You Heard Our Battle Cry and Joined Us in the Fight!

LOOK WHAT YOU DID!

YOU HEARD OUR BATTLE CRY! A primal roar went up from the House of WAR’s Team of Lions. A sincere thanks to all of you, we not only met our 911 Giving Tuesday goal, we surpassed it! The Staff of WAR were doing a jig (an Irish one to be exact), ringing bells of joy! We’ve never set a goal this high before. But then the need has never been greater than under COVID’s escalation of risk. We DON’T RUN, HIDE, OR FEAR…we embrace it with HOPE!

ONE CALIFORNIA DOCTOR is how this started. For two years, he encouraged us to do a match on Giving Tuesday with his generous promise as the jump start. This year, it started a small flood of three other matches. We hit our goal only $3,000 short and when this doctor sent in his match, he made up the difference! I woke to pray at 5:00 am and opened my computer to see his note. I’ll admit it. I wept. I wept for the heart of a doctor, a healer who we have never met. Yet even still, his heart is for healing those we lift done in honor of his own mother! I wept that we have a Good, Good Father who hears the cry of the broken-hearted allowing us the privilege of wrapping arms of love around them. I wept that each one of you so faithfully and sacrificially empower us to be a safe place.

THEN WE GOT ANOTHER SMALL MATCH, promising to go through the end of the year. This means the barometer of giving on our website will stay up. We’ll watch with wonder again at the House of WAR!! I’m blown away (as usual) by the House of WAR. I NEVER take for granted – even for a minute – your sacrificial gifts. I know that a match is such an encouragement to those of us who give smaller gifts knowing $100 = $200 and gives twice…Each gifts is being doubled AND being deployed, bringing hope and healing in crisis, offering a hand up to inherent dignity! I see these gifts. I know some of you who send them have little to give…single moms, widows, kiddos bringing coins, even sometimes incarcerated. Yep…they write precious notes saying it is time they sacrificially give back from their tiny earnings. Whether big or small, these gifts gut me and honor those they lift. Ancient Scripture says, “When you GIVE to the poor, you LEND to the Lord.” You’re paying it forward, giving out of a heart of love and will be repaid on the “other side”. Thank you for trusting us to lift theleast of these.

THE 911 FUND LETS US RUSH TO AID THOSE IN DANGER, even ‘prevent’ the danger. It takes emergency calls from friends, family, or the victim in evil’s cross-hairs, bringing life-saving rescue, stitches, X-rays, and all kinds of interventions. At that moment, there is no time to ask for donations. This fund can respond in an instant. So, it is critical we keep it replenished, ensuring funds are available on a daily basis.

YOUR GIFTS LIFT THOUSANDS, rescuing a three-week old, three teens, two runaways, seven women, two men, one family on the run, as well as helping investigations into murders of trafficked, legal fees, medical care for domestic abuse situations, refugees…those are the ones I know off the top of my head and am personally involved in for 2021. Thousands of calls are handled by staff. Most cases we will never be free to talk about…but because of you, these are real stories.

WE SURPASSED OUR $80,000 GOAL RECEIVING $81,135…and still counting since today’s mail hasn’t been opened yet! We will watch with wonder until the end of 2021 to see what this Mighty Army of the House of WAR…YOU…will do! Check our progress here: warinternational.org/givingtuesday

From our house to yours this Holiday season, Peace, Hope, and Joy as we march into 2022! 
TO GOD BE THE GLORY OVER, AND OVER, AND OVER AGAIN!

ROARING THE ROAR,

REBECCA MCDONALD
&
THE HOUSE OF WAR

If My Jewelry Could Talk

Raising 4 kids around the world, we “lived off the land.” We did NOT take “America” in a container overseas to outfit our home. We went on treasure hunts & searched for “what’s this culture make that’s uniquely theirs, tells a story, shows their art & skills?” If jute carpets were the thing, we hung them on the walls of the tall tropical ceilings. In former Russian Central Asia, Saturdays were treasure troves. I’m no garage saler but I wandered streets filled with antiques once gracing dachas (private cabins), mansions and more. Carved mirrors or desks inlaid with leather no longer cherished, were sold for pennies to make room for uber-modern. Crystal decanters became our flower vases. Chandeliers lined sidewalks. Elegant china no longer fit their modern dream. Oil paintings, leather bound classics, silver work stuffed in cardboard boxes was cheaper than any Walmart wannabe.
My own parents raised me overseas too. For my high school graduation in the lofty Himalayans, they bought me a set of hand carved chairs and tiny table from Peshawar in the Vale of Swat in the Khyber Pass where Osama Ben Laden hid out in caves. We got carpets and brass for birthdays. There were no game boys, tv’s or apple products in the Himalayas.

