Life Without Limits (31 page)

A few dollars here and there can add up when millions are willing to give.
Kiva.org
reports that so far more than $80 million has been distributed from more than a half-million micro-lenders to people in 184 countries. The Web site uses PayPal or credit cards to distribute small loans of $25 or more.

The power of the Internet is increasingly being tapped by inventive philanthropists like Daniel Lubetsky, a social entrepreneur and founder of Peace/Works, a “not-only-for-profit” food and condiment company, based in my native Australia, that makes all-natural KIND fruit and nut bars.

Lubetsky created the “kinding” movement to encourage people to surprise others with unexpected acts of kindness, according to his
Kinded.com
Web site. You can go to the Web site, make your own Kinded card to print out, and then when you do something nice for someone, you pass the card to that person so they can pass it along by doing something nice for someone else. The cards are coded so that they can be tracked online and each person can see the rippling effect of each good deed.

There are so many creative ways to reach out. A new online project called
IfWeRanTheWorld.com
encourages individuals, organizations, and corporations to take on worthy causes in small, manageable steps. You can go to the Web site, fill in your suggestion to the phrase
If I ran the world I would …
, and then the site’s operators hook you up to others willing to find ways to follow through on your idea and pitch in.

One of our current philanthropic projects at Life Without Limbs takes a similar approach. We are creating the equivalent of an online shelter or youth self-counseling center: a Web site where people can share their stories of both hurt and healing and then help each other find ways to move to a better place emotionally and spiritually.

I was inspired to do this a few years ago when I met a seventeen-year-old girl who’d been raped three years earlier. She told me that she’d had no one to talk to about her terrible experience, but God had healed her heart through prayer. She’d then written a song about the healing, in hope of helping others. “Maybe because of what I went through I can help someone who is thinking about giving up, or maybe I can save a soul,” she told me.

Her story inspired me to create this Web site, where her story and her song can be heard by people seeking healing and inspiration. I can’t imagine the physical and emotional pain she experienced. I couldn’t be there for her when she needed help because I didn’t know her then. But I can help her and others tell their stories and heal each other. The Web site is called Never Chained, after the Bible phrase that says “the word of God is never chained.”

My plan is to have a two-stage experience for Never Chained. In
the first section, visitors will be able to share their stories of need; then on the second page, we will link them to people who want to offer assistance or comfort. I think of it as a social-networking site where those in need can connect to those seeking to make a difference. Our goal is modest: to change the world one person at a time. We are still in the process of developing this Web site. Our goal is to inspire teens to become involved and encouraged in philanthropy. You can check
LifeWithoutLimbs.org
for any updates not just on this project but on our travels and stories on how people’s lives are being transformed.

Links to others you’ve met in this book:

Dr. Stuart Brown
    
www.nifplay.org

Reggie Dabbs
    
www.reggiedabbsonline.com

Bethany Hamilton
    
www.bethanyhamilton.com

Gabe Murfitt
    
www.gabeshope.org

Vic & Elsie Schlatter
    Apostolic Christian Church Foundation
    
www.accm.org

Glennis Siverson
    
www.glennisphotos.com

Joni Eareckson Tada
    
www.joniandfriends.org

Phil Toth
    
www.PhilToth.com