Make a Difference This Father’s Day!

This Father’s Day I am giving a gift that will bless a child.

One of our sponsors is making Father's Day Cards to raise money for the kids at Grace Baptist Care Point to get new school uniforms. 

Grace Baptist, sponsored byChildren’s HopeChest, is a carepoint for orphaned and impoverished children. Through the support of sponsors, Grace Baptist is able to provide food, clothing, education and Christian discipleship! However, the children have many other needs.

Last year, funds were raised to help purchase new shoes. You can see a pic of the children with their new shoes here. This year we will be raising funds for new school uniforms. There are, however, new students that have arrived at the carepoint and have not yet received new shoes. So we are also offering the cards from last year as an option to help purchase new shoes for these children.

You can celebrate your father (or husband) all while making a difference in the lives of these children just by making a monetary donation directly to Children’s HopeChest. (Your donation is 100% tax deductible.) You can choose to donate whatever amount you wish, but we ask for a minimum donation of $5 for each Father’s Day Card.  A school uniform costs $17.50 and a pair of shoes costs $18. I will mail one of the Father’s Day cards pictured below (your choice) to the man you choose to honor. You will also have the option to include a personalized message that will be printed on a separate piece of paper and can be added to the card. I am donating my time, and the cost to professionally print the cards. The postage has been donated by another sponsor family, so 100% of your donation goes straight to Grace Baptist for the uniforms or shoes!

Here’s what you need to do:

Go to http://wp.me/p1VbdE-1u2

Fill out the information to participate in this fundraiser

Update at Grace Baptist Care Point

We are delighted to share this update with you!  
On Saturday the following items were delivered to the children at Grace Baptist Care point:

• sweat pants and jacket for each child
• socks for each child
• 25 kgs (55 lbs) of Teff for each child/family
• 2.5 litters of cooking oil for each child/family

The Teff/oil is enough for one month (for a family of four)

Below are photos of the food distribution and the children in their new clothing.  The children's smiles are priceless.  

Thank you for sponsoring a child at Grace Baptist Church!   

The kids lined up in their new sweat pants and jackets.

Fiekre (Hope Chest worker in Ethiopia) with the kids.

Teff...the type of flour used in Ethiopia and what they use to make injera

The ladies at the care point distributing the teff for each child.

The kids are so happy just to get oil and teff...this means they can

eat at home as well and share with their families

Landscape and Wild Life on the way back to Addis Ababa

Families live in huts like the one seen above.

See all the ox?

These next 3 pics are some of my (Deanna) favorite landscape pics we took in Africa

These are some of my (Deanna) favorite trees in Africa.  

We stopped and saw the baboons that live on one of the mountains.

Village of huts

Before we left Kombolcha we paid a guy 5 Birr to sit on his Camel.  

Ethiopians see camels everyday so they thought we were pretty crazy to want to sit on a camel.  

Abby on the camel...camels are really tall and you really don't 

realize it until you are sitting on their hump.

This is a great view!

Derek living on the edge in Ethiopia

Video by Laura

This is an awesome video...the music brings back memories!!

We miss it so much!

Bonfire

After the children left on that last day we all went back to the hotel to rest and settle our thought.  After resting for 2 hours we headed back to the care point for a bonfire.  Grace Baptist Care Point teachers, pastor and others who help out held a bonfire in honor of our team.  Some of the older kids were still there and this was the time we got to encourage the staff of how awesome they were and how strong they were to be doing what they are doing for these kids.  It was odd because they were honoring us for helping them and giving them hope but they were the ones that needed to be honored.  

When we got back to the care point everything was all set up for a bonfire. 

Becka, Heidi, Sarah T. and Zalolem

In Ethiopia you have coffee and popcorn at a bonfire...here the ladies are popping 

the popcorn.  This popcorn is the best ever.  Instead of salt they sprinkle 

sugar on it while it is still hot.  It is awesome with Ethiopian coffee

We began with a prayer.  Imagine praying while in the background of the city you hear Muslim call to prayer over the loud speaker.  This was very powerful and you could feel God's presence as we prayed to God with the Muslim prayer in the background.  I'm not sure I can even explain it very well.  

In honor of our help and as a Thank You to our home churches

 the care point had banners made for us.

Derek accepted our churches banner.  

With our team of 16, we had 6 home churches from the U.S.

Abby and Derek with 2 of the care point kids whose

 family member helps out at the care point.

Rob and Greg (the pastors on our team) got the honor of lighting the bonfire.

Rob don't be mad at us for posting this pic

 but it's an awesome pic of the bonfire.

If you look closely you can see the ladies getting the coffee ready.

We had leftovers from the feast that day, bananas, popcorn and coffee.  

This is a very special lady.  This is Rachel, the main teacher for all 160 kids. 

She works so hard to advocate for the kids.  She speaks English and Amharic.  She was a great help translating for all of us while we were there.  God put her on this earth for a reason and she is making a huge difference in these kids lives.  They are lucky to have her.    

