YWAM: The Ethiopia Project 2010

PRAISE THE LORD!! All the New Day Children are Sponsored!!!

Lets get started on Ethiopia!!

I have went around and around with myself trying to decide how to do this project.

Here are the basics. We have 161 people that we would like to help in Ethiopia this year. This consists of:

50 widows

30 babies

8 school-aged children in our orphanages

35 street kids in Gimbie

38 Orphanage staff - nannies, cleaners, cooks, nurses

I would love to give out each persons name and let families buy for each person like we did last year. But that creates several problems:

1. It is very hard to get photos of each person where they live (all spread out over a large area) and post them online. If the children are adoptable we can not post those pictures online due to Ethiopian adoption laws.

2. There are specific needs and sometimes their needs are not items that we would normally buy as a Christmas gift.

3. Shipping. We must ship these gifts to Washington and then they are sent with adopting families in their luggage to Ethiopia. That  means we must be very careful of weight and size of the gifts we send.

So I have thought long and hard about how to be able to meet these needs and do so in the most efficient and most effective way. Joy and Becky at YWAM have been so helpful during all of this and they recommended making bags for each person. These bags would be a way for the street children to carry their goods as well as make packing easier. The bags we are talking about are made like these but will be made of a more durable plastic and will have Operation Giggle and our motto on them:

Becky and Joy gave us a list of things that would be useful in the bags.

We have went back and forth trying to decide what the best way to do the bags is. I thought about trying to find 164 sponsors to each do 1 (or 2) bags and honestly I think that would be alot of work and a lot of waisted shipping money. So what I have decided to do is post a list of what we need for the bags and asking for volunteers to buy the items (or order them off line and ship them to me through a company like O*iental T*ading.)

For example one of my friends found notebooks on sale and bought notebooks for the 48 students who needed them. One family could buy half the small flashlights (we need 88 of these), or maybe you know a company that could donate all of the wash cloths...you get the idea. Everything will be shipped here and I will round up a  "crew" of helpers to assemble the bags and get them ready to mail.

I understand that this takes some of the "fun" out of it because you don't have a face to look at and you don't get to see a wrapped present all ready to go but honestly this ministry isn't about us. It is about those in need and I feel we should help them as efficiently and as effectively as possible and I feel as if this is the way to do it. I hope you feel the same. So without further ado here is our list of needs...can you help?!

I know this maybe a little hard to read but it is the only way I could get it posted. If you want more information about an item or if you would like me to email you the list as an attachment email me and I will be glad to. Also if you can only afford to buy half of one item please email me we will work it out!

Thanks again for all of your help!

In Christ Alone,

Sherri