TONY'S NEWSLETTER
DECEMBER 2009
Dear Friends,
Another Christmas has come! Another busy year has passed! Believe it or not, I’ll soon be 75! My friends and family keep asking me to slow down. My answer: Not until I have to!
As my wife well knows, being out there on the speaking circuit, instead of wearing me down, is really what energizes me. Recruiting young people to serve the poor, raising the financial support that they need to keep doing what they’re doing and, most importantly, declaring the Good News about what God has done through Jesus Christ…all this gets my juices going.
This Christmas will bring smiles to many faces as grownups watch children happily opening their presents. But I know from Scripture that, following that first Christmas, there were thousands of mothers who weren’t smiling at all. These were mothers who wept because the soldiers of King Herod, seeking to slay that one Child whom the Wise Men predicted would become “King of the Jews,” had slaughtered every little boy in and around Bethlehem . That is the part of the Christmas story we don’t want to hear amidst the joyful sounds of the holiday season.
The cries of weeping mothers are still being heard, of course. They are heard here in our own country, where our young workers try to rescue inner-city children from the clutches of gang leaders and pimps. They are heard in villages in Haiti and Zimbabwe , where our missionaries work to feed and educate malnourished children born into grinding poverty.
The cries of such mothers keep me going, and I hope they keep you giving as well. Together we can wipe their tears away. Together we can bring even more joy into a weeping world. Please remember to give generously to the work of EAPE this Christmas season.
Sincerely,
ABOUT TONY + DECEMBR 2009