Being Generous: Friendsgiving, Goats and Kayite

Be Generous.

On Saturday night some friends of ours invited us to celebrate the first annual Friendsgiving. It was a wonderful evening over great food, company and late night dancing (well- late night when you are out with little ones- meaning around 9pm!).

One of our friends asked us each to offer a word of grace for the upcoming year. Our dear friends began to share beautiful words of love, kindness and hope. What kept coming to my heart was "Be Generous". It was a prayer for grace for times when I am not, and a prayer of hope for all of us at the table for the upcoming year.

Today I have a Thanksgiving story of generosity. What all began as a sweet girls generous gift of $12, turned into the $12 Project and a total of $416 dollars raised. This will purchase 9 goats for families in Ethiopia! (And if anyone wants to just round it off...a gift of $34 more would get us to 10!). Thank you so much to all who gave. I haven't yet announced to Sarah Bess the total and I can't wait to see her face when I tell her how many goats were bought!

Several people have commented to me lately that they don't want to just give money. They would rather serve by doing. And while I agree that serving with our hands and feet is very important, it should not be done in lieu of giving the money we have been blessed with. Some of these same people have said it doesn't make people feel good just to 'write a check'. My advice...just try it. It makes you feel amazingly blessed. So I am very thankful for those in my life that choose to do exactly that.

And with that, I have another amazing opportunity for you to be generous this holiday season. Her name is Kayite. She is six years old and in the first grade- just like Sarah Bess and Davis.

But unlike Sarah Bess and Davis, she was born into extreme poverty. She was also born with HIV. Her circumstances and her health are due to no fault of her own. But YOU can bless this sweet girl. Through Project Hopeful Awassa for only $30 month, you can sponsor her to provide needed clothing, food and medical treatment so that she can attend school. Read here if you want to know Why Project Hopeful Awassa?

Be Generous.

The $12 Project

$12 can buy you lots of things:

2 value meals at Mickey D's
Ballet flats at Rack Room
3 bottles of 2 Buck Chuck at Trader Joe's
Starbucks- all depending on your preference and size. For me-two of the grande caramel macchiato

Yesterday, Sarah Bess came to me with $12. Hers was not a request to buy something for herself.  "I would like to give this money to Gabre's orphanage."

Unprompted. Unsolicited. Generosity.

 

Our kids have 3 piggy banks they put money in: one to spend, one to save and one to give. This money came from her spend piggy bank. The one she uses to buy treats at the pool, a gift for her sister, or wastes at the yard sale across the street. $12 is approximately 1/3 of her total spending account...and I almost tried to talk her out of it.

Don't worry- I'm not going to say something crazy like maybe this year to show thanks for all our blessings we should give away 1/3 of our 'spend' budget. But what if we gave $12.

 What if we matched what a 6 year old girl so freely gave.

Gabre was born close to a region in Ethiopia called Awassa. Many of you may have heard me talk about Project HOPEFUL Awassa. Sarah Bess has decided to spend her $12 on sheep to go to the community families enrolled in Project HOPEFUL Awassa.

 (well, sheep that look like goats...you be the judge)

 

 

Why Sheep? This was shared after the first sheep were given in October by Greg Knight:

 

An advocate from women and orphans in the area spoke and expressed thanks for the gifts that would change the way that these families lived. To me it was just a sheep. To them it was a source of fresh milk and future lambs as they will have them bred. It made me wish we had been able to provide more.



 

So Sarah Bess would like to provide more. One Sheep/Goat is $45. Jimmy and I have both matched SB's $12 so we are almost up to one sheep. Will you match? How many sheep can we give? Can we one by one give $12 that will give a family something they need so that their children do not have to become orphans. Orphans in a region where they currently become 'stuck'. No longer with their biological families, but not currently eligible for adoption? Children and families like these:

 

 

Here is pay pal link to make your tax-deductible donation to Project HOPEFUL Awassa for sheep.



 https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=KGJHBLTX6WLFC 

 

If you give and don't mind, please leave a comment or message us. We'd love to share with Sarah Bess how much her generosity blessed others.

 

To read more about Project Hopeful Awassa and becoming a FIG- Family in the Gap, click here.



Top 3 Reasons NOT to Support Orphans

So I'm guessing that some people did a double take with that title. Another post from Hannah about orphans...wait, did she say NOT to support orphans (even though God says to do just that)?

Today is National Orphan Sunday. I thought about writing a post about God's commands for us to take care of the orphan and what you can do, but I knew that the excuses that I always hear would be what many would be thinking. I would guess that most of us that have adopted have heard something like "I think it is so great that you are helping orphans, I would love to do something like that BUT....


1. "We just don't have the money." Let's be honest with each other here. I bet that everyone that has ever said that to me has two cars, an iphone/ ipad (droid) or multiple in their house, eats out several times a month, has bought new clothes in the last six months, etc. Now I also fit in the above categories, and I'm not saying we shouldn't enjoy those things, but we should not indulge in luxury if it becomes an excuse not to give.

Good news though even if your monthly spending leaves nothing left over for others: You can now give to charity simply by buying. Thanks to Jen Hatmaker and Sarah Bessey, I now am aware of  Pure Charity. You can read more about this at Jen and Sarah's posts, but basically you can connect your everyday spending to a charity.

2. "Something might be wrong with them." So I don't want to get into the fundamental problem with this statement and how we judge who is worthy of our love or worthy to belong to a family. But I will say, that this is true. Most likely an orphans complete medical and family histories will not be known to you in adoption. But neither is it when we birth children from our tummies. And I missed the part in the gospel where we only love the perfect people. Both Davis and Gabre were adopted off of waiting child lists, and in both cases we did not know all the information about their medical histories that we know now, but OH how we would have missed out if that had stopped us. Just look at these faces...

3. "I think children need to stay in their own countries supported by people with their culture." If this is your belief, the good news is this does not have to stop you from living out the gospel! There are so many organizations that you can support that are working to do just this. Three of my favorite are ZOE,  Bring Love In and Project Hopeful Awassa. These are a GREAT way to support orphans without adopting.

And one last statement that I so kindly ask you to consider before saying "Why didn't you adopt domestically? We need to take care of the children in the US first.". Please do not say this to anyone if YOU have not adopted or fostered in the US. But if this is your viewpoint, there are MANY ways (including thousands of children available for adoption and fostering) right here that you can support. Two I recommend are Methodist Home for Children and The Forgotten Initiative.

These are only a few of the fantastic organizations you can get involved with. I hope that today, on Orphan Sunday, you will consider what you can do in 2013 to make a difference in the life of an orphan. It will bless you more than you can imagine.