Tis' the Season to Show Some Love

I'm messed up.  I visited Zimbabwe last year, and was wrecked for orphans.  Both the good and the bad news is that I am still wrecked.  Mark and I can't hear orphan statistics and distance ourselves from it.  We can't live in indifference.   

On that trip, the faces of orphans became real.  With little hands tucked into mine, I knew immediately that I could no longer act if I was doing enough for orphans.  Orphans weren't statistics.  They were children who stole chunks of my heart:

Amos 

(found in on a doorstep,

who held my face in his hands and kissed my cheeks) 

Naomi 

(who beamed as she showed me pots

used to cook over an open fire)

Matilda

(whose tears streamed down her cheeks)

Lillian

(who has seen and lived too much, and who never took her eyes off me)

With the sound of giggles in my ears and the sights of children with ragged clothes filling my senses, I developed a sense of urgency to
DO SOMETHING. 

Last spring, I asked you to help make wishes come true, and you did that in a big, big way.  You donated three jumbo boxes of supplies for these kids who had crushed me.  We did it! 

The next piece of bad and good news is that we can't check off the "charity" box on our to do list.  For us, we want it to be a lifestyle.  We also know that we have friends with BIG, BIG hearts, so we are going to throw out another opportunity to show some love. 

Our church is taking another team to Zimbabwe, so we have a chance to meet more needs.  Will you join us in compiling:

1.  children's vitamins

2.  children's pain reliever

3.  children's cough/cough/allergy meds

(tablet or liquid form)

4.  Neosporin

5.  band-aids

Store brands are great, and would mean we could buy more.  The team will travel the last week in February, so we'll need them by February 13. 

Show some love this Valentine's Day!