FEB 16TH UPDATE

Well, not too much to report. We are STILL waiting on the electric people to come and turn on the electricity. They are saying next week. We need that little step done before we can do the rest! The cribs are being handmade to our specifications. I will post a picture soon. They look extremely nice. Biba wanted a SAFE and sturdy crib for the children.

Todays little cutie (and no he is NOT available for adoption and has a wonderful Christian family) is a little boy who is coming on a medical visa soon. Shriners in KY has offered to make him 2 little legs!! Isn't that exciting. He will be coming soon as we have a board member traveling in the next month to visit Burkina and bring him back.

When Maggie travels she will be taking some donations we are working on. Little thing! I am going to post a list here and if you would like to give please feel free. You can mail the items to Until All Have Homes, 1424 Madison Ave, Piqua, OH 45356. Our orphanage will only house 10 to 15 children so please keep that in mind when sending. If you would kindly email me what you are sending so I can keep track and update the list as we get things in. These would fun little things to do as a Sunday school class or even a school class or preschool project.

We are needing:

Clean and in excellent used condition summer and lightweight clothes for 3 months to 5 years old (boys and girls.)

Infant, children and adult (we will pass these out to our staff for their families) vitamins and also iron drops for infants.

Motrin/Tylenol in infant, Jr and adult (same as above)

Small toys for babies and younger children, Please no Mc Donalds toys or stuff animals.

A couple of small CD players with children CD's.

Books appropriate for young children.

That is about all for this week. We are working on getting tees made and will be using them as a fundraiser. Are idea was to approach schools and youth groups and ask them to sell 50 to 100. Heather is busy working on the design, they are going to be awesome.

Once last thing and I am done! We have started a yahoo group for people interesting in learning with us about adoptions in Burkina. If you are interested please use this link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fieldsofgraceafrica/?yguid=109039923

Thanks!

Ann Grabeman

Lots of info!

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

January 2008

The picture is our new orphanage, Fields of Grace, in Burkina Faso Africa. Our African director, Biba, not only acquired a brand new house for us, she even had them rebuild a couple of rooms to meet our specifications. (We are waiting on them to landscape it.) As of Jan 15 we have wired money to Africa to start buying the furnishings. We hope to start out with around 7 kids and slowly build to around 15 or whatever we feel the house will hold. Once social services inspect our home (scheduled for Jan 21) they will issue our license to be an approved NGO in Burkina. We hope to have children in the house within the next 2 weeks. We will be adding pictures here as things start to take shape. We are still needing monthly sponsors, please see our how you can help link for more info! We also have a couple of young ladies who will be going over this summer to help out. Thanks for checking in, we will be updating several times a week as we take off on this big adventure stepping out in faith to give hope to the children on Burkina. At this time I would like to thank some people who have been faithful and instrumental in getting this done. First Heather, a wonderful friend and mom to 11 children, who has spent hours raising funds and planning fundraisers. Do you ever sleep? To Sarah, you are the queen and such a great friend. Thanks for all the logos and never complaining as we ask for changes. To Fami, who is always a constant support and who is the brain behind the operation. Whatever task I ask she fulfills it beyond my expectations. To all the incredible people who have prayed and donated to the orphanage, who understand and feel the passion in helping children who have nothing, THANK YOU!! And to Biba and her team in Africa, what a woman of God who does the work of 20 people with no pay and no car and who has made me long for a closer walk with God. My life is richer because of all of you!