Tomorrow is the Day!

Don't forget - tomorrow is the Children's HopeChest reception! If you want to see better lives for disadvantaged children in Ethiopia, please join us and find out what you can do. You can make a huge difference in the life of a child.

Where: Grace Community Church (follow the signs to the Pine Room upstairs)

When: Sunday March 4th, 4pm-5pm

See you there!

Door Prizes!

Don’t forget about our reception on March 4th at Grace Community Church from 4 pm-5pm. You will have the opportunity to learn about how you can make a huge difference in an Ethiopian child’s life. We will be talking about mission trips planned to visit our sponsored children too!

There will be great door prizes!

- A Tom’s Shoes gift card

- Ethiopian coffee

- Books written by Tom Davis (CEO of Children’s HopeChest)

- Africa related T-shirts

Also, everyone who signs up to sponsor a child at the reception will receive a Go. Seek. Love. T-shirt!

Your chances for winning will be great, so come join us

Where: Grace Community Church (5711 Granny White Pike, Brentwood, TN 37027)

When: Sunday March 4th, 4pm-5pm

HopeChest Kick Off Event

Come one, come all!

Please join us for a kick off reception for the Children's HopeChest sponsorship program. It will be a great opportunity to learn more about Children's HopeChest, child sponsorship, and Ethiopia and the needs there. A representative from Children's HopeChest will be traveling to Nashville to offer a presentation at the reception.

Where: Grace Community Church (5711 Granny White Pike, Brentwood, TN 37027)

When: Sunday March 4th 4 pm-5pm

We will be serving some yummy snacks and coffee, and childcare will be provided for the little ones in the church nursery.

www.hopechest.org

Children's HopeChest

We realized when we adopted Benjamin that it was only a first step of a new journey that we were going to be on - a journey of serving and advocating for orphans. Throughout the adoption process all of our passion and energy was consumed by the adoption itself. God had moved us and convicted us and we sought to be obedient by adopting one of his children. However, after seeing and experiencing all that we did during our trip to Ethiopia, it was clear that our adoption was just the beginning. The adoption was a compass that directed us toward a path of loving and helping orphans.

The last year and a half since the adoption has been about getting our feet under us. It has been a hard transition for everybody. Benjamin has had a lot of healing to do. I have had a more difficult time than I anticipated managing the chaos of a larger household. Madeline struggled being knocked off the Only Child Throne by an extremely needy little brother. But we are all doing better now. More than better -- Better Than Ever. The Lord has grown us, healed us, sanctified us. Now it is time to take the next step on our journey.

I’m beyond excited to announce that we are Sponsorship Coordinators for Children’s Hopechest, and we are seeking to find sponsors for 150 children.

We are working with a care point in Addis Ababa that we have a personal history with. While we were in Ethiopia to get Benjamin, our driver took us to visit his mission-focused protestant church in a desperately poor slum area of Addis. We met his pastor, and he was eager to tell us about the small but ambitious sponsorship program that the church had begun. The members were ministering to the orphaned and needy children who lived nearby by paying for their school tuition, uniforms, and supplies. They wanted to expand the program to pay for one meal per day for these kids, but the additional pennies that this would cost was beyond what these church members were able to do. He humbly asked if we could help. After seeing the area and hearing his stories, we were deeply moved and eager to do all that we could.

Us with our driver, Dawit, who took us to his church

We have been sponsoring six children ever since then, and we have stayed in contact with Pastor Getahun (we call him Pastor G). His love for the kids and his courage to dream big constantly encourages and challenges us. Ever since our trip, we have really wanted to help get more kids sponsored by asking our American friends and family to help out, but we needed accountability and the help of an established organization to pull this off.

The street right outside the church

For many months now, we have been working with Children’s HopeChest toward making this happen. It is a dream come true to be able to share that the sponsorship program details have been finalized and all of the child packets are ready to go. What remains is to connect the sponsors that God has called with the children he has called them to invest in.

Inside the church

So here’s the scoop:

• 150 children have been profiled and are waiting for sponsors. (Yikes! Yes, Pastor G dreams big!) We are personally responsible for 75 of them.
• Sponsorship costs $34/month.
• Sponsorship pays for the children’s education fees, school supplies, books, and uniforms, meals, and regular checkups
• The kids will be receiving regular mentoring and spiritual training through the local Protestant church
• They will also receive the help and intervention of a trained social worker.

