obviously and provably untrue to anyone with even the slightest interest in facts, I now suspect…if words come out of his mouth, they are more than likely false or misleading, at least in some respect.

Aesop’s fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” warns our children of this.

I wonder if anyone ever read that book (or any book) to Trump when he was a boy.

In 1992, 25 years ago, half my life ago, Traca and I bought an antique votive holder. The Catholic Church has used these little alters for centuries, allowing the faithful to buy a candle and light it for a loved one or some other prayer-worthy cause. We saw this particular relic in an antique store down in Wells, Maine and thought it would provide some beautiful light in our living room.

We were broke back then, and the seller wanted something like $500 which was WAY too much. So we left empty handed. Still…we kept thinking about it, and eventually we went back. This time we met the seller’s husband who hated the thing. For $100 he let us pack it into our car and take it home. We were thrilled.

At the time, it was a big deal for us. It was by far the most expensive useless thing we had ever purchased together, and it felt like we were building a home. We were preparing for the birth of our first child, ready to be parents, and hey, look at us…we were buying decorations. If felt like being adults.

Over the years, this votive holder has been a bright witness to countless celebrations in our family. It has bathed us in romantic light when we needed that, and illuminated our sorrows when sorrows came. It has helped light up both our prayers and our parties. And until today, it has held a secret that I have often wondered about.

One night, in October of 2001, shortly after the September 11 tragedy, we had a party at our new house. We’d just gotten back from a year living in Portugal and so we invited some good friends over for dinner. I’m not sure how it happened but at some point in that evening, we started a little tradition. We encouraged our guests to write notes on scraps of paper and put them in the coin slot of the candle altar. We thought of it like a time capsule. Some day when we were old and grey, we’d open the lock box and relive the past.

In my memory, we wrote notes a lot. In parties over the years, I could picture small slips of folded paper disappearing into the offering box, and I imagined the box was full of mystery, of memory. Like all treasure, it was just waiting to be discovered.

After Traca and I divorced in 2012, the votive holder went to our friend Donna. Neither of us wanted it. As a long-standing Catholic, Donna loved the piece and we were happy for her to have it. It now sits in her kitchen and shines its light on her family’s sorrows and celebrations.

As fate would have it, I’ve been staying with Donna for a bit while I’m back here in Maine, and the votive holder calls to me every time I see it. Open me, it says. It’s time.

So today, I took the base to a local hardware store and told them this story. Like fellow treasure hunters, they were eager to open the box and in no time, with a bit of force, the past came tumbling out.

Turns out…there were only 8 notes in the box with two separate dates. One: October 8th, 2001. The other over a year later: December 22, 2oo2.  All the notes were written by children. Three came from my son Logan. There was also $2.62 inside. Not exactly a bonanza.

Here’s what I found:

We missed it by 49 years, but thanks for the early good wishes, Ryan.

Connor hoped for peace…though I think he got the date wrong.

Jon’s Jack-o-lantern shine so bright and scary. Love Zoe

Shout out to Mountain Dew. Not sure what the “agea” stands for at the end of this one.

Logan is weird. He is so so so so weird. And he is fat. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. He is chubby.

If my daughter Jackson didn’t write this…I don’t know who did.

Dear Mom and Dad, I put it in here ’cause everybody was. Love, Logan (age 8)

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting to find but I certainly thought there would be…more. I’ve told the story of the secret notes so many times, always imagining a great jackpot was waiting in there. Maybe, like a lot of my memories, the story was only ever big in my mind. Or maybe, like a lot of the unknown, the truth is never as satisfying as the mystery.

Still, I like the spirit behind the tradition. Storing away surprises for another day. Creating secrets beyond your reach right in your own living room. There’s a part of me that wishes the box were still shut, but oh, well…you can’t hold onto the past forever.

Of course, you can always start again. And so, as the truth lay out before me on Donna’s table, the few small bits of paper from those two days so long ago, I folded them all up, and one by one, I put them back in the slot. Then, on another piece of paper…I wrote a message, a new secret.

Then I folded it and slipped it into the dark.

 

 

Living here at the Good Shepherd Agricultural Mission, we get emails every week from random people asking for information on how to start an orphanage. Judging by the sheer number of these inquiries, starting an orphanage is a very common dream���which is encouraging. There are millions of desperate children in the world who need homes, and lots of people feel called to do something about it.

