Daraja Children's Choir of Africa Tour 2009

click here to donate: http://store.410bridge.org/store/page3.html

If you follow our blog, you know that the Daraja Children's Choir is extremely close to our family's heart. Tori got to visit some of them last year at their home in Kenya and then we were blessed beyond measure to host 3 of the girls, Rahab, Mercy and Gladys, and the tour coordinator, Christi, in our home last October. See the side bar to find out more about how Mercy has been forever connected to our family.

So, I wanted to give you the opportunity to help the choir on their upcoming tour. Each year, the choir children arrive in America with pretty much only the clothes on their bodies. They need everything from swim suits to toothbrushes, from socks to suitcases. We can help them by purchasing the clothes and supplies they need with a little bit of our cash and the click of a button.

They will be blessed and you will be blessed as well!

BTW - if you live in our area, they are scheduled to be back at our church at the beginning of August. We'll be in Singapore so if you go, enjoy it for me, please!

Bella-Full Dog Treats - Pay Day!

The final payments for Jakeb and Tori's Kenya trip were due this week so Anna decided to hand over the money she's raised for them selling her Bella-Full homemade dog treats. She was able to give them each $99.50!! Way cool!!! I'm so proud of her for her heart, her generosity, her time and effort, her love for her big bro and sis and desire to help them fulfill their passion and her mean cooking skills. It has been a great experience for us all.

Anna wants to continue to make them for local family and friends if anyone wants some. She plans to take her supplies with us to Singapore and see if there's a market for them there with our new "family" and friends. We hear there are a lot of spoiled pooches there too. The money she makes will just go into her savings account. Probably for one of those Cavalier King Charles Spaniels when we get back to the U.S. :)

Pray for Jason.....Pray for Segera

Jason Culverhouse has already begun his 100 mile run in Huntsville this morning. He should be finishing around mid day tomorrow. Please pray for him and all of the other runners out there this weekend. It's quite an undertaking, mentally and physically.

Jakeb and Tommy will be two of the fortunate ones to get to pace him at different legs of the race. Jakeb will be running with him around dark tonight for around 6-10 miles and Tommy will run with him in the wee hours of the morning for about the same mileage. Pray safety for all, clarity of mind, no injuries and most importantly, for support/sponsorship and awareness to be raised for the children of Segera and Kenya.

Our family is going and we are so excited to get to be a part of this. I'll be posting pictures when we get back.

Here's our original post on this for more information about Brightpoint and why Jason is running for two days.

Running for Segera

Next weekend our family is headed to Huntsville for an overnight camp out. Even though we LOVE camping, we probably wouldn't choose to camp in early February but my parents are loaning us their camper and a friend of ours is running 100 miles for a cause that we are head over heals in love with. He's running to raise money and awareness for the needs of the children of Segera in Kenya where our daughter went last summer and where she and our son will go this summer. Tommy explains in more detail why Jason is running this super-human race on his blog and how you can participate should you want to. So you can read the details here.

I'm anticipating incredible things to happen in Huntsville, Texas next weekend and I'm pumped that our family gets to be a part of it. Not to mention we're getting a cool t shirt!


These are the links for my facebook note in case they don't come through in the feed.

Tommy's blog: http://trechoagon.blogspot.com/2009/01/100-miles-for-children-of-segera.html

Brightpointe Ministries: http://www.brightpointforchildren.org/ (click on Jason/100)

Christmas letter from Mercy

I'm a little behind in getting this posted but I need to finish packing up Christmas 2008 to get ready for our 2009 adventures.

We got a letter from our "daughter", Mercy, from Kenya just before Christmas. She wrote it to us before they left the US to head back and some sweet person from the Daraja Choir mailed it to us. Receiving it was definitely up at the top of my Christmas highlights list. I wanted to put it on our blog because it's getting packed up and I want to have it posted somewhere so this post is more for me than it is for you. My blog post, my perogative.....

Here's a picture of it. She's quite the artist! She is so animated and fun and her "all over the page" and "fill up every bit of white space" art expresses who she is completely. I love it!


I think you can read what it says if you click on it to enlarge.

She prayed often while at our house and her prayers are what I remember the most, besides her need to dance constantly. :) She prayed for God to "bless the work of their hands, O Lord." It moved me every time she prayed that. I was so glad that she included that in writing in her letter. Such a sweet girl. We are so blessed to have her in our lives.

