{"id":372,"date":"2008-01-22T21:09:40","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T21:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html"},"modified":"2008-01-22T21:09:40","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T21:09:40","slug":"heading-to-afri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html","title":{"rendered":"Heading to Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last week has been BRUTAL. A car accident, I threw my lower back out, I missed my book contract deadline, there are problems everywhere I look, I&#8217;m tired, angry, and border-line depressed. Just a typical week before I leave on a mission trip! Seriously, if anything could go wrong, it did. Crazy things always happen right before an overseas trip. There will be 25 people coming from Canada, Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, Ohio, goodness, everywhere &#8211; all sacrificing their time to help the orphans of Swaziland and South Africa. I especially covet your prayers while we&#8217;re gone because it will be long (almost two weeks) and we need to get a ton done every single day. I will be updating my blog with pictures and news about the days happenings. Thanks again for all you mean to me, Children&#8217;s HopeChest, and the orphans we serve. When I go on these kinds of trips, I genuinely feel like you are going with me. We get to do this together. Talk to you in a few days&#8230;<a href=\"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/2008\/01\/22\/africasummer07_017.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Africasummer07_017\" src=\"https:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/2008\/01\/22\/africasummer07_017.jpg\" width=\"355\" height=\"266\" border=\"0\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The last week has been BRUTAL. A car accident, I threw my lower back out, I missed my book contract deadline, there are problems everywhere I look, I&#8217;m tired, angry, and border-line depressed. Just a typical week before I leave on a mission trip! Seriously, if anything could go wrong, it did. Crazy things always&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-swaziland"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Heading to Africa - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Heading to Africa - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The last week has been BRUTAL. A car accident, I threw my lower back out, I missed my book contract deadline, there are problems everywhere I look, I&#8217;m tired, angry, and border-line depressed. Just a typical week before I leave on a mission trip! Seriously, if anything could go wrong, it did. Crazy things always&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-01-22T21:09:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/2008\/01\/22\/africasummer07_017.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Heading to Africa - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Heading to Africa - Red Letters","og_description":"The last week has been BRUTAL. 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Crazy things always&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2008-01-22T21:09:40+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/2008\/01\/22\/africasummer07_017.jpg"}],"author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html","name":"Heading to Africa - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/2008\/01\/22\/africasummer07_017.jpg","datePublished":"2008-01-22T21:09:40+00:00","dateModified":"2008-01-22T21:09:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/2008\/01\/22\/africasummer07_017.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/2008\/01\/22\/africasummer07_017.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2008\/01\/heading-to-afri.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Heading to Africa"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}