Wow day!!

This past Sunday was a WOW day!! For those of you that read this, you know we are leading the way to raise $100,000 to build an orphanage in Swaziland Africa. After visiting this country in July we knew we had to do something!! And God told us to raise $100,000 to build this home to save His children.

We have a great team built and have an awesome fundraiser planned called Celebrate HOPE on Feb 27th check out the website: http://www.celebratehopecape.com

We have raised about $35,000 in about 3-4 months!! Amzazing!! So many generous individuals and businesses in our area have stepped up to sponsor this event.

But on Sunday I got a phone call from Teresa (my friend who is helping to lead this effort). This guy in California, named Wolfgang just ran the Carlsbad Marathon in Southern California and he had raised $28,000 for Heart for Africa... how cool!! But the cool thing is that a few weeks ago Janine emailed out the tv interview that Teresa and I did with the local station here. Wolfgang saw that interview and ordered a few calendars we are selling as a fundraiser. Apparently Wolfgang was touched by our story and especially Teresa's story of losing her son Jared just weeks after we returned from Africa.

Wolfgang designated that $25,000 of his race sponsorship is to go to our home!! The home we are raising money for!! How amazing.. A total stranger, one email, one interview, $25,000!! only God can do this!!

So we are officially at $60,000 of the $100,000 needed raised!! If we keep going at this rate the home may be up and running with kiddo's living in it this fall !!!! That just blows my mind, 3 months ago we had nothing and now we have $60,000!!!

I am so proud of this small community, and how cool to say that the people of Cape Girardeau helped save the lives of orphaned children 10,000 miles away!!!

Just some things..

This is Ella at about a week or two old..This was her first day at church.
Ella's first night in the world she snuggled with daddy, she is still a daddy's girl..I still can't believe she had all that dark hair.

I think this one looks a lot like Seth. I posted these pictures of Ella because we thought we had lost all of her baby picutures. They were no longer on our computer. But thankfully about a year ago Jeremy backed up all of our photos onto a disc so we would have hard copies. Then we lost the disc! But he found it last week and now we have all our little sweet pics of Ella back!!

We still have no word on our little sponsored girl Roody. I did get an email from Compassion International saying they are still working hard to locate all the Compassion children. It also said that they have confirmed that some Compassion children have died as a result of the earthquake. So we just wait and pray. Ella told me last night as we watched Hope for Haiti on tv, "I just want Haiti to get better". She is just so cool! and totally understands.. Jeremy I know that little girl is going to grown up and light the world on fire for Jesus! She has his great personality with people and can be so caring and she has my fire and attitude to get things done.

On another note I am considering running a 1/2 marathon in April. The Nashville Country Music Marathon. I can easily run a 5k. But not so sure I want to tackle 13 miles. My great friends Chantelle and Shari are getting a team to run for their non-for profit Room for One More http://www.roomforonemorechild.org/. I am trying to talk Jeremy into running it with me, but he has no time to train for it. It would be awesome and fun and a great way to create awareness, I'm just not sure yet!!

Celebrate HOPE is officially 4 weeks away. Saturday Feb 27th 6:30 at The Venue.. It is going to be an awesome an fun night of Celebration, Awareness, and Fundraising!!! We are trying to raise $100,000 to build an orphanage in Swaziland Africa. It has been so truly amaizng to see how God has ordained this event...people are stepping up and getting involved, it really is mind blowing. We have awesome silent auciton items like 2 tickets to the US Open Golf tourney, 100,000 airline miles, week stay at a Florida Beach Condo, Cardinal autographed stuff, just tons of stuff.. oh yeah and a local jewler donated a diamond worth $7000 to be given at our champagne toast!! Yikes!!!

In the beginning of Celebrate HOPE we were so scared we wouldn't even have enough money to put the event on. We started trying to get sponsors and now to our AMAZING surprise we have over $25,000 just in sponsorships!!! It just rocks!! Can you tell I get excited when I talk about it?? The amazing thing is when we started working with Heart for Africa a little over a year ago.. now it is everywhere in Cape Girardeau, you hear it on the radio, we did an interview on tv, in the papers, in the gas stations.. it is just so cool! God is really using our team to spread the word!

go to http://www.celebratehopecape.com/ for more info, to buy tickets or to donate to the home!

Changing the subject again... Riley only has a few games to cheer at this year, she is getting ready to turn her registration in for her youth group mission trip to DC in June, then she will go with us to Africa in July (we have 45 peeps from Cape going so far). Drew and Seth are awesome boys. Drew is obsessed with puzzles right now, he just does them over and over. He is going to be an engineer, we are sure of it. He has the concentration of a maniac. Seth has gotten much better with his little attitude he had for a while. He is really turning into a sweetie wanting hugs and kisses, he is still the ruff and tuff one but he can still give out some luvin..

Raising Humanity! Raising Hope!