Children’s HopeChest invests in and seeks to transform entire communities, not just individual children. The goal is to break the cycle. If these kids receive an education only to graduate into a reality where there is no employment, opportunity, or even healthcare, the long-term prospects for their lives are just not good.

Over the next several years plans are already being made to:

• Dig a well and build proper latrines for this community.
• Develop new job opportunities for adult residents to help break the cycle of poverty.
• Provide education about HIV/AIDS prevention and santitation.

One of many super cool things about Children’s HopeChest is that they want American sponsors to be personally involved in the lives of the kids that they sponsor and to personally invest in the communities they live in. They not only encourage you to write letters to your kids, they orchestrate opportunities for you to go visit them. Lord willing, we will be helping to lead multiple mission trips over the next several years to get to know our children and to work to help their communities.

Within a couple more weeks, there will be a CHC website ready for our care point where sponsorship signups will begin. For now, can I ask ever person reading this to please pray?

• Pray God’s blessing and protection for Pastor G.
• Pray for the 150 kids in this program.
• Pray that God will lead us to the families that he is calling to sponsor these kids.
• Pray for an event we will be holding at our church on March 4^th to spread the word. (More about that later.)

I will share lots more details about sponsorship and the kick off event on March 4th later. We are so excited about this, and we ask for your prayers.

News Coming Soon

I am amazed that you are reading this! The three or four of you who actually still check my blog are incredibly loyal. Thank you! I will be writing a family update soon, but for tonight I just wanted to throw a teaser out.

We are going to have some exciting news soon!

We have a new season of ministry for our family that is about to begin. It has been in process ever since we came back from Ethiopia (Can you believe it has been over a year and a half now?!), and after a lot of planning, corresponding, praying, and waiting everything is almost ready. We aren’t quite ready to make the Big Announcement yet, but we will be within a week or so.

Check back for details soon!

Poppy Dip!

My friend Sallee has been raising money for their THIRD Ethiopian adoption by making adorable dresses and skirts for little girls out of the cutest fabrics you have ever seen. She calls her little fundraiser company "It's Poppy Dip!" after a cute saying of her son's. I have loved the dresses since I first saw them, and I've wanted one for Madeline forever. A couple of months ago I WON THE GIVEAWAY on Sallee's blog by guessing how many dresses she has made over the last months. It's a lot! Here is Madeline in her cutie patootie Poppy Dip dress:

Check out Sallee's website and her blog and see for yourself all of the cute fabrics she has available. She just posted all of the new Christmas fabrics she will have for this year. I want about six!

Donations for Ethiopia

For a couple of weeks there I was consumed with nothing else besides the flood: helping my aunt, helping neighbors, cleaning up our own yard, baking cookies for those waiting in line at the FEMA headquarters here in town (that was my favorite thing to do!).

Now life is getting a little more back to "normal" (whatever that is), and I am once again scurrying around trying to get ready for our trip to Ethiopia. We are still hoping that we will travel in early to mid-June. That is soon! I've made list upon list, and I've done a lot of shopping and planning.

We would like to fill ALL the extra space in our luggage with donations to give to the transition home (the orphanage run by our adoption agency where Benjamin has been since December), to other orphanages, and to street children. We would welcome donations of any of the following things, and we will make sure that they get into the right hands while we are there.

Here is a list of what we would like to take:

• Food to hand out to street kids (granola bars, pre-packaged packs of trail mix, protein bars, etc.)
• Over-the-counter medicines for kids:
• - Cough medicine
• - Vitamins - liquid and chewable
• - Tylenol - children's and infants'
• - Benadryl
• Latex gloves
• Toothbrushes and toothpaste
• Toddler shoes and socks
• Diapers

For those of you who are local and would like to send some things with us, just email me at family @ duboisadoption . com and we can work out a time for me to pick your donation up. Thank you!

Dress for a Cause - A Fun Giveaway!

