How to Win an MP3 Player

We have 5 MP3 players to give away. And 3 of them are going to go to people who do one of these 3 things! (The others will be given to random winners)

Between now and Sunday night 9/20/09 at midnight, you can be eligible to win an MP3 player. One will be given away to a random person who:

• Makes any purchase at the Rest Ministries Bookstore, ChronicIllnessBooks.com
• Makes a donation (tax deductible!)
  
• Sign up to receive email updates fromthe Rest Ministries web site when we update it with articles, Q/A and more! (See Rest Ministries site here)

One winner will be drawn from each of these areas fora 2GB MP3 Player.

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How to Help on Wed

We couldn’t do this without you! Thank you for your help in spreading the word. Here are some other ideas where you can help today if you want to make a difference in people understanding more about Invisible Illness!

• Send your pastor an email with this press release, Christian
  Illness Ministry Sponsors 5-Day Virtual Conference Online. Recommend the programs this week as a great resource for any visitation team, caregiving group, chronic illness or cancer group, etc. and let them know they will be archived at Blog Talk Radio and also on iTunes.
• Pick a program that you loved listening to and share it with your friends or family. You can click on the Share button and send it in
  all kids of formats.

Are you on Facebook?

Consider giving a donation to our “cause.” It is tax-deductible and
will help us tons with our expenses for the week. All programs, everything is
free. So your donations make a difference!

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• Meme “30 Things” Spreading - 1st Prizes Given (invisibleillnessweek.com)

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Tuesday’s Outreach Ideas for Each One to Reach One (Or More!)

I have to admit it was pretty fun clicking around Facebook today and seeing the II Week logo from all the people who were blogging about Invisible Illness Week, sharing links and writing comments. Thank you soooo much for helping us reach more people!

Here are our Tuesday ways you can help!

• Check out our Invisible Illness Week goodies. They don’t actually have the date on them, and some of the books we love are here too, like But You LOOK Good, Why Can’t I Make People Understand and Life Disrupted.
• Have you seen our new Invisible Illness Week video yet that we just put together last week? This one is shorter and simpler than the previous one and it is a great way to show what “invisible illness looks like.” We’d love it if you would share it (ie , post it on your blog, send it to yoru Facebook friends, etc.)

If you are on Facebook:

• If you haven’t yet joined our “Cause” for Invisible Illness Week, be sure to do so and then invite your friends! You may just be surprised that you have friends who live with illness that you never realized were chronically ill.

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• Meme “30 Things” Spreading - 1st Prizes Given (invisibleillnessweek.com)

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Monday - Do 1 Thing To Give Hope

Each day we’re going to post a few ways that you can get involved with Invisible Illness Week “stuff” and also help us spread the word. Why?

Because our theme is “A Little Help Gives a Lot of Hope!” You never know who may have an invisible illness who is in your circle of friends. And by introducing them to Invisible Illness Week, we hope that by “doing 1 thing” you will give someone a little help and hope!

We’ll just post a few simple ideas and if you are willing will you choose one?

• Read some Invisible Illness Week blogs and leave comments. Encouragement and validation is an amazing thing!
• Follow Invisible Illness Week us on Twitter and Retweet the posts!
• Think of a friend or family member who may enjoy tuning in to some of the programs and give them a call. They just need to go to invisibleillnessconference.com and turn up their speakers. Look over the topics and write down a few people who would be interested in different ones. Do you know someone with an ill child or a child who maybe has autism or another condition? How about someone who is considering going back to college? Or maybe someone who is having a difficult time in their marriage right now? Invite them to tune in and remind them that all programs are archived for later too.
  

If you are on Facebook:

• Go to http://www.invisibleillnessconference.com and click on the “share” button (the little envelope) and post something to Facebook about a program!

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Read Some Great II Wk Blogs

Thanks to all of you who have blogged today for Invisible Illness Week. We appreciate you spreading the word about the event, but even more so, we re glad that you have taken some time to describe some part of your life and your experience of living with a chronic illness.

• So far this morning you can read over 70 blog posts with people who have registered through Bloggers Unite. To read them click here at Bloggers Unite and then scroll down. Ont he right hand side it will say “Participating Blogs.”
• You can also find people who have posted there meme “30 Things…” here in the comments section.
• We recognized a few Invisible Illness Week blog posts earlier this week that we had visited.
• You can also find a bunch of the Invisible Illness posts at Technorati, the blog “search engine.”

If you read a post, be sure to leave a comment, even if just a short one. All of our bloggers love to hear from you and know that you stopped by!

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Are You Blogging Today?

Are you joining us and blogging about Invisible Illness Week or your invisible illness? If you don’t have a blog, just try to post something about it somewhere and it will help us out a lot. (MySpace, Facebook, any social network you are a part of.) Every time yuou post somewhere it helps us increase our exposure and it’s because of you this week is going to be a success!

A lot of our bloggers have joined Bloggers Unite to let us know when and where and what topic they have blogged about. you can read some awesome Invisible Illness Week blog posts that are all listed over there.

If you have posted your thought somewhere, be sure to let us  know below too in the comments section! We’d love to come and visit your blog!

Here is our press release about how bloggers are coming together for Invisible Illness Week.

