APPROVAL TO TRAVEL

We have received notice that we can now go pick up our girls in Ethiopia. WOOHOO!!

I am set to leave next Saturday, January 9th. We have been a very busy family this week; making hotel and airline reservations, packing, and repacking. Darren will be holding down the fort here at home while I travel to pick up the girls. Grandma will be coming to help out while mommy is gone.

Here is our schedule:

Jan 9th Off to Ethiopia
Jan 11th Arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Jan 12th Meet the girls in the afternoon
Jan 14th Embassy appointment
Jan 15th Leave Ethiopia
Jan 16th Arrive back in the USA

Pre-Christmas Festivities

Christmas Trees & Cookies

Although the girls did not make it for Christmas
they were not forgotten

Everyone with their loot on Christmas morning

MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Follow the link below to hear the wonderful story of the first Christmas read by Matthew West.

Christmas Story

Here is a video of our Grace singing in the car with a bunch of girls from the orphanage.

Many of you know that I am very passionate about orphan care. I have found a wonderful orphan care organization called HopeChest. I have decided to feature the work that HopeChest is doing on my blog. So periodically I will be posting information about their work and how we can help.

A Letter From HopeChest Partners:

As you read this letter there are over 2 million children forced into prostitution and sex slavery.

This can be prevented and we can do something about it. These girls need our help and there isn’t time to waste.

Right now, pimps and prostitution rings are targeting our precious, young girls. They wait for them to leave the protection of the orphanage, and then offer them a "job."

Many of the girls simply disappear: never heard from again by their friends. But sometimes you glimpse this horror.

Like the girl who was flung from the cab of a truck once her "client" was finished with her. She was paralyzed, never to walk again.

Or the young woman the police found in a ditch on the side of a busy road. Killed at the truck stop where she worked as a prostitute.

These were kids that could have been helped by our programs.

One of these stories is too many...2 million children is unfathomable. This is a direct result of evil having its way on the earth.

As Peter tells us, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” I Peter 5:8

We can’t let him continue to destroy lives. You can stop this, and help reclaim a child's future.

HopeChest stops sex trafficking before it starts. In Russia, we are taking girls into residential living centers and community centers to actively protect them from the commercial sex trade. We identify girls early, while still in the orphanage.

Our staff form meaningful relationships to role model what successful living looks like. And when that girl leaves the orphanage, she knows exactly where to go for help--to HopeChest. She is not alone.

Amongst our girls, there is no sex trafficking. In fact, our transitional living homes have a 90%+ rate of helping girls find true independent life. This is the reality of God’s Kingdom in action.

Right now these girls need you. Please go to HopeChest Partners and click the GIVE button to make a gift today.

You can make a gift in honor of a special person this Christmas. Perhaps you will honor someone who mentored you as we are helping these young women?

Help us stop sex trafficking now by reaching more girls in Russia today and into 2010.

A Picture for Today

Today and tomorrow are wonderfully busy days so for today I have just a picture.