NOTE: I grew up with the notion that Raffles are wrong. (I don't think my parents actually said this, but I just picked up that idea, you know.) Raffles are a form of gambling, and all gambling is wrong, right? So if you have a problem with the "R" word, please just don't consider this a Raf_ _ _. Think of it as a DONATION to help an adoptive family bring home an orphaned child from Ethiopia. AND there is a really cool perk - one lucky family will win a super-cool door prize! (Door prizes are OK, right?)

************************************

Will you join me in the REALLY FUN give-away and help this family bring their little girl home from Ethiopia. You can see the full details and purchase your 10.00 entry here:

www.embracingtheleastofthese.blogspot.com

Here is the run down...

See all these shirts and the beautiful pendant?

Well...they can be yours. ALL OF THEM !!

So this is how this puppy works...
You enter into the give away and you choose how many times 1, 2 or 3. It's easy!

One entry is only 10.00 and if you are quicker than me you have already done the math and figured that is like less than a dollar a shirt. Yeah, really.

To sweeten this a bit more, you can have two entries for 15.00.

Really, really want this ensemble of shirts? (Me, too!) Receive a third entry by blogging, tweeting or facebooking about it. They will even send you the wording so you can just repost. Not on their facebook? You can fb friend them by clicking on the fb badge on the left side bar of the blog.

So just head on over to http://www.embracingtheleastofthese.blogspot.com and give it a shot. You will be helping in bringing home a PRECIOUS one...and what is better than that? And if you already have one of the shirts in the set, imagine the blessing you will be to gift it to another person who God may be calling to love the orphan.

Seriously, lets blow the socks off this family and bless them. We are ALL in this together...and helping one another

African Angel

I have been doing some really fun shopping lately. While we were raising money for our adoption, we would often see the fundraisers that other adoptive families were holding and wish that we could help them out and buy their stuff. But money was just too tight to be buying T-shirts and ornaments. We kept telling each other that it was going to be so much fun when we finally had all of our money raised because we could start supporting all of the fundraisers that other families were doing.

Well, I am thankful that we now have the freedom to do just that! We have done almost all of our Christmas shopping from adoptive families and awesome ministries that benefit Africa. It has been a blast! And in the meantime, a few items just for US have found their way into our Etsy shopping cart.

One of those is this precious African angel ornament made by Amy Smith, a mom raising money to adopt from Ethiopia.

Check out her Etsy site to buy one yourself!

This artistic lady is also selling custom caricatures of families, that I just love! She sells these watercolor portraits for only $25 each! Aren't they cute?! I am picturing one of these on Little Brother's wall later on...

Fundraising Fun

Adoptive families can certainly be creative. We have several friends who are raising money for adoptions from Ethiopia who have had some great ideas for fundraisers. Consider doing some of your Christmas shopping from one of these families. You will not only get to enjoy giving gifts to your friends and family, you will also get to bless an orphaned child at the same time!

The Short family is raising money by offering photography sessions for families. This would be a great way to get your Christmas card photo done this year. Mark Short writes:

What: Professionally capture your memories.
Why: I’m passionate about family and photography. I want to use photography to bless others and possibly raise some money to help with the adoption.
Cost: Donations are greatly appreciated, but are not required.
Where: Any location convenient to you in Middle TN.
When: Any evening or weekend. Appointments are appreciated.
How: I’ll bring my photography equipment. Work with you on the setting and focus. Capture, post process, and provide a CD/DVD of your pics and/or upload them to a secure web gallery for your viewing and sharing.

You can glimpse my work at: www.sevenlightsphotography.com

Email Mark: shortfam4@mac.com to set up an appointment.


The Franklin family is receiving some help in their fundraising from a friend who runs a business selling personalized stationery. Jo Franklin writes:

From Oct. 25-Nov.7 the proceeds from all orders will go towards our adoption. Check out her website at www.keepintouchstationery.com to see examples of her personalized notecards, notepads, photo Christmas cards, baby announcements, bag tags, and gift cards. You can also email her at keepintouchstationery@gmail.com and she will email send you an online catalog. Just let her know when you order that you want to help out the Franklin family!


