[kelly]

Dear Members,


We are excited to mention that we are moving to a more new and improved message boards on MONDAY MORNING AUGUST 9th! The boards will be done for a few hours while we are making the conversation. Remember we posted information about this move a month ago. For some of you this might seem a bit sudden,  but when we were reviewing the site we determined the current message board you are using is out of date and the company that designed it is no longer in existence. The good news is this new message board will have new features that have been requested in the past like more fields we can add to your profiles and a chat room up to 20 people at one time. If we find the chat room is bursting at the seams we will add additional room for extra people. All your old posts, private messages and such will be migrated to the new message board. You might have to put up your profile picture again but not sure. The new company will be doing the migration for us. Here is a short list of some of the new features on the board:


- Custom Profile Fields
- Users can customize their profile pages by selecting a background color or background image, with tiling options.
- Facebook and Twitter Integration
- users can respond to multiple posts at once with "mini-quote"
- Pinned discussion threads - like welcome to our board etc.
- Announcements made across some boards or the entire message board
- Search: Users can easily find all content generated by a particular member, by clicking the 'Find Content' button that appears on the main profile page, or in the Mini Profile Popup which can be accessed throughout the board. The results page allows content to be filtered by application, as well whether the member created it or merely participated in it.
- Privacy: allows users to sign in anonymously, hiding them from the online users list. Users also have the option to disable personal conversations and user-to-user emails, as well as ignore other users if necessary.


The next exciting piece of news about the new message board is it will have a new domain name of www.grieving.com for search engine optimization purposes. It will still be apart of Beyond Indigo and can be found through www.beyondindigo.com. We will be redirecting your current URL's to this new domain name but we might miss a few. If that is the case simply go back to www.grieving.com or www.beyondindigo.com to find your message board thread. We will try to make the transition as seamless as possible.


The bottom line is the new board will give us room to grow our community and more options to interact better with each other.


If you have any questions please direct them to feedback@beyondindigo.com.


Kelly Baltzell, MA
CEO/President
Beyond Indigo Family

[4everjoeysmom]

Here is a recap of last year's Christmas Basket project that my husband and I did through the mission we founded here in Ecuador. Many BI bereaved parents contributed in honor of their children and it was such a blessing for us all. It would be wonderful to get more involvement from others who would like to honor family members this Christmas season through charitable giving..



We're reaching out for 2009 now, to offer poor families in our rural area of Ecuador a Christmas Chicken as well as enough dry goods, grains, and essential sanitary products to meet a families needs for 2-3 weeks, maybe longer. Each basket will, like last year, be roughly 50# and will cost $50. Donations of $10 up to equal $50 will be pooled to make one basket. Funds may be made out and sent to:

Pathways International (NC), Inc
624 Holly Springs Rd, #222
Holly Springs, NC 27540

or made directly on our ministry web site using Google Checkout at http://pathwaysinternational.org/

Thanks all for your consideration and for checking out our slideshow of last year's Christmas blessings.

xoxoxo
Claudia (4EverJoeysMom)

Attached File(s)

•  Christmas Basket.jpg (10.41K)
  Number of downloads: 3

[4everjoeysmom]

Here is the link to the UTube video from our Christmas Basket project. There are a couple of things to consider; 1) This was our first time trying to make a video from a slide show. 2) Our internet speed (in the Rain Forest of Ecuador) is not high-speed to the point where we are able to upload super-high quality projects for the web. But this turned out well in spite of the challenges. Here Goes! Enjoy!!

[DawnFisher]

Claudia,

I've moved this thread into it's own forum topic - thought it would get more attention this way!

Take Care,

Dawn

Beyond Indigo

[4everjoeysmom]

Dawn, Yes! that's correct. (We have found Google Checkout to be the easiest, but it's sponsor's choice.) My husband and I and our ministry partners will do all of the shopping, all of the packaging in boxes, all of the wrapping of the little gifts (that I have from extra stock leftover from groups that we hosted this year), all of the baking of goodies, and all of the hand-delivering. All a sponsor needs to do is make the donation, and send me an e-mail if you want to personalize your sponsorship by adding a photo of your family, a little inspirational note, a Bible verse, prayer, poem or whatever. It's really simple and a great way to share love and the legacy of our loved ones whom we will all be missing at Christmastime. My e-mail is clab2010@yahoo.com

Please PM me or e-mail me with any questions and your sponsorship personalizations.

Again, all gifts are tax deductible through our 501c3 non-profit.

