Happy Holidays — we have much to be thankful for!

First of all, I want to wish everyone a fantastic holiday season, a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!!! Even if you are not celebrating any of these holidays, I hope you have the opportunity to spend time with family, friends, and loved ones!!!

Several colleagues and friends (especially Khalid Ali 😉 ) have asked me why I have not written more blog posts in the last two months. I have no good excuse other than to mention I have been working on my third book 😀 (I will share more details about it in my next blog post; for now consider this a teaser of coming attractions 😉 )

The holiday season is a great time to self-reflect on our blessings and recognize people and organizations that are truly making a difference in the world. Here are two of my favorites:

First, the One Acre Fund: I had the opportunity to attend the organization’s annual fundraising gala in Chicago a few weeks ago. It is amazing the progress that Andrew Youn and Matt Forti and their teams are making each and every day in several countries across Africa. They have now doubled or tripled the annual yield on 1 million farms in Africa, impacting the lives of more than 3 million children (yes, I said 3 million children!!!!!). If that wasn’t amazing enough, they have set a goal for the next 5 years of reaching 3 million farm families. You can learn more about their amazing work here.

A second organization that is making a remarkable impact is Feed My Starving Children (FMSC). FMSC’s mission is “Feeding God’s starving children hungry in body and spirit.” Julie found an FMSC facility in Eagan, Minnesota where families can volunteer to pack and box meals for children around the world. So, given that we are visiting family in Minnesota, what better time than the day before Christmas to gather the gang together for a few hours to make a difference? We had twelve relatives (see picture below) that joined about 100 other volunteers. In one and a half hours we were able to pack 112 boxes containing 24,192 meals for children in Haiti!!