Dear God…Please bless Noah Biorkman…

Dear God…Please bless Noah Biorkman…

Does anyone remember the 1996 movie, “Dear God” starring Greg Kinnear?

In it, a cynical con man must take the only job he can get (in the dead letter department at the post office) as a condition of parole. While there, he finds out there is an entire bin of undeliverable dead letter mail, including dozens of “Dear God” letters. Some of it contains cash, jewelry and other goodies.

Although he initially intends to steal the unclaimed money and valuables from this undeliverable mail, he ends up having a change of heart and leads his colleagues in answering prayers found in the letters.

Most of the time when I receive an email request to send Christmas cards to a sick child or help find a missing child, I’m a bit cynical. I check it out first on Urban Legends or Snopes. About 90 percent of the time it’s either an urban legend or expired (e.g. the missing child was found 2 years ago).

So when my colleague Linda Gonzales sent a request to mail Christmas cards to Noah Biorkman, a young boy with neuroblastoma in Michigan, whose family planned to celebrate Christmas early this weekend, I checked it out first. To my pleasant surprise, it’s a legitimate request. There were links to the local radio station WYCD and Noah’s Care Pages. (The only hiccup was they already celebrated their family Christmas last weekend.)

Here’s the most recent posting from Noah’s mother on Care Pages:
Posted Nov 11, 2009

We received 80,000 pieces of mail on Monday alone! We even received mail today on Veteran's Day! Yes, the Post Office is closed today, yet, we still got mail!
My garage is so full that we asking for everyone to please send all communications to Noah's father's house. Everything should go to the following:

Scott Biorkman
3480 Petoskey Way
Milford, Michigan 48380
Please post on all Facebook accounts the address change.

Merry Christmas!!

Posted Nov 9, 2009 12:23am

What a week! Scott and I have had a hard time wrapping our brain
around how much support and compassion we have received from people
all around the world!!! Noah was the 17th most googled topic on
Thursday and 12th on Friday!! Unbelievable!!!!!!!

Thank you to everyone for the support! Thank you to everyone that listened to my requests for peace…

So for the cost of a stamp and five minutes of your time to write a note, address the card and put on the stamp, you can be part of God’s love and a child’s Christmas miracle.

Dear God…
Please bless and watch over Noah and his family. Give them health, strength and peace. Let this holiday season be filled with love and joy and answered prayers.
Amen.

Ten Ways to Make A Difference Daily Even When You Have No Cash

Ten Ways to Make A Difference Daily Even When You Have No Cash

Did you know there are at least 10 ways to make a difference in the world daily—even when you have no cash? It’s true, easy, and can be done in less than 10 minutes each day.

One is to simply smile, and be sure to give your smiles away. Everyone needs encouragement. Besides, it makes you look younger.

Two through seven are clicking various websites to donate support. The way it works is generous corporate sponsors, such as The Nature Conservatory, Mercy Corps and the Helen Keller Foundation, will donate resources for every daily click.

Two thru Seven are clicking daily to generate monetary support from generous corporate sponsors for important causes
2. Click to feed the homeless animals
3. Click here to feed the hungry children of the world
4. Help provide mammograms to needy women
5. Provide life-saving vitamins, prosthetics, surgery, disease testing and vaccines to children
6. Help save a portion of the rain forest
7. Help teach children to read and love books.

I love this program. I've been telling people to view and click these six "sister" sites since 2005.

Number eight is to pray for these needs, the people giving and receiving them.
Nine is to sincerely thank at least one person each day, whether it's a family member, friend or stranger.

Number ten is easy – tell your friends! You can become a FaceBook fan of these sites, blog about them like I did, write a published newspaper article about them like I did, forward an email of this article, text message or simply call your friends. Like you, they’ll likely be grateful to know there are nine things they can do daily to make the world a better place.

Be sure to write these down, and make a commitment to repeat all nine steps daily.
YES! You can click these daily, but only once. (Insert smile emoticon here.)