What it means to have a family...

Well, trip #4 is unknown at this point, but trip #5 is pretty much set already. November 2012.

Emnatu will be graduating college a 2nd time, this time from his night classes. 

 The boys from Kolfe usually don't let their classmates and teachers know they are orphans. Orphans are looked down upon in their society, undervalued, spat upon, rocks thrown at... in general, you just don't share who you are, with 99% of the people around you.

My 2nd trip, Ayal (a driver) showed up at the airport driving a work car. It took me a while to understand just how significant this was. He had told his BOSS that his MOM was coming to town, and that he wanted to borrow a car to drive her home (guest house) from the airport. That was an admission of who he is... it was HUGE, and a great honor.

His first graduation in July 2010, I missed it by a month.

Talking with Emnatu this morning, he suggested I be there for his graduation. This confused me... who would I be? Would I be free to be who I am, his mother??? Would I be a visitor he just happened to give a ticket to? (I have not met his friends aside from former Kolfe boys...) 

I have asked this question to many of the boys, and never gotten an answer. It is a tough decision for them to make when their family shows up... but his answer today melted my heart, and made me realize just how much I need to get on that plane next November...

"i dont care about any people i proud of you"  Proud, not because I am some fabulous person...

nope, that would be PROUD, because he dreamed for 16+ years about having a mom, and now does!

 One of his friends told me a few weeks ago that Emnatu hopes to have his "unofficial" name printed on the graduation program... "Emnatu John", not Emnatu T-----  because having his Dad's name in print with his, is huge for him.  So sweet!

 ♥ Things you and I never have to think about... I am humbled, honored, and in complete awe that God would choose us to be a part of these boys lives. 
God is soooooo good!!! ♥

They will be blessed....

DONE!!!!!

Super excited to announce that we have reached the goal for the KOLFE Genna Meal!!! (Ethiopian Christmas, January 7th)  Thank you to all of you who either supported this financially, or prayed us through.  If you would still like to donate, Gladney will use any extra to pay for the Genna meal at Kechene. (The girls' orphanage.)  Directions on how to donate can be found HERE.

Long overdue thoughts on the $2 challenge...

Here's the post I started last week,  before the Christmas cards, holiday parties, and yet another fundraiser for my next trip....

The $2 challenge

$2 to feed our family of four today has been an inconvenience... it has been thought provoking, made us prayerful, honestly, it is making me very hungry... I even had us avoid a party today, because I felt it would be "too hard" to watch everyone else eat in front of us. How crazy is that?? And yet, tomorrow I will once again eat to full or even over-full, while mothers send their children to bed hungry because their $2 had to be used for the rent, clothing, transportation and other necessities as well as food... 

WE LIVE IN ABUNDANCE... OVER-ABUNDANCE...  that is what we learned.  Obviously that isn't a surprise to me.  I am however surprised at just how much time it took to think about how to stick to this budget. Not only that, but it is STRESSFUL!!!!  Families do this EVERY day!  By the way, before you begin to think that $2 goes sooo much further in places like Ethiopia.  Think again..  My friends there who did this challenge had just as much trouble (if not more) feeding their family during this challenge.  Partially because they also had to buy water and other things that we don't...

Here's how it ended up

  $ 0.50  6 eggs (breakfast)              

  $ 0.57  2 large bananas (lunch)      

          $ 0.50  10 slices of white bread (lunch)

   $ 0.32  2 packages of Top Ramen  

 $ 0.08  1/2 a carrot                        

$ 1.97 total spent on food             

Two things that almost ruined

this challenge for us...

#1  This... my pantry (excuse the mess, it wasn't expecting photos)  Not only can I afford MUCH more than $2 a day for food...  I have a large amount of surplus within arms reach.  Our Ethiopian sons do not have this luxury, money is tight! Our oldest, who lives on his own, had a few oranges, onions and tomatoes in his "pantry".  That's it.

#2  I am embarrassed to admit this, but this cake about did us in today.

You see, yesterday, my husband asked me to make this for us to eat while his parents were over for a visit.  Fresh apple, crumb cake... Instead of eating this, his parents took us out to dinner, (Let's not talk about how much we ate...) that meant that THIS CAKE sat on the stove taunting us all day.  Someone, (one of the kids?) even put a cookie sheet over it halfway through the day, so that the temptation was less.

Now, this could be just a test of our willpower... or this could be something that causes us to help fix the problem.  I like option #2. 