The Watson family is selling some really cool Africa T-shirts that Amy has handmade using bleach. You can choose your color and your fit – standard or fitted (for women) They are available with or without a heart shape in the center of the design. Just email Amy at watsonadoption@gmail.com to let her know what you want.



The Dixon family has set up an Etsy store to sell Jenny’s creative photo greeting card designs. They write:

Jenny has set up an online shop named Easy as 127 (after James 1:27) to sell custom photo cards. These are great-looking and affordable cards Christmas, birthdays, birth announcements, moving announcements, etc. Customers send personal photos to her and she supplies a jpeg that is print-ready. The design work to create your custom photo card costs only $10-12, and then you can take the file to the photo processor of your choice to have all of the prints made that you desire.

I could go on and on. There are so many families who are raising money for adoptions, who are working hard and sacrificing, and who NEED YOUR HELP. Please considering blessing their hard work and encouraging their families with an order. From personal experience I know how exciting it is when someone who does not even know you places an order and partners with you to bring home your child. Thank you!

Africa Ornament

Look at what we received in the mail yesterday:



Our first Africa/Ethiopia-related Christmas ornament! I love Christmas, Christmas decorations, and especially Christmas tree ornaments. I am not a collector of much of anything except ornaments. Decorating for Christmas was always a big deal at our house growing up, and I have such fond memories of adorning the tree together - always the weekend after Thanksgiving.

So while Daniel and I were still in college, a couple of years before we were even married, I began collecting ornaments for the Christmas tree that I dreamed of sharing someday. They are the one souvenir that I seek out any time that we travel anywhere. We have ornaments from many countries in Europe, Seattle, Maine, Vermont, Boston, Florida, New Orleans, the Biltmore, Mexico, Colorado, and many other places. Our Christmas tree is filled with precious memories. It chronicles the years of our life together.

So this year the big addition to our tree will be our Africa ornament. It will be the first of many, I am sure.

The Stavnes family, who live nearby in Murfreesboro, are selling these ornaments to raise money for their adoption from Ethiopia. What a great idea!

Here is what the back says:



Check out their blog and bless their family and your own Christmas tree by purchasing one of their charming and meaningful ornaments.

Photography with a Mission

From Daniel:

As a photographer I often lament that my profession doesn't present more opportunities for doing the "heavy lifting" of showing Jesus to people. I sometimes find myself in a quiet envy of the doctors, nurses, teachers, and missionaries who are on the front lines of international missions making deep impacts in people's lives. I'm happy to say that I recently stumbled on Pick A Pocket, a group of photographers and artists who are proving me wrong by using their God given talents to be a conduit for connecting those who are living in extreme poverty with those who can help (that would be us, America).

Pick A Pocket is hosting a free benefit art show and concert this Thursday, September 17, at Bonhoeffer's Coffee in Murfreesboro. The shop is located 610 Dill Lane Murfreesboro, TN. The show music starts at 8:00 pm with art by international artists at 7:00 pm. Check out photography and art work from recent mission trips, and learn about what these young missionaries are doing in Africa and Asia!

A Couple Cool Opportunities

If you live in the Nashville area and you share our family's interest in adoption and all-things Africa, you may want to consider going to:



This is an exhibit sponsored by World Vision designed to help you to experience and understand the AIDS crisis in Africa. It is a traveling exhibit, and it is currently at a church in Hendersonville through September 20th. The tickets are FREE! Click here to go to the website and reserve your tickets. They are even providing free childcare on a few of the evenings. Daniel and I are going on Thursday, and I am really looking forward to it.

Click here to view the trailer for the event.

Also, the 2009 Together for Adoption Conference is coming up the weekend of October 2-3 at a church in Franklin.



Session topics include:

• Orphan care and Jesus, the great servant of the poor
• Adoption and the pursuit of racial reconciliation
• The Gospel, social justice, and the missional church
• And more...

There will be times of worship, breakout sessions, and opportunities to meet others who share a common heart for adoption. And it's only $60/couple to go!

Sadly, Daniel and I have plans for that weekend, and we won't be able to attend this year. But I dearly wish I could be there, and I am hoping that some of you will go and tell me all about it later!

I feel very blessed to live in this area. So many opportunities to grow and learn and be around like-minded people....