Shoes for our children at Grace Baptist Church Ethiopia

I take for granted my shoes.  My shoes fit properly and are comfortable.   When my kids want to play outside I have more than one pair of shoes to choose from. When Rob and I visited our Children's Hope Chest care-point in May, we saw the needs of the children in a personal way. Oh, how it’s different to see to the needs when you are looking directly into the eyes of a child.

We saw many children who were in need of new shoes. Here are just two pairs of shoes...

Over the last year we have had a fundraising event to purchase shoes for the children. Several sponsors donated to the shoe fund and Sami, a 12 year old girl, raised more than half of the funds needed!! I am delighted to announce we have enough funds to purchase 163 pair of shoes for the children at our Care-point- Grace Baptist Church! Children’s Hope Chest will wire the funds to Ethiopia next month. As soon as we receive pictures of the children receiving shoes I will share the photos with you! Imagine the children's delight when they receive a new pair of shoes.  Thank you to all who played a part- either by praying and/or contributing financially!!

Our next fundraising project - new school uniforms for the children.  Traci at Mommy's Money Saving Madness is spearheading this fundraising project.  Check out her blog for was you may help us reach the goal of $3,255 for new uniforms.

According to the pastor of Grace Baptist Church, there are many needs at our care point but sponsorship is currently the number one need.  If you or someone you know would be interested in sponsoring a child - we have several children who are available for sponsorship! Sponsorship is $34 per month, it provides resources for children to receive at least one meal a day, school supplies, basic medical care and an education! Sponsorship not only offers monthly support, but encouragement through prayer, letter writing, and relationship. E-mail me at mblueberry.madamblueberry@gmail.com for more details.

Giardia Update

Yes, this little pest is still here... he is currently living in Henry's tummy.  Henry finished up his first round of antibiotics this week. 

We'll be breaking out "the kits" next week to test Merone- we are hoping she is parasite free.  Henry will be tested the following week. I am praying that we'll be done "sampling" by the end of the month.

The good news - Igor is parasite free!! 

Henry's shoe experiment

One of Henry's favorite things to say, "Hey Mom, I have an idea!" 

We are on day 6 of his great idea- 

A different point of view

Our neighborhood has a Yahoo Group so we share information on contractors, share local events and most importantly, find out who is old enough to baby sit!

Today I checked my e-mails around 5PM and read this message which had just been posted:

Two young teenage african-americans are roaming our neighborhood trying to sell what looks like event tickets I did not open my door - please do not open your door - should I call anyone in the light of recent break in? Do I call 911 or just the police office number?? (fyi- it was an attempted break in at 3AM. No one was apprehended.)

I thought to myself- call the police, really? Why not ask who they are and what are doing/selling first?? And why are you so afraid of teenage African-American boys? My mind raced forward 10 years, I imagined Henry walking with the two other teenage African-American boys in our neighborhood and I thought this woman is ready to call the police because my son is black.  My mind quickly races back to the present.

Right now Henry is 4 yrs old, many see him as a cute novelty, adopted from Ethiopia. Okay, some see him as an orphan rescued by his wonderful, loving, and saintly parents (we ONLY meet the loving criteria and we did not rescue him).. but how people see Henry will change. As he grows older his adorable preschool cuteness will be gone and he will be a handsome teenage African-American boy. He won't be holding my hand or yelling from the backyard- Mommy look what I can do!! He will be "hanging out" in our yard, or walking in our neighborhood with his friends who may be African-American boys and someone may call the police because they assume he doesn't belong in our neighborhood or that the boys are up to no good.  This is racial profiling.  For the first time in my life I feel it in a deeply personal way, I sense the ugliness of it and I know I must do something.

I picked up the phone and thought what am I doing?? I set the phone down but I KNEW I must talk to this woman.  I calmed down enough to call this neighbor. I have never met her but she said she knew about our family. We talked about the e-mail, about the fact that two of our children are not white and we cannot assume these teens are up to no good just because they are black teens. She apologized for any offense I had taken to the e-mail.

Two hours later she came over to our house to introduce herself and apologized in person. As Henry and Merone stood next to us we explained that we want our kids to grow up in a neighborhood where they feel safe and our neighbors do not think of them as threatening no matter their age. She said she could see it from our side now and she was sorry she reacted the way she did.

You might be wondering what the teenagers were doing in our neighborhood. They are football players from our high school selling merchant discount cards which will benefit the equipment fund.

Parasite 1, Antibiotics 0

The doctor called this morning, Merone still has giardia.  We started a second round of antibiotics today.  I'm concerned about Henry who has some symptoms of giardia sooo we stopped by the doctors office to pick up another "sample" kit for Henry. 

Merone had her two year old check-up.  As we suspected, she is younger than two.  (disclaimer- our agency told us up front they believed Merone was younger than the orphanage reported in their paperwork.)   Merone's one year old molars are just breaking through and there are no signs of her two year old molars. 

Some of you are wondering how could her age be in question.  Most mothers in Ethiopia have their babies at home not in a hospital so there is no hospital record of the birth.  Many mother's remember the season (rainy, planting, harvesting, etc) of the child's birth but maybe not the actual date.  There is also an issue of the calendar.  We use a Julian calendar and Ethiopia uses Ge'ez calendar which has 13 months.  So, there could be an issue with the conversion of the date of birth.  There is the case of when the child's parents have died or the child has been abandoned so a birth date must be created with the best guess.

The nurse at the doctor's office tried to take Merone's blood but she was unsuccessful.  We will visit the hospital for her bloodwork.  Henry was a "hard stick" too so we had to take him to the hospital for his blood work as well.  I hope Mary is working when we take Merone in but I'll take the Goth guy too.