Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Shoes

I started hauling out stuff from the back storage area of our basement. Now I consider myself to be somewhat organized but what has happened down there
is simply criminal. Stuff just accumulates and before you know it... Wow!
One of the things we discovered is that we have so many little boy shoes. I have an entire bin of shoes that need to be donated. While having dinner we started discussing where we could donate the shoes and Carter quietly asked, "Mom are there any little tiny shoes? " "I think so, I responded, but why do you ask Carter?" "Well I thought we might want to save the tiny ones for the baby we will adopt." It was precious! Bob was the first to respond with "We will probably need girl shoes Carter but that is such a nice thought." Of course I will have no problem shopping for girl shoes... LOL!  Well said Carter and good answer Bob. :

Monday, September 22, 2008

Visiting her land

So here sits Hayden tonight, finishing up a good book. He looks up at me with the sweetest look and says, "Mom I need to talk to you about something I told my friends. I told them I would be going with you and Dad to Nepal." Then there is a long pause... "I mean can't you just find a sitter for Carter and Owen and then the three of us can go?" I chuckle outloud and then promptly apologize for laughing. Bless his little heart for caring so much about the process. He is concerned that he be able to see where "she " is going to come from. He does not want to miss a defining moment in the life of our family. So far our agency is not real thrilled about adoptive parents bringing their children along for the gotcha day (or week).  What a tough thing for us to try and explain to Hayden, the oldest of our brood and a child with a heart that continues to honor people of the world who are less fortunate than he. Who wants to squelch such curiosity and caring. I can certainly see him fondly embracing his little sister. Can't you?

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Getting Started

We are jumping with excitement and joy!

After nearly two years of discussion, prayer and more 
discussion it is with tremendous joy in our hearts that we announce our intentions as a family to adopt a precious child from the beautiful country of Nepal!

To some of you this may come as a complete surprise, although most of you are aware that adoption has been heavy on our minds and hearts for some time now. We feel very fortunate to now be working with the very agency that we first contacted nearly 18 months ago when were were merely inquiring about the process and/or the country options. All God's Children is a remarkable agency with a heartwarming story of how personal adoption shaped their family and lead them to help others choose adoption. Feel free to click on the link Adoption Agency to learn more.

Into Our Arms Forever!

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welcome home ava! from melanie Strobel on Vimeo.

Meeting Ava during our first trip to Ethiopia

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Meeting Ava Ethiopia Trip July 2010 from melanie Strobel on Vimeo.

Korah- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

During our recent visit to Ethiopia I felt very called to the village of Korah in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. There have been numerous rumblings lately about the tremendous need to help the children of Korah who are growing up in and around the local trash dump. The village was established 75 years ago as a place to send people with leprosy who were said to be cursed. Now there is a 3rd generation of people living in Korah with nearly 100,000 suffering from such things as leprosy, HIV, misc disease and of course malnutrition. There are many children of Korah who have been forced to live and work at the trash dump in hopes of finding food and possible items to sell in Korah's center of town. With the start of the Great Hope Church in Korah and the building of a shelter, along with the ministry of local Sammy Liben and Sumer Yates, there is now a feeding program and a sponsorship program in place to rescue the forgotten children of Korah and send them to boarding school where they can escape the horror of the conditions of living and working in a large trash dump. For more information please visit: www.help4korah.blogspot.com or www.p61.org where you can learn more about how you or your organization can help the people and the children of Korah. Please send me a message or email Erin Allen at erin@p61.org to request sponsorship information. I will soon be posting the photos of my day recently spent in Korah. I must tell you it was life changing and beyond anything I have ever done to stretch, change and rearrange myself. God helped me to help the people who I met. Much of what I could offer was nothing more than the snap of my camera or a warm touch or an inviting smile. The needs in Korah are beyond our wildest imagination yet God is over Korah and there is already amazing work being done. I invite you to view the following videos to learn more about the beauty and the needs of Korah's people.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO SPONSOR A CHILD

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Hannah's Hope Orphanage- Ethiopia

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