{"id":784,"date":"2010-12-04T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-04T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html"},"modified":"2010-12-04T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-04T08:00:00","slug":"advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent Day 7: Seeing the Smoke Signals of Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We once asked our Swaziland director, Jumbo, how the kids knew when to come to the CarePoint? <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I just sent up the smoke signals,&#8221; he replied. <\/p>\n<p>He was referring to the cloud of dust emanating from the back of our truck as it cut through the dry road. The plume of dust meant hope was on the way.<\/p>\n<p>At HopeChest CarePoints, we are rolling back the impact of extreme poverty and its impact on orphans. Clean water and good food take care of two of the biggest killers of children in the world. <\/p>\n<p>This Christmas, help us continue to <a href=\"http:\/\/donate.hopechest.org\/story\">Change Those Stories<\/a> in Swaziland, across Africa, and around the globe.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Advent_Day7copy.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/104\/import\/Advent_Day7copy.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center;margin: 0pt auto 20px\" height=\"531\" width=\"360\" \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We once asked our Swaziland director, Jumbo, how the kids knew when to come to the CarePoint? &#8220;I just sent up the smoke signals,&#8221; he replied. He was referring to the cloud of dust emanating from the back of our truck as it cut through the dry road. The plume of dust meant hope was&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advent Day 7: Seeing the Smoke Signals of Hope - 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\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advent Day 7: Seeing the Smoke Signals of Hope - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We once asked our Swaziland director, Jumbo, how the kids knew when to come to the CarePoint? &#8220;I just sent up the smoke signals,&#8221; he replied. He was referring to the cloud of dust emanating from the back of our truck as it cut through the dry road. The plume of dust meant hope was&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-04T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent_Day7copy.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":"Advent Day 7: Seeing the Smoke Signals of Hope - 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\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Advent Day 7: Seeing the Smoke Signals of Hope - Red Letters","og_description":"We once asked our Swaziland director, Jumbo, how the kids knew when to come to the CarePoint? &#8220;I just sent up the smoke signals,&#8221; he replied. He was referring to the cloud of dust emanating from the back of our truck as it cut through the dry road. The plume of dust meant hope was&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2010-12-04T08:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent_Day7copy.jpg"}],"author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html","name":"Advent Day 7: Seeing the Smoke Signals of Hope - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent_Day7copy.jpg","datePublished":"2010-12-04T08:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-12-04T08:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent_Day7copy.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/Advent_Day7copy.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/12\/advent-day-7-seeing-the-smoke-signals-of-hope.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Advent Day 7: Seeing the Smoke Signals of Hope"}]},{"@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\/784","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=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}