Progress...

Our family needs to raise $9,600 by October 15, 2012 to send three Mains to Uganda this winter.  We have saved $3,200 and this week $850 has been donated by generous friends and family.  We are at 42% of the funds needed to travel! Please rejoice with us!  

Our friends at Amazing Grace Children's Home have been working hard on the first of four family-style homes on their land in Adjumani, Uganda.  Look! The walls are already up! If you'd like to read more, please click here.

"A" is for...

JoyAnna is an "A" in our Family Uganda Picture.  She stars in this 1.5 minute video sharing a little bit about Uganda and life as a red "A"!

(If you're receiving this in your email, please click on the link and come to our blog to watch the video)

Why We Go...

This weekend JoyAnna (5) was wondering how it is that God can hold all the children in Heaven in His lap at one time. Do they have to take turns?  Josiah (8) surmised that it wouldn't be that hard because there probably aren't that many children in Heaven since most people die when they're older.

It grieved me to inform him that thousands of children die every day around the world.  According to UNICEF's progress of nations report, 21,000 children die daily.  And they're dying from poverty, hunger and easily preventable diseases and illnesses.

And that's when Bryan spoke up and reminded us why we are planning a trip to Uganda.  Our primary goal in visiting Amazing Grace Children's Home  is to share life and faith with our friends for a couple of weeks and learn more about how the local Christians are confronting the devastation caused by war and disease.  Our secondary goal is to plan a kids' camp for the children of Amazing Grace (a man on our team is a Christian camp director in Texas). A third goal is to raise funds for the construction of new buildings at Amazing Grace Children's Home.

Do you have a minute to meet some of the faces of poverty...and hope?  Here's a lovely video that a compassionate Lahash traveller created of our friends in Adjumani, Uganda:

Going to Uganda!

We are excited to share that our family is planning a trip to Uganda with our friends at Lahash International in December of this year!  Lahash partners with grassroots organizations in East Africa to care and advocate for vulnerable children.

SEBUR

Six years ago we met Sebur Emmanuel through Lahash sponsorship.  Sebur is our 12-year old friend who fled from his homeland Sudan during his country's horrific civil war.  He joins 29 other orphans cared for by compassionate, godly men and women at Amazing Grace Children's Home in Adjumani, Uganda.

TRAVEL
This winter we plan to send three Mains to live life with our friends in East Africa for a couple of weeks.  It will cost about $3,200 per person and we have saved enough to send one.

HOUSING
We are also eager to help our friends build new housing on land of their own. We are helping to raise $4,000 toward these buildings. The Main kids have been putting their abilities to work and hope to share some of their creative fundraising ideas with you starting in September!  The family has created a picture poetry book, Daniel is training for "Hoops for Homes" and Josiah is brainstorming a Uganda Travel board game. It's gonna be great! 

THANKS!
Thank you for coming on this journey with us.  We are excited to get to taste and see God's goodness through the genuine love of His people around the globe.  Please keep checking in with us for updates, photos and all kinds of extras. 

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Love that covers

Ah! It's the close of a glorious, adventure-filled summer and the beginning of a different journey.

This week the kids start school. After five and a half years of home educating, we now have four kids starting out a school year in two of our local, public schools.  It's busy.  It's scattered. And it reminds me of my wedding day.  There was anticipation, excitement, longing, fear, joy, exhaustion.  It was a whirlwind- spinning, running, dancing, falling, collapsing...and even vomiting.  

But this terror?  Why this suffocating, crushing feeling? I think it's the nakedness that I feel.  I'm inviting another group of strangers into our story. A group of people passionate about their work. Visionaries even. Beautiful, broken people like me.  I'm inviting this team into my home. They are coming into my family to influence us.  All those people that I've never met will spend countless hours with the children I hold dearer than my own life.

It's really a trust thing. I'm having to yield- to let go- to trust.  And I don't.  I don't trust them.  I don't trust "the system" or the individuals.  I don't know them.  Isn't trust built?   And so I weep.  No, I sob.  I cry until I feel as though my skull will split because this nakedness seems more vulnerable than I can bear. This giving up- this letting go feels like more than I bargained for.

I know that I need these people.  I need these enthusiastic educators. I need their investment.  I need their vision and passion and varied skills and abilities pouring into our lives...our home. I need this community.  Oh! how desperately I need...and yet.  I fear.  I fear the unknowns, the knowns, the journey ahead.

I am wooed to He who I do trust. The God who carries and covers and defends.  My God.  The God of my children.  The God who set worlds in motion.  Yes, I trust Him- the God of love. Love that quiets.  Love that settles. The love that casts away fear.  Yes, and love that clothes my nakedness.