Chronically Ill Unite September 14 to Blog About Invisible Illness Issues

Posted on Thursday, September 10, 2009

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Connect with Other II Week Participants

Do you wish to connect with other participants of Invisible Illness Week? If so, we invite you to join the Invisible Illness Week GROUP in the Sunroom social network of Rest Ministries.

During the week while 4 seminars are happening each day, this is where we will also send you if you want to ask more questions of listeners on a particular seminar topic, if you have questions for the speakers that were not answered during the seminar, etc.

We are asking our speakers to sign in and check to see if anyone needs any additional information. If our speakers have handouts, this is where they will post a link to them.

The Rest Ministries social network, The Sunroom, has over 1300 participants and is a Christian environment for those with chronic illness. We understand that during Invisible Illness Week some of those involved may have different faiths or not have a religious preference. We ask that everyone be respectful of one another. If you do not wish to participate after Invisible Illness Week you can delete your membership.

Another option is to leave comments at the Blog Talk Radio web site where other listeners or the speakers can connect with you.

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Are You Blogging for the Cause? Post Your Blog Here!

Hundreds of people are blogging for the cause of Invisible Illness Week! Thank you!

We look forward to visiting you blog post. Please write a sentence or two about your post and provide your link. We look forward to reading it and possibly sharing it with others too.

And if you haven’t yet, we’d love to have you register “officially” over at Bloggers Unite!

Here is a sampling of some of the blogs by illness bloggers who have signed up with Bloggers Unite and the blogs they have written. Be sure to check them out!

____________________________
PRESS RELEASE - feel free to reprint
____________________________

Chronically Ill Unite September 14
to Blog About Invisible Illness Issues

9/9/09 - SBWIRE - SAN DIEGO — Who would guess that nearly half of the U.S. population lives with a chronic illness? But according to a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation over 133 million people have an illness or condition, most of which are invisible, and many that cause daily pain. Illnesses can range from Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy to diabetes, multiple sclerosis to fibromyalgia, or painful conditions like back pain and migraines.

With 75 percent of internet users using the internet for health information (Pew Internet Project, 8/08) and many of them seeking support, thousands of bloggers now post daily journals about the emotional challenges they face with daily chronic pain.

National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week, September 14-20, 2009, invites bloggers to have a significant role in their awareness campaign. For example, part of their outreach has been featuring guest bloggers on their own web site invisibleillnessweek.com , as well as inviting bloggers around the globe to commit to blogging about invisible illness issues. To help spread the word they have also create a meme, “30 Things About My Invisible Illness You May Not Know” that people have posted on Facebook, blogs and other social networks.

Lisa Copen, who founded National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week in 2002 says, “Though our illnesses and symptoms may vary, we still have a great deal in common. We can learn from one another about coping and finding the balance of taking care of ourselves yet living life to the fullest.” Copen says patient blogs aren’t depressing like healthy people may assume. “Illness bloggers don’t typically dwell on the logistics of symptoms, lab tests, or hospital stays. Instead, they write on everyday topics and how their illness impacts their families, finances, careers. They may discuss patient advocacy issues, but they also write about vacationing with an illness or dating when you have a chronic illness.”

Invisible Illness Week was recently the host of Grand Rounds, the largest medical blog carnival on the internet.

Over 300 people have officially committed to blogging for Invisible Illness Week so far and many are sharing on their Facebook notes page or other social network. Copen encourages those who do not have a blog to shares something about their illness with Facebook friends, a few Twitter posts, or even in the comments section of the invisibleillnessweek.com web site.
If you would like to join this unique opportunity to blog for awareness about invisible illnesses, see www.invisibleillnessweek.com for details. Invisible

Illness Week’s highlight is a 5-day virtual conference with 20 speakers that can be heard online for free on a topics such as marriage with illness, applying for disability, setting boundaries, and when your child is ill.

Copen is also the founder of Rest Ministries which sponsors the event and IllnessTwitters.ning.com for anyone who “tweets” on health or medical conditions.

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R U on MySpace? Add us as a Friend & Tell Others

Are you on MySpace? Yes, we know a lot of people have moved over to Facebook but there are still millions of people on MySpace, many of them teenagers or your adults and we would love to have them know about Invisible Illness Week and especially the seminar with Naomi Kingery on Being a Teenager with a Chronic Illness.

Our web page over at MySpace is www.myspace.com/invisibleillnessweek Be sure to click “add to friends” and invite your friends to join us too. It’s one more way to reach some people who we would otherwise not reach.

And if you are on MySpace, be sure to fill out our meme “30 Things and post it on your blog at MySpace and even announce it on your bulletin feature.

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On Facebook? Be a Fan!

We hope you will join our Invisible Illness Week Fan Page if you are on Facebook! Why?

Doing simple things like becoming a Fan of something helps us increase awareness.

When you become a Fan it goes into your feed (wall) on Facebook for friends to see what kinds of things you find important. Than you can also invite your friends to join if you feel comfortable doing that.

And then… our logo for Invisible Illness, for example, may show up in your friend’s sidebar of “highlights” which is much more effective than us buying advertising on Facebook.

So even if you don’t want to hang out over there on our Fan Page, at least click here and in less thna 30 seconds you can help us in lots of ways.

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