It certainly is a romantic notion that I fully understand. When I meet someone who has had the courage to trade the safety of his or her former life for a life of challenge and service on behalf of orphaned children…these people are my heroes. So I���m not surprised that this type of selflessness speaks to others who yearn to make a difference. Don���t we all want our lives to count for something? Don���t we all hunger for more than the emptiness of the earn/spend cycle that modern life has to offer? I know I do.

The thing is…starting an orphanage is not easy. In India for example, you can���t just move here and open one up. There are visa restrictions concerning how long you can stay in the county, and there are strict laws that protect children. Kids are not stray dogs you can legally pick up off the street. The police and local authorities need to be involved. And you need certain government registrations that are not possible for foreigners to get. And land is incredibly expensive. And the bureaucratic Indian system is designed to chew you up and grind you down like a tiger-elephant wrestling duo.

Still, I get the urge to start something.

Several years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea for how to save all the orphans of the world. It felt like a blast of inspiration and I wrote it all down right there in bed. The next day, I called a woman I���d been following online. Her name is Caroline Boudreaux and she started an organization called The Miracle Foundation. Based in Austin Texas, The Miracle Foundation finds poorly run orphanages in need of support, gets them to commit to a series of improvement standards, then finds funding for the operation to improve the lives of the children. With years of experience under her belt, I wanted to run my big idea by her.

After I finished with my ���Here���s How I���m Going To Save The World��� speech, Caroline said something practical that I���ve never forgotten. She said, ���I can tell you���re passionate about this, but I���ve learned something over the years. Starting your own organization is great for your ego, but you���ll waste a lot of time and money that way. If you really want to make a difference, find someone who���s already doing the work you feel called to do and help them do more of it.���

At the time these words felt like a bit of a wet blanket, but in retrospect, it was good advice.

Today, we offer this same kind of suggestion to all those who write to the GSAM looking to start their own orphanages. Find someone who���s already doing good work and help them do more of it. Work with us if you like what we’re doing. Or pick a country that most calls to you and find a hero who���s already there. Or choose an organization closer to home, in your own state or town, and make your difference where you live. You don���t have to travel all the way around the world to serve children in need. They are, quite literally, everywhere.

That said, if you absolutely, 100% must start your own project…go do it. Or if you���re out in the world and trip over an urgent need that you simply cannot ignore…have at it. Maggie Doyne is doing this in Nepal. Katie Davis in Uganda. India Howell in Tanzania. Scott Neeson in Cambodia. The late Hanley Denning in Guatemala. The list goes on and on and beautifully on.

What you should not do is ignore the calling. Whether you help an existing project or start your own, the children of the world are waiting for another hero.

I hope that hero is you.

While I���m here in India, I���ve been watching the U.S. Health Care bill start and stop its way through the Senate. Whether you love Obamacare or Trumpcare, I can���t help but think…our whole idea of health care in America is backwards.

Rather than create a system that truly serves the citizens in our country…we���ve placed profits ahead of people in this one vital area. We all know this is true. We���ve even been raised to believe this is normal. Hospitals and doctors and insurance companies and drug manufacturers are in this business, first and foremost, to make money. And because health care is a business…providers can charge whatever the market will bear. As the cynics might say: If health care is too expensive for you…don���t buy it. Sorry, but not everyone can buy a sports car either. For iPods and software and MRIs, America is a capitalist country and we do not apologize for making money. This is the American way. Cue the anthem.

Before anyone starts to rant about our ���envy of the world��� health care system or casts any ���love it or leave it��� aspersions on my patriotism, let me give you just a single example that happened to me recently. ��A tale of two cities, if you will.

When I was back in the States, I was over at my daughter Jackson���s apartment, biting into a piece of leftover Easter candy when I chipped a tooth. It was one of my back teeth that had a filling drilled into it when I was a boy, and one corner of the tooth crumbled into tiny chips.

Worried that the tooth would completely fall apart, I called a local Aspen Dental office the next day. Aspen Dental is a dentistry chain that takes walk-ins and advertises low rates. Not wanting to break the bank over my broken tooth (and without dental insurance), I called and hoped for the best. I explained the chipped tooth to the nice woman who answered the phone and asked how much it would cost to fix.

