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First of all, you should know: we’re making progress. The tension and conflict has finally become too great for just one blog to handle.  Check out last Friday’s post by Bruce Nuffer over at The House Studio, and see how our Top 10 Candy debate is continuing…ad infinitum…ad nauseum…ad every-latin-word-you-can-think-of-um.

But it’s time to move forward to a new topic, so today I reflect on the good old 1980s (again) and the top 10 movies from my childhood.  They are as follows (in no particular order):

Can’t Buy Me Love – since this list doubles as a virtual “Top 10: Where the Stars Got Their Start”, this is the perfect place to begin.  Do you recognize the now-famous doctor in the glasses?

Annie – one of the first movies I ever saw in a real, live theatre.  The scene at the end, with Anne climbing that train bridge thing, while being chased by Rooster, scared me for weeks.  Okay, I’ll admit it – there are ongoing bed-wetting issues.

The Goonies – quite possibly my favorite childhood movie of all time.  Remember the scene where they are shouting for help up through the well?  For a long time I believed every single well was a portal into a world of adventure, and I never saw a well I didn’t want to climb down into (until I saw The Ring, that is, and now I never see a well without running in the opposite direction as fast as possible).

The Karate Kid – was I the only kid who wanted to sand something, anything, just to practice sand-the-floor? was I the only kid injuring himself while performing crane kicks off the front porch?

Rocky IV – “if I can change, and you can change” . . . go on Stallone, give that tear-jerking “then we all can change” speech one last time.

Space Camp – this 1986 movie launched my Kelly Preston crush.  And I totally forgot the little kid was Joaquin Phoenix

Flight of the Navigator – what if you returned to your house today only to discover that 8 years had passed and you didn’t realize it?  What if I watched this movie again and realized Sarah Jessica Parker was in it?  Both concepts still totally blow my brain.

Back to the Future -Michael J, you’ve never regained your glory from this movie.  But who expected you to?

Top Gun -I definitely watched this on the down low.  There was no way that I would have been allowed to watch Top Gun when it first came out (I was 10), or at any point in the subsequent 6 – 8 years (but I know that at some point I did).

Airplane – surely you’ve seen this one? Surely?

So what did I miss?  And before you say ET…I’ve never seen it.

Last week in the comments section someone mentioned that they were following this blog from Poland.  Poland! That seems really far away.

And it also got me wondering…where are all you folks checking in from?  So if you don’t mind, go down to the comments section of the blog and answer three questions:

1) your name and where you live

2) the view out your window (pick any window in your life right now)

3) your blog and what it’s about (or what you’d write a blog about if you did such a silly thing)

I’ll get things started by answering those questions myself.  And don’t leave me hanging, or I’ll start to feel very lonely and misunderstood.  And all you Google Reader folks get off your lazy readers, come to the site, and comment for once.

When I arrived as a freshman at Messiah College and endured my first preseason for the soccer team, I couldn’t help but notice this guy Peter Greer.  First of all, he was one of the nicest people I had ever met, even to me, an underclassman. Second of all, and I know this goes against what I just said, I wanted to punch him in the face – no matter how many hills or sprints or conditioning drills our coach threw at us, Peter was one of those in the background yelling, “C’mon coach!  Is this all you’ve got for us?  You can do better than this!  We can run all day!”

While I haven’t seen Peter for many years, I just finished reading his book “The Poor Will Be Glad” , and I can tell that little has changed.  Peter is still one of the kindest people on the planet, and he is still working hard to motivate those around him to get better, stronger and more effective.  I think I must have matured at least a little since then, though, because I don’t want to hit him anymore.

The following is a guest post, written by my friend Peter Greer:

In 2002, my wife and I were sent to help Congolese refugees displaced by the eruption of Mt. Nyiragongo. There I witnessed catastrophic devastation: over 400,000 people were fleeing from homes that had collapsed.   Amid the destruction, I thought I would find camaraderie and a spirit of service among the many NGOs that had come to serve in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Surprisingly, I was wrong.

In the refugee camp, it had been rumored that a camera crew was going to highlight a story of generosity: individuals in the U.S. had donated blankets to the refugees, and the network would feature the NGOs distributing them.  Everyone wanted the news to feature them, handing out blankets.

My wife and I had blankets to give but were not allowed to give them out.  Larger NGOs wouldn’t allow our smaller operation to hand out blankets if their shipments had not yet arrived.  There I was, among the very people and organizations supposed to help those in need, and they were more concerned about showcasing their organizations than helping the poor.  The camera crew never came, and I will never forget how disgusted I felt by the hypocrisy of the ordeal – I also will never forget how I eventually recognized the same hypocrisy in my own heart.

