OK, we have lots to update! First welcome!! We have moved all our information for our Africa project to this blog instead of our UAHH blog! Here is our new website for Fields of Grace: http://www.untilallhavehomes.org/FOG/foghome.html. For right now it is a part of our Until All Have Homes website and can be accessed easily from our homepage. This blog can be accessed from the HP of FOG, do I have you confused??!! :) We also have a note on the homepage how to add a link to our FOG website to your blog of website, if you have any questions.
Now to the good stuff!! Well, things are moving. I never knew how many things went into opening up an orphanage! And being a small team, well, it is time consuming to say the least. Biba (whose picture you can see on our FOG website) is hard working getting things done to get the orphanage open. She is buying supplies, hiring ppl, building a roof over the courtyard as she was concerned that the kids would get too hot in the sun, getting our utilities on etc. I wish I could help her but I am here in the US pulling my hair out! And to make things even more exciting, she does this on a scooter!!!! So are next big push is going to be fundraising $6,000 to buy her a car! She does so much for us and could do so much more so much faster if she had a set of four wheels instead of 2!! So if you would like to donate you can go to our website on FOG and there is a tab on the homepage that links to paypal. WE will have it added to our how you can help page once we get that up and running.
The website has been a work in progress and it is not done. WE will have several ways you can help or donate hopefully by the end of this week!! IF you can't wait to donate, well, just send a check to us now and we will be more than happy to put it to good use. Speaking of donations, we came within $650 of our Jan goal!! We have so many expenses right now but one of the more pressing is we need monthly donors. Any amount will work and a commitment to a year of pledges would help us greatly! How about making your own pizza's instead of going to Pizza Hut and pledging the differece to us?? I know in our house that would be about $80.00 a month! One of our families is even asking ppl to donate to us instead of giving birthday gifts to her adopted son!
ON a couple of other notes, and I won't go into much detail now, but we are looking in to doing adoptions in Burkina for the kids in our orphanage only! Burkina has some stricter requirements than other Africa countries. But that is OK!! Burkina is also Hague and we are working out the details with a Hague almost approved agency here in the US to handle our adoptions. So while we would love to offer adoptions a little cheaper in order to do them we have to have an agency. UAHH will not be doing the adoptions but FOG in Africa will be helping on that end. They even have a new and wonderful person who will be working for the agency who will be processing the families. You will LOVE HER!!!
We will be starting a general yahoo group for families interested in more info on what we are doing on an interactive scale!! So that is about all for now!! Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned. WE hope to keep everyone update here on all our Africa projects!!
On one last note, Margie, one of our board of directors will be traveling soon to bring Ammiel here to the USA on a medical visa. We are going to have her carry some smaller items over with her. We have been blessed with a laptop but still need some smaller items. We are looking for crib mobiles, books, smaller toys, a CD player and some children's CD's. We also need infant and children vitamins and iron drops and Tylenol or motrin for both kids and adults. If you are intersted please email Heather at heather@untilallhavehomes.org Heather is also working on some fundraisers and we will post them here as we get the details worked out!!
Ok, have a great nite and see you soon!
Ann Grabeman
