Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!! We love you all. Some of you have expressed an interest in donating items for us to take to the kids when we go to Kombolcha. We are working to get care packages for each child and getting our lessons ready...we will have our list more compiled in January after our next 2 phone conferences. More to come to soon.... Happy Holidays and Happy Birthday Jesus---Deanna and Derek

My Heart is in Ethiopia

Only 4 months until we leave for Ethiopia and I can't wait to love on all those kids and show them how much we care about them when we don't even know them. We will be with 300 kids that are not adoptable and who only get one meal a day. These kids need love and hope. They just need to know that there are people in the world that know they exist. Not only will we be teaching them about God's love but we will also be learning so much from them. I can't wait!! My heart is in Ethiopia.... Deanna

One Child

Ethiopia: historical, the birthplace of coffee, strategic, beautiful beyond words and home to over 5 million orphans. One Child Campaign began here in East Africa. The goal of our vision trips is to create a united effort to give voice to orphans, widows and the destitute through holistic and sustainable means. This will be accomplished through sponsorship, empowerment, job creation and discipleship that will meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the children and families. We believe in adoption, but that is only 1% of the solution to kids in this nation. What about the 99% of those who are unadoptable? This trip will immerse you into the lives of orphans, street kids and silent heroes who lay their lives down for the least of these every single day. It will create an experience that will raise awareness, but also for you to realize the impact you can have through practical application of compassion and justice. This is a united mission to raise up a generation with selfless faith. Together, we can breathe hope into the orphan crisis in Ethiopia.

Video of the Lawson Family

The Lawson Family Click on the link to see our family pictures in video form....We love this video and wanted to share it with those of you who view our blog

We got a e-mail today from our trip leader, Rob Tennant, pastor of HillSong Church with the following information about getting prepared for our trip.  Many of you have been asking how things are coming...hopefully this will give an over all update.  



We must begin our preparation for the trip.  That includes preparing spiritually through prayer (individual and group prayer), and practical preparations (ie what are we going to actually do for a week in Ethiopia?).




I'd like each of us to read the book When Helping Hurts (by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert).  This book by Corbett and Fikkert provides an excellent perspective on well intentioned Christians making trips to places in the third world.  My approach to short-term trips like the one we'll be taking is very much in line with what the authors present and it will be very helpful if we all understand that approach.  We as American Christians are coming alongside the handful of Ethiopian men and women in the town of Kombolcha who daily care for, feed, and teach Christianity to 300 children who are ineligible for adoption but have next to nothing in the way of provision and education.  We are encouragers, there to be of assistance to the evangelists and caregivers who love these kids.  And we are there to let these children know that God loves them and that in Jesus Christ, they have hope and their lives have meaning and purpose.




Here's a snap-shot of our itinerary:
April 21, 2011 - Fly out of Dulles airport, Washington DC
April 22, 2011 - Arrive in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia  
April 23, 2011 - take 7-hour van ride to Kombolcha
April 24-27 - run a fun, Bible camp - in the morning, we'll work with about 80-85 kids.  In the afternoon, we'll run the same program for a second set of 80-85 kids.
April 28 - in the morning we will have a feast for all the kids (about 300, those in the Hope Chest Program and the others at that facility as well)
April 28 - after the feast, we head back to Addis
April 29 - during the day souvenir shopping in Addis
April 29 - in the evening, we fly out
April 30 - Return to USA

300 Kids

We just found out that we will be working with 300 kids in Kombolcha.  We will be doing bible school type lessons with them everyday.  We will be having our first group meeting soon with everyone going.  At that meeting we will discuss what supplies we need to take with us.  Originally, we were going to have a little health clinic but now the doctors and other nurses that had planned to go can not go any longer. We still have lots of other plans that we will share soon.  We are so grateful to have these plans come together and can't wait to see what God has in store!!
                                            

THANK YOU!!!

We would like to give a big THANK YOU for all the donations thus far!! We are so very Grateful that God has blessed us with the funds that have started to come in.

HOPE

HOPE is what we needed the last 2 years and we continue to hang on to the hope that God gives us.  This video shows the HOPE that we can give orphans all over that world. Thank you for all the prayers as we set out on this journey to Kombolcha.

You can watch it here:
http://vimeo.com/19223562

John 10:10 http://vimeo.com/19223562

Derek is getting excited now!!!!

I'm starting to get more excited now that the support money is coming in. We have already received some donations this past week and it has really shown me that God will provide. We also received a "lil" note from one of our supporters and it was very heart warming. I've been having a feeling inside me and all I can say is that its the prayers that are being lifted up for us. So as we wait to go, I'll just keep checking the mail and having these feelings!!! This message has been brought to you by Derek

Grateful

Right after updating our blog this morning, something told me to go check the mail. As I pulled out the mail, I saw an envelope from a close friend. I was amazed to find another donation. We are so grateful for what God is doing for us and are so happy to share our hope with all of you! Thank you everyone for supporting us so we can make a difference in these children's lives.