Hait Earthquake

We as a family have sponsored a little 5 year old girl named Roody Carmelle Joseph, she lives in a village outside Port au Prince Haiti. We chose her because we thought she reminded us of Ella. We have been sponsoring her for over a year now through Compassion International, we send her cards and pictures and she will write us letters and draw pictures for us. We are very worried about her, her family and the people in Haiti. From all the news reports and other blog's I read, it is complete devasation there.

We got an email from Compassion saying they would let us know as soon as they have any news, but I expect it could be weeks or months before we will hear if Roody and her family are ok. We prayed tonight as a family that she is safe and well and that her family is safe and well. She has several siblings and is being raised by her father.

I also follow a blog of a US missionary family living in Port au Prince, www.livesayhaiti.blogspot.com They seem to be holding strong but are completley overwhelmed. Everything they have worked so hard to build and the relationships they've built. It all seems gone at the moment, just trying to survive is the most important thing.

Please pray for the Livesay family in Haiti, our little Roody and the people of Haiti. Send relief money, they are the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and now it is completely at loss. They are in the hands of those that will help and will send help.

Haiti has been close to my heart for a few years now, I have always wanted to travel there and work in an orphanage. I pray that someday we will, but for now we pray for the people.

2 Samuel 22:33

Merry Christmas

Riley and Nick, what a great couple!
Ella-the Rock Star..loved her guitar.

The boys and their matching robes! One day they will hate that I buy them matching clothes. Until then--the more the merrier!

Ella performing at Christmas Eve service. She wore a dress that I had saved from when Riley was 5 years old, still looks brand new and it's 10 years old!!

She was so proud to wear it.

Oh man, the boys got a train table..they loved it.. It took all of about 3 minutes for them to tear the track apart and start throwing pieces...Jermey will be glueing or screwing the pieces down very soon!

Merry Christmas to all. We have already enjoyed 2 great Christmas gathering and have one more to go. This year we really cut back on buying. buying and buying. Not just because of the money issue but because of the 'reason for the season'. We are trying to teach our children the real reason we celebrate Christmas and what it means for our lives. Drew kept saying "Jesus Birthday, Jesus Birthday" We have little toy Nativity set that we go throught the Christmas Story with them..

We spent Christmas eve at my aunt Shirley's.. It was great seeing a lot of my extended family and my new baby cousing, Dane. Ella sang in the children's choir at the Christmas Eve service..she did great and is a natural performer. Today (Christmas Day) we had a great morning with the kids celebrating and exchanging gifts. I got a snuggie (which I'm wearing now)..then we had dinner at our house. We have been blessed to have a big enough home to hold our family and we get to host family events now. I love it--and I always get to make the turkey ... We leave tomorrow for Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Missy's house.. the kids are totally pumped to see everyone. And Jeremy and I are going to have a little mini vacation in Chicago for a couple days.. Grandma and Grandpa agreed to keep the kiddo's so we can have a much needed get away. So excited-even though it is going to be like 10 degrees, it is going to be nice to go ice skating at Millenium Park!

Emmanuel "God with us"..

Merry Christmas to you all!

Some fun pics

Ella and Carder at Grandma and Grandpa's.. they collected crickets in the jar.
Jeremy hate this picture, the outfit and the hat. I think it's kind a cute...Seth loves hat's, any kind, any style, any color...he loves them all!

Uncle Garrett and Drew at the parade...they ate about 20 suckers between the both of them.

Riley and her BFF's Faith and Emily. This year we took Riley to St Louis for the weekend for her b-day..and she got to bring along her friends. It worked out great for me and Jeremy too.. they wanted nothing to do with us, so we had our little weekend away :)

I love my "Dork" (see his shirt)

Some Africa pictures

Jermey and I standing at Project Canaan. This is a beautiful 2500 acre farm that Heart for Africa recently purchased. This land will be a life saving gift to the country of Swaziland. It is going to have dairy farms, fish farms, crops, schools, churches, medical clinics. This is also the land that the orphanage we are raising money for will be built.
What a sweetie!! Is this little boy not the cutest thing you've ever seen? Doesn't he deserve a chance at a great life just like you and I do?? We believe he does!!

Oh how the kids loved Jeremy. There is not a big male influence in Swaziland. Most of the men have either abandoned their families, died or are very abusive. So they loved playing with the guys on our team.

Angel and I loved on this sweet little girl. She and her 7 siblings live at a local junkyard. No plumbing with no water. This is not right!! We must choose to care enough to make a difference.

This is the first African child I held when we got to Emmanuel Children's Home. She was so sweet and but very quiet. She would not let me put her down. I sat and held her for a long time.

We have lot's more pictures to share...and lot's more stories. But you can have your own pictures and your own stories travel with us in July 2010 back to Swaziland!!

It's been so long

Wow! I 've got to get back on the blog bandwagon. It's been a long time..and lot's have happened in our house.

We made the journey and back to Swaziland Africa-wow! lot's more to come on that subject
Riley started high school and is a high school cheerleader.
Ella is in pre-k, Drew is in pre-school and Seth started a program at SEMO.

And there are lots more in between that! But I did sound out Christmas Letters this year instead of the traditional cards and I wrote that people could keep up with our family on our blog so now it's time to keep up with the blog!