Read the article here.

If you can say yes to some of those questions, are hard working, and ready for the opportunity of a life-time, then have I got a job for you…

We’re Recruiting CUREkids Coordinators

CURE is recruiting young adults who have qualifications as bloggers and photographers to serve in our hospitals as CUREkids Coordinators. A CUREkids Coordinator is a compensated position within CURE International that serves on a one year term overseas. They live and work at (or near) a CURE hospital in one of the countries in which we serve as a full-time blogger and story-teller, connecting people in the US with the kids we treat in our hospitals through words, pictures, and videos using the tools we’ve built at cure.org/curekids. CURE provides for your housing, living expenses, training, and the tools you need to tell the stories of our CUREkids.

We’re always on the lookout for candidates for the future, but we’re urgently seeking a person to replace our CUREkids Coordinator in Kenya for the beginning of April. If that’s you, click the button below to get more information and start the process or send your resume and references to curekids@cure.org.

I Want Info!

CURE won a Pixel Award!

I’m pleased to announce that CURE.org won the judges choice as best non-profit website. We’re thankful to receive this award, and we congratulate the other nominees that we were up against. There have been some pretty awesome winning sites in the Pixel Awards’s 6-year history, and we’re grateful to now be on that list of recipients.

But that’s not all…

Thanks to you, CURE won both awards!

Thanks to our fans, we also won the people’s choice award in the same category. That’s both awards in the non-profit category! Thank you to everyone who voted. We’re glad to be able to celebrate with you.

We don’t do what we do to win awards, but we’re thankful for the recognition – especially as it raises the profile of the kids and families we serve, and we’re grateful that you were a part of that through your voting.

Recognition

The CURE.org team proving why we would never make it in modeling

The standing prayer of the CURE.org team is that God would do things through our work that only He can take credit for. We saw precisely that in 2011, and I pray that He continues to bless our efforts in 2012.

Thanks for being a part of CURE!

Join the CURE.org Team as the Volunteer CURE Store Coordinator

We’re looking for a volunteer to help organize and run the online CURE Store. If you don’t know already, the CURE Store has items designed by CURE or made in the countries in which we serve for sale online at http://store.cure.org. The money from those gifts is used to support the work of CURE to provide life-changing surgeries for the kids we serve.

To get involved, you need to be organized, enjoy working as a part of a small team, and be willing to come into the CURE headquarters twice a week for a few hours (or organize people who will) to fulfill orders and coordinate with the marketing team (including exploring new product ideas).

Interested? Email us at info@cure.org today. We’re praying that God brings us the right person. Maybe that’s you.

PS – If you don’t live in the Harrisburg, PA, area, I’ll be back with some great ways you can volunteer next week.

If you Google Wilson Patton, you’ll see that this 17-year-old is the world record holder for longest time spent on a balance board. But that’s not why we’re mentioning him on the CURE blog.

Wilson has another first that we think is even more impressive; he’s the first person to create a iPhone App whose profits are being donated to heal kids through CUREkids!

A few months ago, Wilson emailed CURE with an idea. He wanted to build an iPhone game and donate the money he earned from the game to help kids through CUREkids. As a software guy, I was intrigued by the concept, and as a part of CURE, I was ecstatic to see such an innovative idea to Do for Kids Who Can’t. The result is Flying Meatballs.

Flying Meatballs

From the Apple iTunes App Store’s description of Flying Meatballs:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flying-meatballs/id476808103?mt=8

Flying Meatballs supports CURE International (http://cure.org) to provide life-changing surgeries to kids in Africa and Latin America. Learn more about CURE and follow the specific kids who are healed because of this app at http://cure.org/flyingmeatballs.

Your flimsy, plastic fork is in danger of being broken by a huge field of flying meatballs in space! Lead your fork for as long as possible through the danger of balled-up, Italian meat to get a high score, and feel good about yourself along the way because you helped a child receive life-changing surgery! Did we mention that the awesome plastic fork you are guiding through space can pick up aliens and then shoot them at meatballs whenever your pronged eating utensil is in peril of a fiery, ground-meat-filled death? Changing an impoverished and disabled child’s life, helping a plastic fork lost in space, destroying flying balls of meat with tiny green aliens… a game just can’t get any better than Flying Meatballs!