When we were finally allowed to hand out our blankets, a photographer did arrive. Up on a platform, I bestowed my blankets as people walked orderly through a line. The orchestration was almost perfect – we had roped off lines like at an amusement park – and I was the main attraction. We had lists of the families and a system to ensure that each family received their allotted amount. I was on the front lines of personally handing out blankets and helping families that had lost almost everything. Noble cause. Noble mission. Noble actions of a 25-year-old relief worker. A friend was snapping pictures, and I smiled wide for the camera as I did God’s work.

A few weeks later I saw the pictures.  I trashed them.  I wanted to vomit.  It was apparent from that smile that I cared more about my smile for the camera—than serving the poor.   I was no better than the NGOs I despised.

All my life I had thought I had been on the “right road”; I had maintained a clean record, a sparkling image – but it wasn’t enough.  Even if I was a relief worker in Africa, it meant nothing.  If my willingness to serve did not come from the love of God, than it really was empty:

“If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3)

As I saw those pictures, I began to grasp the truth of the scripture, without the love of God motivating me, my work was in vain, and it became another means to glorify myself.

I have recently been encouraged by the evangelical Christian community’s new focus on justice, poverty alleviation and the growing awareness of the needs around the world, but I do worry that if we make our primary focus service instead of Christ, we will find our service is empty.  I know I found it true in my own life.  It is only out of a deep-rooted understanding of our Father’s love, realizing that “we love because he first loved us,” that we can truly roll up our sleeves and serve (1 John 4:19).

Have a look at Peter’s book, “The Poor Will Be Glad,” HERE and check out his organization, Hope International.

If you have any interest whatsoever in serving the poor of the world, you need to read The Poor Will Be Glad: Joining the Revolution to Lift the World Out of Poverty, by Peter Greer and Phil Smith.

If you are like me, you’ve often thought that if we could just pool enough resources, enough cash, enough food, and ship it to developing nations, the problem of poverty would be solved (actually, when I write that it sounds pretty naive so maybe you’ve never thought that).  Peter Greer addresses this mindset with a story about a Rwandan named Jean.

Jean seized  an opportunity to begin a small poultry business to provide his neighborhood with eggs.  He managed to scrape together funds to purchase several fowl, and his business grew.  Later, a church in America “adopted” the village where Jean lived and worked.  The church decided to donate clothes and supplies.  They also imported eggs from a neighboring community and gave them away.  Suddenly, this one village was flooded with surplus eggs.  It is not difficult to imagine what happened to Jean’s business: people went first to collect the free eggs and bought Jean’s eggs only when the supply of free eggs was depleted.  The market price for eggs plummeted in Jean’s village and, as a result, Jean was forced to sell his productive assets, his chickens.

The next year, after Jean had left the poultry business, the church that had supplied the free eggs turned its attention to another disaster in another part of the world.  Jean’s community had no capacity to produce eggs locally and was forced to import eggs from a  neighboring town.  The cost of these eggs was higher than the eggs Jean had sold, so both Jean and his village were hurt economically by the good intentions of one American church.

You know those container loads of t-shirts that we give to thrift stores, the ones that eventually get shipped to Africa? These “gifts” almost single-handedly decimated the textile trades in some African nations.  We as the church MUST remember that there are larger implications to our giving than we may understand at first glance.  While natural disasters and other crisis may require emergency aid and huge amounts of charitable giving, these strategies are not adequate long-term solutions for helping the poor.

Microfinance, Peter and Phil insist, is the answer to lifting the world out of poverty.

They’ve created a beautiful book, both in content and in appearance. The book is full of stories about how microfinance is changing the landscape of developing nations, and the photographs of these entrepreneurs whose lives have been changed by $40 micro-loans are stunning.

Skeptical?  So was Rob Bell, but he addresses his own skepticism in the foreward of this book:

Because if it is true and legit and if microfinance really does have that kind of effect on the lives of those in poverty, well, that would change everything.

Which is what it’s doing.  It’s changing things on a massive scale.  And every one of us can be a part of it.  For a small amount of money, entire families can be empowered to create entirely new tomorrows.

I hope this raises all sorts of questions for you, beginning with: How?

And to answer that question, you’ll have to turn the page and start reading this inspiring, informative, moving, world changing, extraordinary book.

So once again I say: if you have any interest in serving the poor in this world, you must read this book.  You can take a look at the book HERE

Peter Greer holds a Master of Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a BS from Messiah College.  He is the president of Hope International, a global faith-based microfinance organization serving hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs in 14 countries.  You can follow Peter on Twitter: @peterkgreer , and you can follow Hope International on Twitter: @HOPEtweets

Phil Smith is a philanthropist and private investor who sits on the boards of several companies.  He is the coauthor of A Billion Bootstraps and holds an MBA from the University of Tulsa and a BS in mechanical engineering from Oklahoma State University.

Who is driving your mower?

