*Update...A friend of mine visited the Hoover Village Orphanage last fall and sent me these pictures today.
I wanted you to have faces to pray over.
I am blown away by the number of e-mails I've received today about donations. Thank you so much for helping feed these kids. Some of you asked me to please post how to donate straight onto my blog. So, here you go:
You can make a donation via a pay pal account to the missions organization, African Christian Fellowship International by clicking here.
You can send a check through the mail to the ministry's office at:
African Christian Fellowship International P.O. Box 1238
Lancaster, SC 29721
If you could e-mail me back at Lysa1@Proverbs31.org and let me know how much you'll be sending that would be great.
I'd love to keep a running tally and announce to everyone next week how many bags of rice we were able to purchase. Again, thank you so very much for seeing the need and stepping in to help.
May God give you visions of beautiful kids with bowls full of rice as you continue to pray for His children.
My Original Post:
Last night watching the American Idol Gives Back Show was almost more than my heart could take at times.
It's so personal... my boys lived that extreme life of poverty in an African orphanage for so many years. Years when I went to bed with a full belly, unaware.
It's not that I didn't know that somewhere in the world kids were starving. It's not that I wasn't compassionate. It's not that I didn't care.
It's that the problem seemed so big and I seemed so small. What difference could I make? How could I even get my little help to them?
So, instead of doing something... I did nothing.
I chose to live unaware.
But then one day the orphan problem looked me straight in the face and I felt God whisper, "do something."
When Africa came close enough for me to touch it, two boys with real needs were there. And in that moment, this was no longer a remote social issue.
These were children. When they cried, tears spilled from their eyes. When they fell down, they wanted someone to kiss it and make it better. And when they didn't have food, they felt hunger like I'd never known.
Yesterday, I received an e-mail telling me that the orphanage my boys came from just ran out of rice. So, I'm bringing Africa close to you today. Here is part of the e-mail...
"These children only eat rice and broth each and every day. They need 200 lbs of rice each day to feed the 500 children in the two orphanages and each 100 Lb bag of rice costs $40. As of yesterday, they only had one of the two bags of rice needed. In other words, they only had half the food needed to feed the children. (That bag of rice was donated by a local friend of the orphanage.) Today, there is no food. Tomorrow there will be no food. And, possibly the next day, there will be no food to feed the children."
I can't read that without my throat tightening and my eyes stinging. Again, it's too personal. My babies lived that way for many, many years.
I asked Mark what would happen when they would run out of rice when he lived at the orphanage. He said, "We would heat up some water and just drink hoping to fight off the pain in our stomachs."
Needless to say, I want to send some money to help the orphanage in Liberia buy some rice. If you would like to help me, please e-mail me at Lysa1@Proverbs31.org. I'll e-mail you back directions on how you can make a donation.
We may not be able to solve the orphan issue of this world by simply sending a few bags of rice. But I keep thinking about God's whisper to me several years ago, "do something... just do something."
Thank you sweet friends!
Remember tomorrow is our organization challenge area "Swap and Hop." I'll post all the instructions, the Mr. Linky, and photos of my own organization challenge area in tomorrow's post. Karen Ehman will be picking some blog entries to win a book or even a possible makeover!!! Put your thinking caps on and go ahead and take some photos of your mess...
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