Already, Flying Meatballs has donated $112 for life-changing surgeries through CUREkids! You can follow the fundraising progress of Flying Meatballs at Wilson’s personal fundraising page at http://cure.org/my/flyingmeatballs

What about you?

Wilson is 17, and he built an iPhone game to heal kids through CUREkids! What can you do?

Start your own fundraiser for your birthday or your upcoming race, hold a Dance For Kids Who Can’t, or find your own idea to help kids through CUREkids. If you’d like help or have an innovative new idea you’d like to use to partner with CURE, email us!

The Expressionary, a new Atlanta-based specialized gift company with a charitable purpose, is just such a business,  and they have chosen CURE International as one of their founding charitable organizations.

“Think of this product as the ‘Expressive Dictionary,’” says William Mehserle, president of parent company, Expression-ary, LLC. “Most people can easily think of two to four words that best describe someone closest to them, but they struggle for the deeper expressions that truly signify that person and their relationship. The Expressionary will eliminate that struggle.”

For every product sold, The Expressionary, donates a minimum of 10 percent to one of its partner charities. Each purchaser is able to select one of the company’s partner non-profits to which his or her contribution will go.

CURE International is one of the first charities that The Expressionary has chosen to support.

We’re thankful to have businesses like The Expressionary working to support and advocate for the children and families we serve at CURE International.

Partner Your Business with CURE?

If you’d like to discuss how your business can partner with CURE International, email us, and let’s start a conversation. We’d love to have you as part of the CURE family.

Most hospitals in the developing world don’t provide meals for their patients. Instead, families are expected to provide for their loved ones needs, regardless of their means. At CURE, we do things differently. Our patients need a nutritious diet to help them before and after surgery, and we provide meals for our patients and their caregiver.

In this post in our Gift of Healing series, we’re talking about food, and I have a few interesting numbers to share with you.

600,000

That’s the number of meals CURE will serve to our patients and their caregivers in 2012.

$600,000

That’s the cost to provide nutritious meals to our patients and their caregivers for one year.

$1 per meal

For those of you doing the accounting at home, that comes out to $1 per meal. $1 per meal is a pretty good bargain. There’s not much you can get for $1 these days, and to prove it, this week, I kept a list of all the things I could buy for $1.

- 2/3 of a soda at my favorite burrito joint
- a pack of gum
- 1/4 gallon of diesel in my VW Golf
- a personal-sized bag of chips
- 8 olives at the grocery store olive bar

You get the point. There’s not much you can buy for $1, so the fact that you can provide a nutritious meal to a CURE patient for $1 is pretty cool, especially when you think about how many things we buy throughout the week for far more than $1.

A Donor Challenge Fundraiser

A generous CURE family has a challenge to offer you. They’ve offered up a $300,000 match for Food in CURE hospitals. That means that right now, every $1 you give in support of Food for CURE patients and caregivers will be matched.

$20 will provide 40 meals. $50 will provide 100 meals. $100 dollars will provide 200 meals. You get the point. Your gift will be doubled, and you’ll join a community of people providing food and care to CURE patients.

2 meals for $1 – just another way you can be a part of healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God with CURE.

Join the Food Match Challenge

CUREkids has brought the work of CURE to your inbox and Facebook wall through the lives of the kids we’re privileged to serve, but now our kids want to hear from you. That’s why we’re pleased to announce CUREkids Get Well messages!

Now your family has the chance to share words of encouragement with a child in a CURE hospital. Here’s how:

• Go to http://cure.org/curekids/getwell
• Fill out a personal message to a child currently in treatment at CURE hospital.
• Optionally, upload pictures to send along with your message.
• You can even link a YouTube video to your message.
• Click Send, and your message will be sent our our CUREkids coordinator.
• We’ll notify when your Get Well message is received.