Our First Donation

Yesterday, when I got home from work, Derek was rather excited! His excitement was contagious when I found out that we got our first donation in the mail for our mission trip. It's real and God is providing. We are so grateful and can't wait to see what God has in store for us.

Support Letter

Dear Family and Friends, We have some exciting news!! We have an amazing opportunity to travel to Ethiopia with an organization called One Child Campaign. We are so excited and can’t wait to get there to show God’s love to these under privileged kids. A few months back, we attended a “show and tell” about a mission trip that we helped financially. As we were listening to the presentation, a feeling came to the both of us. We didn’t know until the ride home that both of us felt the same thing at the same time. God was working on us!! We discussed what this might mean and decided to call our pastor. With the pastor’s guidance, MORE signs from God and the two of us praying we came to the conclusion that this is what we are called to do at this time. We have discussed this with

other members of our church family and have a group teaming up with another church in Raleigh to set out on this adventure. We will be traveling to different cities in Ethiopia, April 21-30 2012, visiting a number of orphanages with the opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus to orphan children. We will be playing with the children and loving on them, we will also bringing in medical supplies, shoes and hoping to meet some other basic needs. We are so excited to have the opportunity to be part of this team. We will need to raise around $6,000 to cover the trip cost and in addition are hoping to raise extra funds to support some of One Child’s capital projects at these orphanages. We are looking for a team of people to partner with us both in prayer and financially for this adventure. We are in need of financial partners who would commit to give any amount towards our trip. In giving towards this trip you will be touching the lives of orphan children in Ethiopia. Please prayerfully consider joining us in this journey. We are also looking for a prayer team. We need prayer while we are preparing for this trip and while we are on this wonderful trip. If you’d like to make a tax-deductible contribution toward our trip, make a check payable to One Child Campaign and mail it to us at: Derek and Deanna Lawson 731 Afton Park Drive Kernersville, NC 27284 OR Goodwill Baptist Church C/o Greg Mullis 3110 Piney Grove Road Kernersville, NC 27284 We look forward to sharing all the AMAZING things that God does on this trip. We also have a blog if you would check it out, www.doitfortheorphans.blogspot.com. Sincerely, Derek and Deanna Lawson

One Child Video

One Child Campaign is a ministry outreach of Faith Central Ministries. The vision of the Orphan Awareness and Vision trips is to create a united effort of ministries to give voice to the over 4.3 million orphans in Ethiopia. This will be accomplished through sponsorship, empowerment and discipleship that will meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the children.

Sponsor a Child

We have joined with Children's Hope Chest to sponsor a child at Grace Baptist Church in Kombolcha, Ethiopia.  A sponsorship fee ($34 monthly) provides resources for children to receive at least one meal a day, school supplies, a school uniform, basic medical care and an education!  Sponsors not only offer monthly support, but encouragement through prayer, letter writing, and relationship.

If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please contact  Candy at mblueberry.madamblueberry@gmail.com.   She will match you with a child, send you a photo and information about your sponsor child along with instructions on how to register as that child's sponsor.

Acceptance Letter

On Monday night (September 26th, 2011), Derek and I received our acceptance letters for the Ethiopia Trip and we were so excited.  It really hasn't set in for Derek yet.  He says it really won't seem real until we start to raise funds....if we are really meant to go then God will provide us with the funds.

On the other hand, I was jumping for joy when I read this:


We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to join the One Child Campaign Mission and Vision Trip from April 21-30, 2012 to Kombolcha and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We are looking forward to having you as a member of this team! We will see and experience A LOT and try to also have some good hands on experiences as much as possible...and some fun cultural things too! 

About 2 months Ago...

About 2 months ago Derek and I shared our feelings with one another about helping orphans in Africa.  We had no idea how each other felt until our way home from a "show and tell" about our friend's Uganda trip.  We both felt that God had a plan for us to help the orphans in Africa in some way.  After praying and getting many signs we got together with our pastor to help us decide when and where we would go.

God works in mysterious ways...we originally wanted to go to Uganda and Ethiopia on a 2 week trip.  As we went to apply for that trip we found that it had gotten cancelled.  We then found a trip to Ethiopia associated with One Child Campaign, which was much cheaper and a shorter time frame that works better for our vacation time.  God must really want us to go on this trip because we then got our passports without any bumps in the road in 3 weeks which got us really pumped because this was our "travel pass" to other countries.

Several emails and discussions later led us both to applying for the trip through the One Child Campaign.  We sent our applications and fees in on September 22, 2011....who knew what would come next!!!