���This type of procedure is very common,��� I was told. ���The procedure starts at just $1500 but can go up substantially from there depending on the work needed. Shall I schedule an appointment?���

I declined. ���You know, I can probably fly to India, round trip, and have the work done over there for half that amount,��� I said.

���Then you should probably do that,��� the nice woman replied before bidding me a good afternoon.

So I did.

My ticket to India was $800���which is a very good price. Then just the other day, I went to see a local doctor. I was actually going to have a skin rash looked at but saw pictures of teeth on the doctor���s office walls. ���Are you a dentist?��� I asked.

���Yes, sir. Dermatologist. Dentist,��� the doctor said with a smile and a back-and-forth bobble of his head. And so I told him about my chipped tooth. ���Come to my chair,��� he offered.

With no wait or appointment, I sat in his standard-issue adjustable dentist chair and he started up some kind of machine. ���What are you doing?��� I asked him, worried by the whirring motor.

���I���m fixing it,��� he said.

Into my mouth he placed sharp objects and a tiny round mirror. A plastic suction tube was hooked onto the corner of my mouth. It was all happening so fast. ���Am I going to need any anesthesia or something?��� I wondered.

���No, sir,��� the dentist/dermatologist said. ���We have some music though.���

As directed, an assistant switched on a radio. Elevator music began to play. Billy Joel sang ���I Love You Just The Way You Are.���

After that…the doctor fixed my tooth. He cleaned it out, prepared some kind of putty, fashioned a tooth right there in the office, pressed it in place, hardened it with a UV light wand, shaped it, smoothed it, and fiddled around till it was done.

Total time: ten minutes. Total cost: just 500 rupees or roughly seven dollars and seventy-five cents. (For the record, he charged nothing for the dermatology appointment. $7.75 covered the entire visit.)

So what exactly is the point of this story? you might be asking. Am I saying India has a better health care system then the good old U.S.A.?

No. But I am saying: When you can fly half way around the world and have a routine medical procedure done for half the cost you���d pay at your local for-profit health care provider just down the street… maybe, just maybe, you���re being charged too much at home.

What do you think?

 

Do you ever wish you could make a real difference in the world, but you just don���t know where to start?

Or you���d like to make a donation to some worthy cause, but you wonder where your money will actually end up. And what if you only have a little to share? Will a small donation even matter?

I hear these kinds of things��all the time. I also get requests for specific items that need funding. “If you find something that needs doing,” friends will often say, “let me know. I’d rather fund a project than just send money.”

To which I say: Fair enough.

For anyone who struggles with the doubt of giving…look no further, my big-hearted friends. Because in today���s post, you will find seven, count ���em: seven, real world ways to make a tangible difference in the lives of some amazing orphaned children. And all for $500 or less! There is truly a little something for everyone.

I sat down with my friend Clifton Shipway today here at the Good Shepherd Agricultural Mission in Banbasa, India, and we made a list of the most urgent small projects that need doing around the orphanage. These things are easy to put off and have been on our wish list for a while. So here are a few ways for everyone to get involved, with an item for just about every pocketbook. Here we go.

1. Small Boys��� Bunk Beds ��� Cost: $500

No one really knows��how old the current beds are; they were built forty or even fifty years ago. Whatever the truth, they are beyond tired. And ridiculously small. For example: Gordon (pictured above) is nearly as tall as me (6��� 2���) and his feet stick comically off the top bunk���s end. Eight stackable beds will be built in our workshop with metal frames and plywood support. $62.50 buys one bed. Or buy ���em all. Think of it as buying a good night���s sleep for a group of hardworking, handsome orphaned boys.

2.��High Pressure System Tank ��� Cost $475

This is a critical item here on the farm that is beyond necessary. Our current tank is 25 liters and is simply too small to meet our daily demands. (It’s the sad looking white cylinder in the picture above.) What we really need is a 325 liter beauty to help keep the water pressure up and to take some of the pumping pressure off the pump. When the tank gets low, the pump kicks on…and currently, our pump has been running every 30 seconds or so, which is wearing parts out at an alarming rate. What do you say? Any tankers? We���d be beyond tankful.