Get Well messages are a great new way to become part of the ministry of CURE International. They’re also a wonderful opportunity to connect your own children to kids thousands of miles away that need their love and encouragement.

So what are you waiting for?
There are kids in CURE hospitals that need your encouragement today.

Send a Get Well message!

Post Script: A Real-Life Example

Last week, I sent this get well message to a young girl at CURE Kenya named Kiloret and received the following reply this weekend.

Hi Mr. Worrall –

My name is Jenny. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to send a Get Well message to Kiloret. Her mom seriously couldn’t stop thanking me, and her and the other Maasai people in the room kept raving about your picture with Eliana…

Kiloret, meet Joel & his baby Eliana

I’m pretty sure her mom loves you…she couldn’t stop saying “Asante”. And the guy on the right is our surgery tech, Peter, who graciously translated your message into Maasai…how awesome is that!?

Thanks so much for investing in Kiloret & CUREkids. You’ve blessed Kiloret and her family in a way I can’t actually express…

His,
Jenny England ::: CUREkids Coordinator – Kenya
CURE International
“If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”
Isaiah 58:10

Public voting for the “People’s Choice” is open now until December 18, and anyone is eligible to vote once per day. Winners will be announced later in December.

You can vote for CURE at this address: http://www.pixelawards.com/nom_win_2011.php#Non-Profit.

We’ve also created a calender reminder that you can download if you’d like to vote for us every day. It’s a great, simple way that you can help promote CURE.

Established in 2006, the Pixel Awards takes a fresh look at the best on the web. They are the cutting-edge website award, annually honoring compelling sites that have shown excellence in web design and development. Sites are submitted in 24 diverse categories, including our unique Agency, Geek, and Green categories. Any site can enter. Only 24 exceptional sites will win.

No need to thank me yet. Wait until Christmas morning. I promise, it will be worth it. Because this hat is going to change lives.

Every year at Christmas, we run around looking to buy each other something that is practical and meaningful and (ideally) something that the recipient won’t return the next day. We want our gifts to have purpose because we care deeply for the people to whom they’re given.

At CURE, I think we have a present to fit that tall order, and it starts with this hat.

Buy a CURE hat as a present

It’s a pretty good-looking hat. It comes in one of three very nice colors. If you order before December 17, we promise to have it to you in time for Christmas, and – of course – it keeps your head warm. Now you might be saying, “A warm head is great – not life-changing per se, but very nice.”

But it’s what happens because of the hat where things starts to get interesting…

Your hat changes a child’s life through CUREkids

The donation you made for that hat will help provide a life-changing surgery for a child just like Mussa (the little boy in the picture). You’ll be able to follow your child’s progress online via CUREkids through emails and updates before, during, and after surgery. For the kids that receive this care, their lives will NEVER be the same, and all because you bought a hat.

But there’s more than the impact on the child. Remember that I said “lives” not “life” will be changed.

You can be changed this Christmas

One of things I admire about Jesus in the Gospel accounts is His ability to impact the lives of everyone He encounters. In Mark chapter 2, we read the story of a paralyzed man who was brought to Jesus by some friends. The man’s friends literally rip open the roof of a home to lower their paralyzed friend to Jesus while a crowd of people watch in astonishment.

At the end of story, after Jesus has healed the paralyzed man and rebuked the religious leaders, Mark says this:

This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Did you catch that? Not only did Jesus change the physical and spiritual life of the paralyzed man, but he made an eternal impact on everyone who was a witness to the man’s healing.

This Christmas is a chance for God to do a work in you, and He just might do that as you witness the healing of a child 9,000 miles away. The Bible teaches over and again that getting on board with what God is already doing in the world is the path to life-change on our journey with Him, and God’s heart is very close to the kids and families that we are privileged to serve. It may be that as you follow the story of one of these children in a CURE hospital and take pause to pray for them and their situation that God may open up your own life and do a work in you and those around you. And that would definitely qualify as a life-changing gift…

…and it just might start with a hat.

Learn More or Buy a Hat