Troy and Tara work with Heartline Ministries, an amazing network of people in Haiti who are committed to a cause near and dear to my heart: restoring dignity to their fellow men and women.

What do I mean? Heartline is a unique organization that doesn't meet one particular need in one particular way, but rather seeks to meet the whole needs of an individual and the community that the individual is a part of. Heartline's outlook encompasses critical physical, emotional, financial, educational, and spiritual needs.

And Troy and Tara?

They uprooted their family six years ago and moved to Haiti to be a part of enabling that outlook to be fulfilled. I got the honor to spend time with them at IdeaCamp last September and to spend some time with Troy since, and I must say there are few humans walking this earth that impress me more than these two. They're the sell it all and go types, the dreamers, the prophet poets, the build it believe it do it types. They're the people of whom the world was not worthy, in the words of the writer of Hebrews.

They're those types. And they need our help. The people they love to love need our help.

Heartline provides a number of specific ministries, including a women's education center where women learn to cook, sew, read, and express themselves through art; a maternity center, which provides labor and delivery services, pre-natal and postpartum care, and early childhood development classes; a men's discipleship program and bakery, where men are both discipled and trained vocationally.

The cost to keep this good, big work going can be quite great. The annual budget is $260,000 just to keep all of these moving pieces in motion. This is no small time effort. This is like whoa big serious nitty-gritty lots of people being told they have worth and being handed tools to make their life their own kind of work.

So let's real talk.

You gave up coffee for Lent? Cool. I did that once one year too and it's so not happening again.

But you did and that makes you awesome! Yay!

So I guess that means you have some spare change rattling around your pocket, or maybe more accurately an unopened Starbucks app on your iPhone.

Can I make a suggestion?

Okay, really, can I tell you what to do?

Give.

Give to Heartline.

Give a lot. Let's all, community of friends, dear readers, people I love to the moon for how you challenge me and engage me and keep sticking around while I throw down some words that sometimes come together -- let's give.

Let's practice the radical act of giving this Lent away.

See, Lent isn't just about what we give up, it's also about the practices we take on. (That's as old as the hills in Church history. Talk to me sometime about it.)

Lent is about habituating in ourselves the attitude of Jesus to be ever more dependent on Him. What better way than to love the poor the way Jesus loves the poor? Seeing them fully, embracing them, offering them a name that does not make poverty the determiner of their worth.

Heartline currently has a large fundraiser campaign through the wonderful Pure Charity and I'm asking us to be a drop in the pale of that effort.

And I'm asking you for a lot.

I'm asking that this Lent we get together and we raise $5000 for Heartline.

So.

I'm terrified. I'm scared. I don't know that we can do it. But we're going to try.

And let's be real: I will virtually pound down your digital door and stomp my virtual feet and hollar the virtual you-know-what out of you in telling you why it matters that women and men and children are looked at and told they are, as they are, worth everything to God and God wants to give them abundance because the kingdom of God knows no scarcity when the people of God live out their giving. There is always enough. Always.

Read that again: the kingdom of God knows no scarcity when the people of God live out their giving. There is always enough. Always.

So let's create enough for someone else.

In our season of giving up, let's take on the radical practice of giving.

Are you in?

Let's dream big and loud and bold for Haiti.