Dressing to Make A Difference

Could you wear the same dress for a hundred days in a row? If you could, could you take it a step farther and create one hundred totally unique outfits with just one dress? Miss Elaini can. Elaini is wearing the dress pictured to the right for one hundred days. Today is day 64, and she has created her 64th unique outfit. Her goal? To raise awareness about the plight of Indian orphans, and to raise funds to provide for them. Her goal is to be able to raise $50,000 in the one hundred day period.

I must say, I admire Elaini in about a million different ways. I promise you I won't list the entire million, but I must list a few, and then after I list them, you must go visit her blog and be inspired.

First off, she's willing to do something. Most people will agree that something must be done, and perhaps they will write out a check, but the majority of the time, they leave it at that. Perhaps they put a bumper sticker on their car. Elaini is a walking billboard.

Elaini also doesn't feel sorry for people. Instead, she loves them. I think there is a huge difference. Someone who feels sorry for others is looking down their nose at them. If you love people, you come down and help them up. Elaini loves the orphans just as much as she loves her own family. Her parents are her best friends (so are mine. My best friends, I mean, not hers. ).

Elaini is an overcomer. I was recently thinking about how many people who are challenged physically are those who are strongest spiritually. Whenever someone talks about this, I inevitably start thinking about a girl I once taught at a conference. She was about six, and she had spina bifida. A six year old should be able to walk. This girl couldn't. If she wanted to go anywhere, she pulled herself along by her hands, perhaps carrying something in her mouth or tucked under an arm or on her lap. I can't think of a sweeter, patient-er, understanding child. Some day, that girl is going to do great things, and I hope she finds a unique way of doing them, just as Elaini has. Elaini's story is so different, yet so much the same. She doesn't have spina bifida, but she has had many health challenges. And she has risen over those challenges and created something that is helping others and glorifying God.

Elaini uses fashion to make a statement--but not the usual sort of statement we think of. She's saying "HEY! WE'RE BLESSED! We are SO blessed, and we don't even realize it! Let's take some of our blessing and give it to others, so God can bless them through us!" The concept of wearing the same dress for 100 days is a little challenge in and of itself. But think of it. How many people wear the same thing day in and day out because that is all they have? Wow.

Think about it. Go take a look at Elaini's blog. It will challenge you. It challenged me.



P.S.--All of these pictures are, obviously, pulled from Elaini's blog. Also, once you reach about page 7 on her blog, you can start reading her other observations about the little things in life. So don't just look at the first page!