Wednesday, November 25, 2009

So much to be thankful for

We are preparing to head North for some R&R and of course a wonderful meal with family, I am reminded of all we have to be thankful for in this amazing adoption process. I am grateful for God's nudge in the time where this all began. I am grateful for the time and energy both myself and my husband have poured into embracing and accepting adoption as the way we were meant to grow our family. Thank God both of us could get on the same page and have felt equally called to adopt our daughter. I am thankful for our agency and all the many AGCI families who continue to amaze and inspire me. Whenever I feel challenged by the idea of four children, all I do is look around at the many AGCI families and I am reminded of God's grace. By next year we should know who our little Ethiopian daughter is. I know this holiday season she is in Ethiopia, but not a day goes by when she is not in my heart. We hope next year to share this season of giving with her, baby Strobel. We are thankful for you!

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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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