Day 6-Last Day at the Kombolcha Carepoint

After being back from Ethiopia for 3 weeks, I have been dreading writing the post for the last day in Kombolcha.  It was a hard day for everyone on our team as well on the kids.  I have been struggling about how to express my feelings of this day.  I love the way Tom Laughner (a member of our team and a father of adopted kids from Ethiopia) put it: 


You would think that such a life would harden these kids. You would think that they would push people away for fear of losing them. You would think that emotion was something they could not afford when they don't know from where their next meal will come or if they will have a roof to sleep under the next night. You would think wrong.


Our last day in Kombolcha was full of emotion. As the day began, we were anxious because we knew all 160 kids would be there when we arrived and we had a hastily devised plan on how to keep things organized for three hours until lunch was served. We were overwhelmed as we carried out our plan with mixed levels of success. We were happy because even though it was chaos, we were still having fun and loved spending time with the children. We were sad when we had to say our good-byes and leave.

First, the feast. All of the kids were given a full meal that included injera, the lamb, shero (I didn't have any  but I understand it was the spiciest food the brave in our group have had), potatoes, and carrots. They also received Orange Fanta or a Coca-Cola (no complaints from the kids about which they received). There was enough food that if any of them wanted seconds, they could take them. Needless to say there were lots of full tummies in Kombolcha today. The entire meal, plus plates, fed almost 200 people and cost $1000.  

The ladies are cutting onions and carrots.  

The ladies preparing days ahead of time the veggies that are cooked with the lamb.

All of their cooking and preparing is done outside.

The kids loved to share whatever they have, especially there food.  Some of them were so thankful for the food that they would offer their first bite to us....they love to feed other people.

Rachel helping dish up the food 

Plates of injera

The kids enjoying the feast.

This meal was some of the kids only meal in the last several days other 

than the other snacks we brought them

Some of the boys enjoying their soda...this is a treat for them.

Fanta and Coka

Because our group had passed out the meals and helped clean up, we didn't eat until after the kids were done. One member of our group, who had insisted that she didn't want to see the sheep (although I think she did) said before we ate "I've only known them for a few days, so I'm just going to eat them." We were also treated to a traditional coffee ceremony. The meal was very good, and once again we were treated to a home cooked meal that can't be matched by the restaurants.

Our group getting ready to eat lunch while the kids are chowing down

Abby, Sandy and Sara T.

Rob, Derek, Larua and Deanna

Lamb, Injera, Potatoes and bread

Coffee ceremony after lunch on the last day in Kombolcha

Derek and Laura drinking properly

Tummies full, it was time for what we knew would be the hardest part of the trip; saying good bye.


The staff had lined the kids up outside to sing us some songs. I've gotten to the point that I (we all love hearing the kids sing, it's like you are back in Kombolcha when you hear the video) recognize some of the church songs when they're sung in Amharic, although not to the point that I can sing along. The kids started singing, and I saw immediately that a few of our group started to tear up. Next, we were asked if we wanted to say anything to the kids. I've taken a lot of pictures on this trip, but I decided then to put the camera away. Given the emotion that was starting to come out, some things are best left unrecorded.

Rob gave a very moving talk about how he and Candy had promised to come back and they did. The kids are part of our lives and we will always remember them. We will take their stories and their spirit back with us to our churches and to our friends and family in America. And, we will be back.

I didn't realize the impact his talk had on the kids until we stood with them for group photos. Several of the kids' faces were streaked with tears. One little girl started to sob. Like a wave that comes on shore covering more and more of the sand, the kids, one after another began to cry. When you see our group photos, don't expect the best pictures in the world, because most of us were doing all we could to keep it together.

And finally it was time for goodbyes. One by one the kids came to give us hugs. By this point, most all of them were crying. I've never given so many hugs in one day. Some would give me a solid but brief hug, but some didn't want to let go. They would grab me around the neck and squeeze tight and hang on. Even the older boys, who tried so hard all week to act like grown ups had tears in their eyes. They would walk up to me offering their hand to shake, but didn't object in the least when I pulled them in for a hug. All around me, other members of our team were surrounded by children reaching out for hugs and that last touch before leaving for the day. For at least thirty minutes, the only sound coming from over 180 kids and adults was the sound of crying. Even the staff of the drop in center were wiping away tears. We were told later that the ferengi (foreigners) always cry when leaving a drop in center, but this was the first time that the kids have cried. The ride back to the hotel was unusually quiet as all of us were deep in our thoughts, not wanting to let the moment go.


No one took pictures during good byes...it was a moment that couldn't be expressed with pictures or words.  Everyone was taking time with the kids, crying, and saying goodbye, which was the hardest thing some of us have ever gone through. 

Special moments that Derek and Deanna had with Seada

Seada came up to us with tears in her eyes and holding on to us.  We didn't want to let go of her.  Seada would turn away because she didn't want us to see her cry....she began to walk away.  Derek and I chased after her to get one last hug.  We told her we loved her and we still think of her everyday.  The next 2 weeks...Seada was all we thought about.


We have become members of these kids' families, and we have welcomed them as members of our own families. Even though we are separated by thousands of miles and even though next week we will return to our regular routines and they will continue to try to be a kid while surviving from day to day, we have developed a strong bond. Our resolve to help these children, our children, of Kombolcha has grown stronger. We would do nothing less for our extended family of Ethiopia.