[DawnFisher]

Claudia,

Just to clarify, if you want to sponsor a box - you can click online at

http://www.pathwaysinternational.org/ and choose the tab

"When you help" to make an online sponsorship through paypal

or google check-out.  And if you want to send a check - you send it

to your NC address below, correct?  You will do all the shopping there, thus

avoiding us having to shop here and pay high shipping rates, right?

Then you will be personalizing the boxes with the info that we email

you as sponsors of the family receiving the box? 

Thanks,

Dawn

[4everjoeysmom]

Many parents who have lost a child are helping to sponsor this program and others like it during the Christmas season in honor of the memories of their children. It was suggested that perhaps others may be interested in participating as a "Box" sponsor in memory of your loved ones.

For several years, my church back home has been doing operation Christmas child. Years ago I also helped in a project that delivered Christmas gifts to kids whose parents were in prison. I wrote a note a few weeks ago and stated that I wish we could have that kind of sponsored Christmas giving here, In Ecuador. I am originally from the United States, but came to Ecuador with my husband 2-1/2 years ago as a volunteer missionary. Since then my son passed away at near-24. It has changed everything for me, and has increased my heart to make a difference for those who need a helping hand. The scale of many of those "giving" programs is massive, but you gotta start somewhere, so I decided to do something here, now, in whatever way I could. That is how the Christmas Box Project was born.

In the past, when a family has been in dire straits, we have taken up collections from visiting short-mission groups and purchased lots of dry goods (food stuff), kitchen sponges and wash cloths, socks, a little toy for children, a machete and sharpening stone (a tool commonly used here, like a pocket knife is at home), hair ties for girls, all kinds of stuff like that. We would spend about $50 per unit and stuff everything in a box and deliver it to the family in need. This is what has inspired me to do something special specifically for Christmas. It's two-fold, really. Like most of you have shared, it does a heart good to do for someone else in the memory of our loved one. Many of us have taken up alternative ways to celebrate the holidays. That concept inspires me BIG time! And of course, the obvious--helping someone who truly has need, has very little if any of the very basics that we all generally take for granted in life. So, here's the plan, and I am excited that many of you want to jump on board with the program. This is exciting, because there is potential for MANY poor families in our area to receive boxes--and that is awesome! Here's how you can help!

Anyone interested, we are going to shop for goods that will be useful for a needy family and fill up one carton per household. The boxes will contain dry goods--bulk rice, beans, flour, sugar, dry soup mix, powdered milk, and such, and toilet paper. I have various things left over here from recent mission groups and projects, like crafty items, crayons, stuffed toys, hair ribbons and such, so we'll add some of those to the boxes. We also have some kid vitamins and essential health care items, like toothbrushes and paste, little soaps and shampoos, and a couple of cases of anti-parasite medicine (which is really needed here). We will be tossing all of that in, to make a nice full box. So the $50 sponsorships per box will primarily cover food and essential needs--and we'll cover the rest to fill up the boxes with something for everyone in the household. I am going to make muffins and cookies, so we'll add a tray of holiday fresh baked goods too to make a really nice package deal.

Those interested in sponsoring a box, (gosh, I am so excited about this--BI friends banding together to bless the poor families in our community in Ecuador--Yay!) Our ministry is called Pathways-- and for those outside of the US and those who desire convenience, you can go to our web site and do Google checkout. http://WWW.PathwaysInternational.org
We're a non-profit 501c3, so all donations are tax-deductible.

Those in the States that prefer to do so by check, our (mail only) address is:
c/o Pathways International (NC), Inc
624 Holly Springs Rd, #222
Holly Springs, NC, 27540

What I would like to do is print up pictures of each sponsor's family, and attach the pictures to a card that tells a story about your loved one and how he/she has inspired you to bless this family with a gift this Christmas. (That's optional, but I would like to do that if you are willing.) Also if you would like to send your own prayer or greeting, I can translate, print and glue that to the back of your photo, which will serve as a holiday greeting card. So, please e-mail photos and any text you want to offer, once you've made your sponsorship gift, to me at clab2010@yahoo.com Also, if anyone has any suggestions you would like to make with regards to the project, or if you are sponsoring a box and have a particular type of family in mind, I would love to hear from you. What I mean by that is that we know families with elderly needy, blind children, physically impaired people, single moms, you name it--we know them.

We will deliver the boxes Tuesday and Wednesday(the 23rd and 24th, just before Christmas, so that the families will have the opportunity to cook their meals and open gifts together on Christmas. We will take photos of each family that receives a box, and I will e-mail to each one of you a set of the photos telling specifically which family received YOUR box--providing you have e-mailed me with your e-mail information.

Thanks all who are sharing in the project. I am thrilled that my BI family and friends are impacting people here with love for Christmas!! Bless you all! Love, Claudia