Moving back to the USA, our children’s friends that flowed through our home called it a museum asking for the stories behind the furniture, wall hangings, table ware, water pitchers, foot stools & more. Most everything has a story, a life it lived before us and then with us. If it doesn’t, it probably doesn’t belong. Those stories get asked over and over and over. Things don’t really matter to us. Stories and the lives lived do!

An inventory of our home would be brass, oil paintings, leather, carpets, tapestries, carvings, china, collections of painted fans, mirrors, eggs, spoons from dozens of lands, weird trash cans, funky table games in bone, ivory, marble, jade, agate, blown glass, brass, sandalwood, stones from Israel, Samarkand, the pyramids, Mount Nebo, the Taj, the Bay of Bengal and more. A head count found throw pillows each with a story from 14 of 86 lands we’ve roamed, décor from 67 & jewelry from 48. Each corner you turn hides another treasure and story.

I have been asked to tell YOU some of those stories. The way I’m asked to do this is by making some of my personal possessions available to YOU. Yes. You read that correctly. Things don’t really matter to us. Stories and the lives lived with them do. So, WAR is going to start making available my own personal collection of artifacts, treasures and particularly my jewelry.

Many pieces I wear are made by survivors as personal gifts. Often I’m asked if I’m wearing one we carry. If it is board or staff come and remove it to sell “on the spot” while I stand talking to someone. I’m used to being stripped of my jewelry OR often give it away while traveling. When a flight attendant compliments it, I give it to her. When she asks to pay for it, I say, “No, just tell the world that it was made by a precious survivor and they can shop the work of her hands at warchestboutique.com.” Sometimes it is a piece we’ve never carried or no longer do.

No matter what, these pieces have traveled the world with me. They’ve run through red light districts, hugged crying children offered to me in sale, giggled with girls in a safe house while we talk about their dreams, or sat faithfully on my sink in the hotel or guest house at each stop along the way. I’ve worn these pieces in palaces with Princesses and attended royal weddings with them on. I’ve worn them to humble widow homes where the only place to sit is on the mud floor. They’ve attended banquets for hundreds of rescued where we twirl, dance, giggle, play games and dwell in the joy of being girls set free. They’ve sat through graduations of tiny girls and a few boys now raised to be doctors, lawyers, seamstresses, engineers, nurses, teachers or precious mommies that are to their babies what no one was to them. They’ve had soap bubbles and baby spit on them when we taught teen moms how to bath their babies. They’ve hugged a child with polio being hidden by her mom under her bed to protect her from predators. They’ve had too many tears on them to count and listened to the cry of my heart as I wept with, prayed over and comforted. Some times they’ve heard me fight my way through a crowd of angry men or stare down a predator that is daring me to pass him. Then they become my warrior jewelry, mighty and fierce shouting to those around me, “This was made by broken hands now set free, I dare you to defy that freedom.” Ah…If my jewelry could talk…

Click the picture above to find out how far our newest featured piece has traveled!

Today, I Wept…


Today I wept…again…as I signed a receipt from an inmate of prison with a history of abusing others. He sends us sacrificial gifts in his journey of recovery. These are not out of “penance” for his brokenness but out of joy that places exist for healing of those like him and for those he harmed long ago. No one was there for him as a little boy to hear his silent scream.

My mommy heart always makes me stop when I see his gifts and take a deep breath. Often little boys and girls who grow up to wound others were wounded by others themselves. I stop and pray for the tiny lives out there needing a loving, listening home. I beg God to place them in my way or another’s to show a gentle touch, a listening ear, a whisper of joy and worth in who they are. I’m so humbled by his precious gifts. Our pain and our brokenness break God’s heart as He loves unconditionally.

Jet-lagged, I woke early this morning to sit in the darkness of my living room and pray for the day. Take these words as a love letter. Mother Teresa said, “I’m a tiny pencil in the hand of a writing God sending a love letter to the world.” I’m no Mother Teresa, but my hope is this: Whether you read this from a cozy chair with your morning cup of tea; from your kitchen overflowing with dirty dishes and a herd of munchkins at your feet; from a lofty, ivory tower imparting knowledge to the world; or just from a bunk bed in a cell staring at four walls, I pray you come to understand that our hidden worries are known, and we’re loved by our Creator, worthy even in our messes and broken places, or from our comfy homes or offices.

The ancient truth which changes individuals and cultures is that we are stronger, more loving, and better able to navigate sorrow or joy when we intentionally choose to be a circle of protection and community of safety to each other. The key is knowing we are all alike whether learning from a prison cell, from our own mistakes, or others’. Humility binds us together. I welcome the gift of the penitent. Help us God to all be penitent, intentional, and in humility, consider others better than ourselves. This lesson comes from “the least of these,” from four walls of a prison cell, and a broken little boy, now a man, who shares sacrificially to heal others in ways he never experienced. God help us learn from him!