The Gift of Philanthropy

The Gift of Philanthropy: Join Us

See below.

June 13, 2014
Deanna and I were married on June 14, 1964. Due to family scheduling conflicts, we’ll celebrate our anniversary a week later, on June 22 with our church, family and close friends. It’ll be quite a time, especially for me. Back in High School girls didn’t talk much with me; let alone date me. Finally, I married the prettiest girl around, and she stuck it out through thick and thin.

50 years later we have neither the need nor the room for more things, but some folks like special ways to commemorate the day. Instead of gifts for us, we would rather make a gift to you.

We like the Native American birthday giving custom. Their celebrants give to others; rather than receive; as a gesture of gratitude for another year. 

However, like us I’m sure you have more than you need, so how can we adapt that custom and honor you with a gift?

I know; THE GIFT OF PHILANTHROPY!

Our tiny “philanthropic” endeavors go in various ways. There’s Kansas Mennonite Men’s Chorus (KMMC), Interfaith Housing Services (IHS) and NAMI; to name the top three outside of our church. IHS is a local non-profit which I led in its establishment 24 years ago; and NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) is an information and education provider regarding mental illness. NAMI advocates with government on behalf mental health consumers; teaches consumers and families on self-advocacy and other topics unique to their crises; and they do support groups. KMMC is a Christian Men’s Chorus with nearly 300 members. We have two or three free concerts each year at which we receive free-will offering donations, all of which goes to worldwide poverty and hunger relief. Our mission statement is “We sing that others may live.”

Right now, I’m pushing hardest for NAMI, where goals were only 80% met in a recent fundraiser.

Our gift to you works like this. Everyone can do small philanthropy, and “small” adds up to “large” if you enlist others. For our anniversary, we will make contributions to NAMI, and IHS, and we invite others to join in with small gifts of any amount to “our” charities ($1, $10, $100; whatever), or to their own charities. 

Deep Government cuts aggravate the need, and charities desperately need help; great or small. Mental health providers have lost hundreds of thousands each and some services have been lost. Home rehab funding has also become elusive, so that IHS can’t do as much. They now provide low-income rentals, as well as weatherization across SW Kansas. I help through occasional “in-kind” giving; handling a project or working with others.

The need won’t go away. At least 1 in 4 people in the USA still suffer mental health crises each year and need professional intervention. Many low income elderly still deplete their savings and watch their homes fall to disrepair. 

So please, join us in philanthropy. Remember, "small" can quickly become "big." 

As “our day” approaches do something extra for someone or some cause in your own area. If you wish to join us by contributing to one of our charities, look below to find the details.

Naturally, you aren't obligated, and we won’t shun you. You may just want to pray. God will bless you, for that as well.

Serving in faith,

Jack and Deanna Mace

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To join our philanthropy FOR IHS  (https://www.facebook.com/InterfaithHousingServices)

• Take/send your philanthropy directly, IHS, 1326 E Ave A, Hutchinson, KS 67501. Be sure to reference your gift to “Jack & Deanna Mace philanthropy.”

• Alternatively, you can just send in a check. We don’t really need the recognition.

To join our philanthropy for KMMC (https://ksmenschorus.org/)

• Send it directly to Kansas Mennonite Men’s Chorus (KMMC), 15800 W Dutch Ave, Moundridge, KS 67107. Write “Jack & Deanna Mace philanthropy” on the memo line.

He's Still There

He’s still there;

                the kid with history

                good times and bad

                success and failure

                hard times and triumph.

He’s still there;

                who he is because of who he was

                proud he overcame

                glad in who he is

                glad in what he’s done.

Yes, he’s still there;

                in isolation and crowds

                in isolation IN the crowds

                with friends – or not

                in confidence – or fear.

Yes, he’s still there;

                the kid who’s quite afraid

                who fears accusations of wrong

                who oft feels guilt even absent wrong

                who isolates himself by that fear

That frightened kid; yes, he’s still there.

Funds for Mental Health

I make no apologies. I’ll tell you right up front. In this blog entry I’m going to ask you to make a commitment to support mental health funding. It is too critical an issue to leave alone.

Quoting from the 2014 NAMIWalks brochure:

“From coast to coast and around the globe, mental illness affects everyone. Every year, regardless of race, age, religion or economic status, mental illness impacts the lives of at least one in four adults, and one in ten children across the United States – that is nearly 60 million Americans.”

“NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans Affected with Mental illness. NAMI advocates for access to services, treatment supports and research.”

 As a concerned community member, I have been involved “in the trenches” as a volunteer friend of a man severely disabled with mental illness for some 18 years now. My college degree is a B.A. in Psychology (1972, Bethel College, North Newton, KS). I was Seminary-trained in chaplaincy/counseling and for a time I worked in that role. I am also an Adult “with” A.D.D. Attention Deficit Disorder.

I prefer to think of myself as “an Adult A.D.D.;” something I AM and not what I have. I’ve come to view it as almost a personality type in and of itself, and I’ve made friends with myself as such a person. It’s far easier to manage my moods, etc. when I think in that way; when I accept myself as worthy of my own care. 

A.D.H.D. (“H” for hyperactive), is listed high on NAMI’s list of mental illnesses. A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. are genetic issues and aren’t “curable.”

I have had only a brief time in my life when I was involved in a professional intervention for my “condition,” and I do no meds for the so-called disorder. Thus, I generally think of myself in my concerned community member role rather than as a Mental Health Consumer. A year ago, I joined NAMI Reno, the local NAMI affiliate and became NAMIWalks Captain for Reno County, KS. I continue in that role this year, and I am under full steam in seeking sponsorship for our team, HutchInStride.

If you are inclined to join me in my concern for mental health consumers, please visit http://namiwalks.nami.org/HutchInStride2014 – my own NAMIWalks website – and sign on to support my efforts. Your response has never been more important, with a Kansas Governor in an election year who believes that taking money from one part of the overall mental health budget and applying it to another, less needed area, represents increased funding with which he can make political hay. The net effect is that Mental Health Consumers are actually losing services. NAMI stands in the gap, working to rectify that problem.

A Collage of Memories

HOW we remember events and relationships is what we live by. If each of us took the time, we could name thousands of such "entries."

In 1994, I read a book that emphasized that point; THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT BE DEFEATED by B. Mitchell, a man who had suffered two debilitating events that could have killed him. He was severely disfigured in a traffic accident fire. His burns cost him several fingers and his good looks. Due to his injuries he temporarily lost his career as a multi-engine flight instructor. After regaining his licensing, he experienced an ice-related winter air crash that left him as a paraplegic, "confined" to a wheel chair. Although he qualified for a motorized chair, he declined owning one because it would likely serve to sink him deeper into concentration on his losses and disabilities. He chose instead to use a light-weight standard wheel chair. His motto was, "It's not what happens to you, it's what you do about it." Insurance settlements made him quite wealthy, and he went on the speaking circuit as a motivational speaker; often donating his entire fee back to a worthy organization where he had spoken.

It blew me away that he accomplished everything he did and all the good that came about in the aftermath of his injuries with no faith in God at all. He was a profound atheist.

Barely two weeks after reading his book, I found myself waking up on the pavement after I crashed into the back of a parked truck just two and a half blocks from home. I had intended to go for a 25-mile exercise ride and was distracted by a speedometer that was not working properly. I took a physical inventory of myself before I tried to get up, because I didn't want to cause further damage if I had been badly injured. I literally couldn't feel any sensations at all, and I only could locate my left hand; a body  part I could see but could barely move. Breathing was hard because the strap on my helmet restricted my airway.  Fortunately, my injuries left me with no long-term disability, even though now going on 18 years later I still have never fully felt the floor through my feet as I did before. (It took several years before I gained back enough feeling below my belt to say that I had "recovered" from my injuries.

As I lay there on the pavement, before emergency help arrived (thanks to neighbors calling 911), I remember that I started to react in some level of fear. Then I thought, "If Mitchell could do it without God, I can to it WITH God. 

It's truly not what happens to you. It's what you do about it. So, here below, I offer a relatively few of my foundational memories; not as a complaint, because I have done "something" about HOW I remember them; but as a starter to suggest that you might take such an inventory and think about "what you do about it."

Early Childhood and Grade School

·     Judy, my early elementary school girlfriend “chasing” me into Mom’s corn field. Somehow, she “always caught me” in the middle of the patch. ;)  ;)

·     Singing around the piano because there wasn't much music on the radio that Dad would let us hear & TV hadn't yet arrived in our small, Kansas town.

