THANK YOU!!!!!

I love this passage from Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, “In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” It pretty much sums up how I feel right now about the amazing circle that continues to surround us through this journey.

I sent out an email a little over a week ago, requesting donations to help supply baby formula, diapers, underwear and other basic needs to the orphanage where W lives and as of today, $2905 has been raised!!!  I started off with what I thought was a lofty goal of raising $2000.  I quickly increased the goal to $2500 when we had such a huge response on day one, and clearly we have surpassed even that.  It shows me how much people want to make a difference in the life of a child and how when given the chance, they will do their part. There are those that would argue this approach to philanthropy–that it’s a band aid on a much larger problem.  I couldn’t agree more.  But while those larger issues are tackled, there are children in need and I am grateful to our family and friends who joined us in reaching out to them.

You can’t even begin to take in the scope with one camera shot of all that we have bought with the donations, but this is a small representation.  It includes cloth diapers, tons of formula (including much needed soy formula for lactose intolerant babies), books to build a library in a rural school, children’s underwear, diaper cream, writing pens for a women’s literacy program, and lots of other little things that were requested by the two organizations we will visit while in Ethiopia.  It’s a good thing the kids are going with us because we need the baggage allowances to take everything!

The following is a list of our donors, whom we cannot thank enough for their generosity: