Meet Kero!

Isn't she beautiful?!!

Our family has the privilege of helping sponsor Kero through Drawn From Water . We knew DFW was coming out with a new sponsorship program, so when they announced it last week, we jumped on board right away.

Really, all the kids are amazing and beautiful but when I asked our kids whether they wanted to sponsor a girl or a boy, they all agreed a girl and they all wanted the oldest girl. That's how we found Kero. When we pulled up her file, my girls said, "Yes! Her! Let's sponsor her!"

The day after we signed up to sponsor Kero, we received an email confirmation and a little bit more information on her. We learned that she was attending her third day of school. Reading this brought me to tears because she is attending the very same school we toured with our agency in Addis one year ago. The school is Children's Home Academy. We were so impressed with this school and what they had to offer.

I think about all the schools there must in Addis - our sponsored child could be attending one of probably hundreds of schools. But she is sitting in the same classrooms that we walked through just over a year ago.

Not only that, but Kero will learn English at her new school. Eventually, we will be able to write letters back and forth to her.

Friday morning, after we received confirmation that we would be indeed sponsoring Kero, I was wearing my DFW T-shirt and as I was driving the girls to school, I looked down at my T-shirt and there I saw Kero's name. Her name is on the shirt because she was one of the first eight children rescued.

Kero is six years old. In January, 2009, she was rescued from the Hammer tribe in Ethiopia. She was suppose to be killed by the elders because she was "teeth mingi", which means her top teeth came in before her bottom teeth.

Unfortunately, like all the children at the DFW orphanage, Kero is not adoptable, which is why this sponsorship program is so important for these kids.

Would you please consider sponsoring ones of these precious children? You can help sponsor a child for as little as $25 per month. When you sponsor a child, you will get several more pictures and more information about them. DFW will send frequent updates and you may email DFW specific questions about your child any time.

As DFW stated on a recent twitter, "How often can you say that you were able to help a child who would have otherwise been killed by their tribe?"

New Child Sponsorship Program!

Drawn From Water just announced their new Child Sponsorship Program. Go here to read the details and check out these beautiful children!

In less than 5 weeks...

...Lauren and I leave for Haiti. We are going with a team of 14 other people from our community.

Making the decision to go was not an easy one because both Lauren and I have been looking forward to going back to Ethiopia, possibly next summer, possibly our entire family and possibly for more than a short time.

And although we have not let go of our vision to some day return to Ethiopia, the closer we get to next summer, the more unlikely we will be going back that soon for various reasons.

Lauren and I share the same passion and desire - to travel overseas and serve the poor. This will be our first missions trip together and we are excited to see what possibilities are out there for us.

Like I said, this decision did not come easy. In fact, I kind of feel like I'm betraying Ethiopia. Ethiopia is where are hearts are.

But when we saw this opportunity to join a team going to Haiti to serve in tent cities and help clean up rubbish,  among other things, Lauren pleaded with us to let her go. She also has a cool testimony on how she received confirmation from the Lord that she is suppose to do this trip.

Steve and I didn't want her going without one of us and we just couldn't say no to her.

So, we signed up and I asked the Lord to close a door quick if we are not to go and we trusted that He would give me some confirmation along the way.

One week after we turned in our money and registration, we received a packet of information through our leader from AIM (Adventures In Missions), the organization who will be directing us in Haiti.

In this information, it described the location where we will serve in Port au Prince and it is called FON TAMARA.

TAMARA is my birth name!

Isn't that cool?!! I will take that as a confirmation that I should be going on this trip!

Anyway, we will be staying in a compound with fence all around, a locked gate and barbwire. The temperatures will be in the 90s! We will be sleeping in tents. Our family has NEVER camped.

Please pray for our team as we prepare and train for our 1 week trip. Please pray that the Lord is paving the way for us and putting protectors in place before we arrive. Please pray that God prepares each of our hearts to be ready to respond and fulfill great needs. Pray for Steve, Lauren, Avery and Samson, that they find peace in their own hearts over us going.

I am nervous about leaving the family for this length of time, especially Samson. Our attachment is going amazingly well. So, please pray that this time away does not cause a disruption with our attachment progress.

Back to School

The girls returned to school this morning. They were all excited but a little nervous. I was not looking forward to this day because it was so nice to have them home over the summer, so I'm a little sad right now.

At one time in my life, I thrived on routine. I craved routine when school started up each fall.

But now, I am not so thrilled about routine, school, school work, signing permission forms, correcting Math homework (especially not excited about this - Math has never been my strength=-), more events on the calendar, getting all the kids up each morning at the crack of dawn, the rat race of getting ready for the school day, driving them to school, dropping them off, returning home to gather something one of the girls forgot and delivering it to school, and all the other hassles that start with the school year.

No, I was not ready to be thrown into a routine but the start of the school year comes whether we like it or not. So, I learn to adjust to a new mindset and a new schedule. I'll survive but still, this is hard...

We've accomplished it!

Potty Trained!!