·     My brother and I singing duets in church when I was only 5-8 years old

·     Getting into trouble in kindergarten after building myself a tower of building blocks – specifically so I could bomb it and destroy it. When I bombed as I had planned, my teacher thought it was someone else’s tower and scolded me severely. She never accepted my explanation.

·     Miss Lewis, my first grade teacher; vaguely remembered except for the name, and seeing her at the Dillon’s grocery store in Larned. Mom thought it was something to see my reaction.

·     Mrs. Fromong, my second grade teacher; I don’t remember much other than her name. I don’t remember the year as any kind of hallmark in my life. I sort of remember that the class faced south. I believe I sat in the second row away from the east facing windows, just forward from the middle of the row.

·     Taking my brother Glenn’s bicycle from the rack at the high school, next to the elementary school, to ride it, and losing control. It resulted in heading down the hill on 11th Street. A friend of Glenn hopped on his bike and caught up with me about a block down the hill to get me stopped. It scared the dickens out of me, and I never tried something like that again.

·     The mean dog near the school that bit me several times on the leg … after I kicked at it. I never told anyone back then that I had "started it." The dog was destroyed. I never lamented his passing.

·     Dad concocting stories -- serial versions, of course -- for bedtime, that would take days to finish; He was a hillbilly, and one of their favorite pass-times was "telling lies" (stories and jokes).

High School and Teenage

·     Pastors in church who trusted me in helping to minister to a teenager my age who had stolen a car -- whom the pastor had gotten released to his custody

·     Friends; a very few who were close and always there; others stormy/volatile sometimes there, sometimes not

·     The knowledge in my heart that even though life wasn't always fun for me, Jesus was always my friend and always cared; Emanuel, God with us”

·     Frequent trips to Youth for Christ meetings in Oklahoma City

·     Trips to Youth for Christ Conventions in Wynona Lake, Indiana

·     Learning to check, when people say, “We’re behind you,” to see just how far behind you they are

·     Learning to stand on my own in Christ, because sometimes that was all I had

·     Mother kneeling by her bed every night, weeping as she held each of us (her seven children) up to God in prayer

·     The first time I saw my wife, Deanna; how I knew at the age of 17, "There's the girl I'm going to marry."

·     The joy of getting my H.S. Diploma

College and Adulthood; Early and Later

·     The many good years Deanna and I have had together -- nearly 50 of them now

·     Our two sons born 12/21/1966 and 7/05/1970

·     Struggling through college and seminary with very low reading speed; thus low comprehension

·     Finally solving the reading problem, by help from God, so that I finally was getting mostly A’s and B’s in my final year of grad school

·     When our sons had finally left home, finding that the "empty nest syndrome" was greatly over rated -- Why should we complain about success in a 25-year endeavor?

·     The joy of finishing college for Bachelor of Arts Degree

·     The sense of absolute satisfaction in accomplishing all the work of my Master of Divinity Degree ON TIME, with no extensions; one of 5 in a class of 35 to accomplish that

·     Helping to found a charity to help the poor and elderly in my home town with home repairs -- an organization still serving in much stronger ways than I could have dreamt 24 years ago

·     Seeing my sons in their adult life as they succeed (or not) in their endeavors; occasionally now taking calls from the eldest for help in thinking his business through

·     Volunteering to work on home projects for the elderly and disabled

·     Volunteering to work with the Mental Health Assn and finding that I now have a "larger family"

·     Knowing Christ and knowing that he knows me

·     Teaching others new skills

·     A dumb accident in 1994 that laid me up for several weeks, then tied me up for several years more once I was “on my feet”

·     Finally getting lined up with an Orthopedic Surgeon (3 years after the accident) who was more concerned about helping me heal naturally than about getting paid by my insurance company

·     Getting rid of some 95% of the pain, and learning new things about healing other things  with in the process; The doc said I had only come back some 85%, but she wasn’t inside this painful skin.

·     Never feeling really safe from personal, emotional attack and emotional blackmail

·     Praising God!

I hope it is clear that I will talk about what has happened, but that I expect it to be some small encouragement to you to do your own inventory. You KNOW there is much, much more that I could write; thousands of words on each entry above and would still never cover the whole. I invite and encourage response comments.