3. Pressure Washing Hose ��� Cost: $310�� SOLD!

We used to have one of these, but it got used to death. For washing out the pool (instead of hand scrubbing as shown above), for pressure cleaning moldy concrete walls, for cleaning cement walkways. A hose of this kind keeps us off our knees and onto more important tasks. A good one costs 26,000 rupees or a little over 300 US dollars at today���s exchange rate. If you���re into efficiency, cleanliness, or you simply like intense streams of water, this is the project for you.

4.��A Short Cement Walkway ��� Cost: $220

This one is mostly for Auntie Violet who walks from her hostel to the dining hall twice each day. (That’s her in the picture on a relatively dry day.) When it rains, as it does most days this time of year, the stretch of bare ground she has to cross turns into a muddy soup that is not the ideal walking surface for an elderly woman with a formerly broken hip. When complete, the raised cement walkway will keep her feet and the rest of us out of the mud for many monsoon seasons to come.

5. Two Wheelbarrows ��� Cost: $100 a piece

Ideally we���d have two but one would be amazing. We���re always moving things around the Mission, but most of the time we just use what we can find. Just this morning we grabbed some handmade play carts to move bricks…or we grab blankets…or enlist the tuk tuk. But really, wheelbarrows would be ideal. One hundred dollars buys a heavy-duty industrial model that can take whatever the mission can dish out. All thanks to you!

6. Tin Sheets ��� Cost: $80

We have a covered walkway from the nursery/small girls��� hostel to the dining room���but one section of it leaks. That���s because we scavenged the final tin pieces and tried to make due with a patchwork of small scraps. Now it leaks like a sinking ship, all for the lack of a little new tin. Eighty dollars dries up one small corner of the world. For anyone looking to be the change, this could be your chance. Who’ll stop��the rain?

7. Small Girls��� Hostel Mirror ��� Cost: $30 SOLD…BUT TWO WOULD BE NICE.

21 teen girls share a single bathroom here at the mission, and their full-length mirror recently shattered. For anyone who can appreciate the dire need that this item represents, know that your donation will be looked at every day by every young girl with the kind of intense scrutiny we in the west usually reserve for our cell phone screens. If you have a teen girl or were one (or know one), you know this is not a frivolous luxury.

All totaled these seven projects come to 1655 dollars.

If you���re interested in claiming your part of the improvement bonanza, let me know in the comments below, send me an email at john@johnmarshall.com��or message me on Facebook. All projects will be proven with a photograph and personalized message just for you. 100% of money raised will be used as intended. If we get flooded with more interest than our stated need here, we���ll propose additional projects for your consideration. No one will be left out!

In a world of swirling need, five hundred dollars (or less) can���t stop climate change or cure cancer or end famine…but it can get an orphaned child a new bed, or keep an proud lady���s feet dry, or keep the water flowing for an entire orphanage.

Best of all, I’ll personally watch these projects happen and send you the results. No waste, no wondering, no worries.

Anyone ready to take the plunge?

Just a picture of me jumping like a boss into a jungle river. Cost: $0

I left my job in TV back in 2013.

Thanks to the sale of my book, Wide-Open World, I’ve been able to live without a steady paycheck since then, while also helping my kids through college and re-prioritizing my life.

Really, it’s been an amazing four years.

After visiting The Good Shepherd Agricultural Mission, a large orphanage in North India, I fell in love with the kids I met there and started learning more about the orphan crisis in the world today. I visited good and terrible organizations across India and Africa. I met thousands of these children face to face.

Wanting to dive deeper, I launched New Orphan Age, advocating for various causes I believe in, building schools and new hostels, collectively fundraising for both large and small campaigns worth more than two million dollars! Today, I spend the bulk of my creative time and energy working for orphan projects all across the world, and it feels like what I was meant to do.

It doesn’t pay well, but the satisfaction level is off the chart.

Still, as my money supply begins to dip, it does bring up a nagging question: How do you continue to do the vital, low or no-pay work you love in a world that costs money?

Photo by The Archibald Project

Clifton Shipway, my friend and the Deputy Director of the GSAM, has a similar challenge. He helps runs an orphanage and is concerned with the daily welfare of seventy-five abandoned children and a large staff. He also has a wife and three young boys of his own. As a talented computer programmer, he could be working in the private sector making plenty of money. But instead, he’s giving his time in service to these kids. He takes no salary for his effort.