Come by our house on a sunny day and there’s a good chance you’ll see me mowing the yard.  Something I used to despise has become one of my favorite past times…there are few things I enjoy more right now than hopping on my dad’s riding lawn mower (that he loans to me for this purpose) and cruising around our relatively secluded property, the sun shining on my face.

But by far my favorite part of this new mowing experience is that my almost-1-year-old son Sam loves to join me. Maile says that if he’s inside the house  when I start the mower, he sits up and waves his arms in the air, excited at what’s to come.

He sits on my leg as I buzz around the yard, and I have to really hold on to him.  Even though I can’t hear him, I can feel him humming to himself, just jabbering away in his little baby language.

Sometimes he kind of gets in the way when he grabs at the steering wheel, but I gently pry away his hands.

Sometimes, when we’re cutting close to the boundaries, the branches reach out and scratch him.  He doesn’t like this, and I always move him over to my other knee if I see that it’s going to get too painful for him.

He also usually chews on his hands and gets slobber all over my jeans, but I love that he enjoys doing the work with me, even if he’s not really doing anything.

I wonder if this is sometimes how God feels.

I wonder if he just wants me to be excited about spending time with him.

I wonder if he wants me to know that he’s got a firm grip on me.

I wonder if he wants me to get my little fingers off the steering wheel and let him drive.

I wonder if he is trying to show me that even if the branches occasionally scratch my face, it only happens after he has reached out with his own bare hands and, gripping the thorns until his hands bled, kept the worst of it away from me.

When I first thought of the idea of Top Ten Tuesdays, it was with this ideal in mind that we could come together as an international community and agree on something (it is at this point that I have to give a shout out to my loyal British following, my 17 visits from Tanzania, as well as my solitary followers in Hong Kong, Bangladesh and New Zealand).  Don’t we have enough to fight about:  Red v. Blue, North v. South, East v. West, Men v. Women, Chelsea Football Club vs everyone else?

I had no clue that the opinionated, individualistic nature of our humanity went as deep as favorite types of candy,or snack food, or even ice cream for goodness sake.  And I certainly had no idea that certain people, who will remain unnamed, would counter my offer of international commonality with divisive little lists of their own, and then post them in the comments section of my blog.

But this is exactly what has happened.

So today I give you the top ten games from our (notice the OUR) childhood. Tear it up if you want.  Rip it to shreds if you must.  But before you do, just remember – this may be the last fragment of shared humanity left on this spec of dust we call a planet.  Blow it to smithereens at the risk of your own existence.

(This week they are listed in no particular order, in an attempt to find some kind of common ground)

Candy Land – when my children were old enough to play this, and we opened it for the first time with them, I saw the rainbow road and that three-colored ice cream bar, and suddenly I was 6 years old again.  Then I got stuck in that blue, syruppy quagmire while my son cruised to victory (he did a victory dance around the living room), and I wished I was 6 again, so that I could stick my tongue out at him and call him “poopy-face”

Trouble – the spring-loaded, bubble-encased dice did cause a potential problem for this game.  But it was very portable, which made it a traveling favorite.

Chutes and Ladders – or, as you Brits refer to it, Snakes and Ladders (and, actually, Milton Bradley sold it over there first, so TECHNICALLY I should have listed it as the latter).  Who didn’t love seeing their opponent nail that last chute (or snake) and come tumbling back to the bottom of the grid?

Monopoly – we didn’t really know how to play this when I was 6, but the pieces were cool, and the money worked really well for some of the other pretend games we made up.

Sorry – another classic we recently introduced our kids to.  Another game at which I cannot win, no matter how many rules I make up.

Uno – how many people knew that you could take a foreign word, stick it on a pack of numbered, multi-colored cards, and make millions?  I guess just Uno.

War – why was this one of my favorite games as a kid?  You know, the one where you take a deck of cards, split it in half, then flip cards and whoever’s card is highest gets both.  And then the real moment of international intrigue – two cards of the same value are flipped, and war breaks out.  This was probably a favorite of the confrontational ones among us, who will still remain nameless.

Yahtzee – did you ever play this game by yourself when you were a kid, sometimes giving yourself four or five throws per turn (instead of the allotted three), which of course gave you incredibly inflated scores you would then show to your mother and brag about?  Yeah, me neither.

Scrabble – did you ever play this game by yourself when you were a kid?  Okay, I did that.  I was a nerd.  This is why I knew at a young age that the highest scoring word you can use is quartzy (according to some schools of Scrabble), and the longest legal word in North American play is ETHYLENEDIAMINETETRAACETA TES (which is dumb since the board is only 15 spaces across).

Chinese Checkers – what is Chinese about this game?  For that matter, what is checkers about this game (besides the whole jumping over thing)?

So what are the favorite games from your childhood?