Bella-Full Dog Treats - Official Launch Day

This is Anna, Bella and Karat. (Karat passed away a couple of months ago. Anna likes the vegetarian treats because they have carrots in them.)

To catch up on what this is all about, you'll probably need to read this post.



Market testing is complete!! Bella likes them and is still alive. Even Jenny tried one of the vegetarian treats and said they weren't bad. She kind of started acting a little funny after but I'm not sure it was related to the dog treat. :)

So.........

Anna is ready to begin helping you make your dog sit, stay, speak, roll over or just love you with her homemade and healthy dog treats. She is only going to make the vegetarian treats and the peanut butter treats at this point. The meaty ones were sort of gross and they have to be refrigerated because of the meat in them so that would make them a pain. Bella did like them but as Jenny put it, "A dog would eat a shoe!".

The treats are made with whole wheat flour, non-fat milk and other real stuff. She will sell them for $8/container. She will be giving the money she makes to help Tori and Jakeb go on their mission trip to Kenya this summer. If you want some for your dog for Christmas, please order SOON!

(quarter shown for size - supposed to be funny...)

This is a great project for Anna to participate in something bigger than her, learn more about serving others and also for her schooling. She's learning alot about cooking, marketing and managing money, math, computer skills and various other life skills. We've had a great time thinking, planning, and cooking over the last few days.

I'm sure this is the beginning of something really cool.

Doggie Treats - Never underestimate the power of a 9 yr. old and a blog post.

Yesterday I posted about the doggie treats that Anna is starting to make to sell to help Tori and Jakeb (her big sister and brother) fund their trip to Kenya this summer. She's already got orders coming in and we're not even sure how much to sell them for or if our dog even likes them yet. On top of that, Jenny gave her a "shout out" on her blog so who knows where this will end up going. We have such great and supportive friends and family!!

Here's the story behind why Anna wants to do this.

Tori went on her first mission trip to Kenya this past summer. She was changed and fell in love with that region and the people there. She knew she would be going back. Jakeb couldn't go for various reasons but is going this year. Tori and Jakeb are both working now, Kohl's and DJ's, not so they can blow their paycheck and have stuff but so they can save for Kenya. And they are doing just that. I'm so proud of them and how disciplined they are.

Anyway, Tori's pictures and stories moved Anna deeply. She loves her big sister and saw the joy and pain in her heart. The joy of what she had experienced and the pain of not getting to be there now. She has thought through several different ways to help her get back to Kenya and then the doggie treat idea came up. Obviously, Anna is too young to go on this mission trip but Tori's experience there changed her and she is committed to helping Tori and Jakeb go this summer. In helping them go, she kind of gets to go too. What a great kid!!

She does have a name for her "business" - Bella-full. And her marketing tag line is "My dog Bella likes them and yours will too!" She even found a really cute pictures on the internet she wants to use.

Bella is our dog. Bella means beauty or beautiful thus the name "Bella-full". I think it's pretty clever.

So, more to come real soon on the three types of homemade, healthy treats she plans to make and how much they will cost. We are really in the earliest stage of figuring this out right now. We will try to keep the price very reasonable because we know if it's too much you won't buy them but we need to charge enough to cover the cost and have some left to give to Tori & Jakeb. We don't plan on shipping them but might would be persuaded if the price is right. :) We also don't plan on getting a tax number or anything for this, is that illegal? Not sure... I guess we'll figure that one out.

This should prove to be a fun and great learning adventure for Anna and our family.

We proudly announce.....

...that we have a new daughter!!

We are incredibly blessed to be able to sponsor one of the Daraja choir girls that stayed with us in October. Our monthly sponsorship will ensure that she gets a good education. Mercy ("Marcy") had already become a part of our family along with Rahab and Gladys when they stayed with us but now we get to stay in contact with her and keep up with what's going on in her life. What an amazing priviledge!!! Mercy is is 13, she loves to dance, sing and she loves bananas! Along with an amazing life's story, she has such a fun personality and brought a smile to everyone she came in contact with while she was here with us.

I'm not at all trying to bring attention to us but I do hope to bring attention to BrightPoint and share how excited and grateful we are to have this opportunity. The monthly sponsorship cost through BrightPoint is very reasonable. Click on the picture below and go to their website to find out more.