But again: Short of the kindness of friends and supporters, how do you take a family trip from time to time? Or buy a new motorcycle? Or buy much of anything without money in the bank?

All of this wondering has led Clifton and I to launch a new project this week that we’re calling Charity Design.

Essentially, it’s a web development/video production company—but really it’s more than that. While there are lots of amazing design companies out there, we are the only one that we know of dedicated to improving the lives of orphaned children.

It’s like spaghetti sauce in a way. When I walk into the grocery story, I see dozens of different brands on the shelf, all basically the same and all promising to make my otherwise bland pasta taste better. But I always choose Newman’s Own. And why is that? Because they give 100% of their net profits to fund charitable work. So long as the sauce is tasty (which it is), I’d rather my money go to do some good in the world than simply make some food conglomerate a little richer.

We’re hoping a bit of this logic works for Charity Design.

After twenty years of practice in the writing, production and marketing world for me, and vast coding and design skill for Clifton, we’re teaming up to see what we can do. If you or someone you know might be looking for web or production work, please let us know. Here’s the site. Take a look.

VISIT CHARITY DESIGN

As our new website says, “Through Charity Design we use our talents and experience for a limited number of awesome clients, keep prices low, earn what we need, and keep striving every day to make life better for as many orphans as possible. We help you. You help us. And indirectly, we both help the children who so desperately need us all.”

This is a scary story.

It’s about a place that is so forgotten, so dark and hopeless, it’s all but unfit for human habitation. The fact that this place also happens to be the only bathroom for a group of teenage orphan girls makes it a particularly frightening tale.

In the Big Girls’ Hostel here at the Good Shepherd Agricultural Mission, there are 14 girls between the ages of 18 and 28 and they begin and end each day in the same grim space.

I’m told that in the hot summer, snakes come in the open drain. In the cold winter, there is no hot water system to warm up with. Mirrors are pitted and stained, all but unusable. Only squat toilets are currently installed. Faucets don’t work. Every pipe fixture leaks. Shower stall doors are rusting off their hinges. It truly is a Bathroom of Terror.

For years, these girls—who are for the most part quiet and shy—have lived with this chamber of horrors without much complaint. But when I actually saw the gruesome conditions they were living with (and considered how my own daughter Jackson would react to such substandard facilities), I decided to do something about it.

And so I’ve enlisted Jack and two other young women her age (Emily and Aanchal) to help me reach out to the world on behalf of these girls. We’re launching a fundraising campaign to collect the money needed to renovate the bathroom and dispel the darkness once and for all.

We’re planning a major renovation and when it’s complete, we’ll have sit down toilets, hot water, a vanity/sink area, new mirrors, new tile and lighting, new doors and plumbing. The works. All for just $5000!

Here’s a link to the campaign. It’s called Bathroom of Terror. Take a look. The two-minute campaign video is shot like a horror movie and is certainly worth your time.

TAKE ME TO THE BATHROOM OF TERROR

Enter the creepiest bathroom you’re likely to see, if you dare, and consider getting involved. Share the campaign with your friends, donate if you feel inspired. I promise you, if you knew these girls and spent a few minutes in one of their stalls, you’d sense the urgency of this small request. They really are worth it.

 

 

Photo courtesy of The Archibald Project

Photo courtesy of The Archibald Project.

As a final note, I want to acknowledge Steve Stone who did the video voice over for free. In the sea of voice over talent, Steve is a big fish. You might recognize his voice as a frequent contributor on CNN or TBS or your favorite local news or radio station. He’s everywhere! He used to be the TV voice guy for WPXT in Portland, Maine when I worked there, and when I wanted a rich, movie trailer voice for this bathroom campaign video, I reached out to him again.

Though it’s been four years since we worked together, and though I couldn’t pay him for his services, Steve jumped right on board, recording the read like the pro that he is. Thanks for being willing to help out, Steve. You really make the piece. You’re a legend.

Now go check out the campaign. Just be warned: it is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. But soon, with your help, this scary story will have a happy ending, and the Bathroom of Terror will be no more.

At least it will no longer be the kind of place a young woman will be afraid to walk into when the sun goes down.

STEP RIGHT UP! ENTER THE BATHROOM OF TERROR