Here are some of our favorite organizations:

http://www.embracinghopeethiopia.com/

The Shannon Family in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

I had the immense pleasure of

meeting Christy on my 2nd trip,

and by trip 3, we had picked up a

 beautiful little baby girl as our sponsor child. 

 I believe 1000% in what they do.

I could explain it to you, but they say it so much

better, so please, check out their website!

http://www.p61.org/

A great team of people who love the locals down at Korah,
where our teenage sponsor girl lives.
They really attempt to give a hand up, not a hand out!!

http://www.rivers-of-living-water.org

An amazing family in Montana,

with hearts for the people of Gojjo, Ethiopia.

She is always running some type of project,

for fresh water, sponsorship, Christmas dinner,

or currently lambs for the kids there to raise.

The $2 challenge... Is that all we get for dinner?

$2 a day challenge... Feeding your family on $2 or less to experience just a tiny, tiny taste of what the other 1/2 of the world LIVES on each and every day...

Here's dinner from tonight:

2 packages of Top Ramen ($0.32) and 1/2 of a carrot ($0.08) split 4 ways, and clean, fresh, healthy water to drink.  We could only do 1/2 of a carrot, because the full carrot pushed us over the $2 for today.

After the bike ride, my son came home and promptly pulled out the Top Ramen and set it on the counter. 
It was 3:40pm...  but he was ready for dinner, and thought setting it on the counter would make dinner come sooner.

  We are all going to bed hungry tonight, but filled with the knowledge that for us...  this was only a one day challenge.  We don't have to eat this way tomorrow.  AND really... what we have eaten today is MORE than 1/2 of the world's population is able to eat each day.  How many families will go to bed hungry each night, all night long?

What did you have for dinner tonight?

http://2dollarday.org/

The $2 Challenge... Lunch

$2 a day challenge... Feeding your family on $2 or less to experience just a tiny, tiny taste of what the other 1/2 of the world LIVES on each and every day...

  Here's our lunch from this afternoon. 

1/2 of a banana ($0.57) and 2 1/2 pieces of white bread ($0.50) and clean, fresh, healthy water to drink.

The kids were getting pretty hungry, so I gave up my 1/2 piece for them to split. (Wow... 1/4 a piece of bread, big deal...) White bread, because anything whole grain was WAY out of the price range.

We went for a bike ride after taking a Sunday nap.   Boy, that food didn't provide us with much energy for the bike ride, so we cut it short.  I think I can speak for all of us when I say that just about A-L-L we can think about is F-O-O-D... 

As a mom, how could I survive living on less than $2 a day?  What would it feel like to be hungry all day, every day, and yet have to work, (not nap) all day, just to earn enough to put this little bit of food (or likely much less) on the table?

What did you have for lunch today?

 http://2dollarday.org/the-details/

The $2 challenge ~ Breakfast was lacking.

The $2 a day challenge... Feeding your family on $2 or less to experience just a tiny, tiny taste of what the other 1/2 of the world LIVES on each and every day...

Here's our breakfast from this morning.

1 and 1/2 eggs for each of us (6 eggs = $0.50) and water. (That would be fresh, good tasting, healthy for us... water.  Most of those living on $2 a day aren't blessed with water like this.)   John put it on festive plates... but really, nothing could distract from the fact that this was not much food to start our day off.

And as we sat down at the table to eat, we discussed women we know in Ethiopia who daily work to provide for their family on less than what we will spend today on food.   People who routinely start their day off with little or no nourishment. 

Already this morning we were able to see that we could only hope to do this for food expenses.  Living expenses?  That shot of insulin I gave when I woke up, and the antibiotic my son is on right now would have been completely out of reach for a person living on less than $2 a day. 

 

What did you have for breakfast?

$2 a day challenge

The $2 Challenge

"Today, nearly half the world’s population

 lives on just $2 per day–

something most of us can’t even imagine."

"And so we ask this simple question,

pose a simple challenge.

Will you take one day

Thursday, December 8^th

and try to eat on less than $2?"

Look, this photo isn't even correct.  The challenge to us Westerners isn't to LIVE off of $2 a day.  That would be impossible... the challenge is simply to EAT off of $2 a day...  but that is enough to cause me to shake...

Will you take one day, Thursday, December 8th and try to eat on less than $2? Will you put yourself in someone else's place... and then see what God would have you do as a result?  My hubby and I are not expecting it to be easy.  We expect that we will be hungry, but we are also willing to see what God would teach us.

Are you open to letting go of your comforts (just a bit), and letting God work in your heart and life?

Want to join us? Go to the website and tell our friends you will join in.  And if you are on faceb**k, change your profile to the top photo, and spread the challenge...