Dear Addy,

It will be 5 years this Sunday that you left this earth for Jesus' arms. You left before I held you in my own. Your death sent me into a righteous anger I had never known as I learned that your death could have been stopped with an IV and antibiotics.

Many people do not understand why after 5 years I still cry over you, a child I never held in my arms. I don't have any words to tell them. I just have a whole in my heart where you were suppose to sit while I braided your hair and sang you lullabys.

Most days I don't think about the pain. In fact, I have buried it pretty deep...so deep that I often think it is gone. But then days like today come and the scab is torn off and the blood of my wound flows strong again!

The short time that you graced my life with yours is what birthed the calling your daddy and I have given our lives to. God used your short three years and your tragic death to call us to Addy's Hope. Somedays, I wish we had never known you...never started this crazy ministry....but then I think of the other "Addy's" out there. The little boy that came home to the US through Addy's Hope that had major medical issues that the limited medical care in Liberia would never have picked up. He was skin and bones, sad, no smiles, sick. Now, he is a thriving little boy full of smiles playing football and surrounded by the love of a Christian family that he never would have known if not for the role you played in his life...like a pebble thrown in a pond, your life continues to ripple even five years after your death.

I love you, my preciuos Addy Joy! Someday I will hold you! Until then, I picture you being rocked to sleep in the arms of Jesus as angels sing you those lullabys I never got to!

Love,
Mommy

We have to do more!

Ok, I know I have said that a thousand times, but really, WE HAVE TO DO MORE!!! I don't care how much you think you are doing right now (yes, I am telling myself the same thing) you and I have to do more! Did you know that the home country of my Addy and Eden is NUMBER ONE in the WORLD for infant and under 5 mortality? And Liberia, the home country of my son is number 3 in the WORLD!!! In Sierra Leone, 160.3 babies of every 1,000 live births die, and 278.1 children out of every 1,000 die before they reach their 5th birthday! My Addy is part of that statistic people! These are not just numbers! I have a picture of my sweet girl looking at me right now on my shelf and I have shed tears on the fresh dirt that covered her tiny body.

In Liberia, 132.5 babies out of every 1,000 live births die and 205.2 children out of every 1,000 die before they read their 5th birthday! My son came home at 3...what if he hadn't? He might have been one of these statistics!

We have a baby who was! Sweet Marion died at nine months. We don't know why? The doctors couldn't tell us. She was in the hospital, receiving fluids, antibiotics and blood, but she still died.

Watch this!


We HAVE TO DO MORE!!!

If you agree, go to our website: http://www.addyshope.com/, click on the "more than adoption" button and donate towards David's Peanut Butter Shack that we will be building next to our orphanage to give life saving vitamin enriched peanut butter paste to the malnourished children of Liberia! We are going to drop those numbers! We can make a difference! Liberia will be off the top 50 by the time we get done! I am not a name it and claim it type of person, but I know God has put this passion in me for a reason, and I refuse to stop until we have no more childrne dieing because of malnutrion or God takes me home, whichever comes first! Will you join me?

Would you help?

I love the Red Letters Campaign motto! I totally believe that living out my faith will help end poverty, and I REFUSE to believe that I can't make in impact. One life at a time I am determined!

Today, the lives that haunt me are Patricia and Jennefer. Here is the story of these two girls as told by Matthew. Matthew is a young man who has been taken under the wing of one of our adoptive families. He was living in a church compound, but is now on his own and attending school thanks to this family! Now he is trying to help other people because of what God has given him. He met these girls when he went to the airport to pick me and the adoptive families up on our arrival in July. He has visited these girls and kept up with them to get this information for me. I missed the opportunity to talk to them on his phone because I was not home when he went to see them. Here is their story exactly as Matthew relayed it to me. WARNING: Not easy to read!

Hi Sis.Hollyann,
This is the story Patricia told me about her sister and herself.Their father died in 1994 when she was about 4years and Jennifer 2yrs.Their mother took over to Ivory Coast for refuge.They were there as refugees.Later in Ivory Coast a lady called Etta took them from their mother who was suffering and struggling to take care of them.This lady took them to Ghana(Bujuburam Refugee Camp)where they lived with her until she was leaving from Ghana when she decided to leave them with her sister,Victoria. She said after about a year living with Victoria and her husband,one day she came from school and was raped by Victoria's husband,Joshua who threatened her that he will make her to follow her father(death) if anybody got to know what he did to her.At this time she was ten years old.She said out of fear she could not tell anybody,and he kept abusing her until she was 13years old when she and her sister ran away from their house to live with other people as they continued their schooling sponsored by UNHCR.They lived with these people,Ghanaians,until they were recently repatriated to Liberia.And now they are living with hospitable family along the Roberts Field Highway,but the family cannot afford to send them to school since the family has to her children to send to school and times are so difficult in Liberia.She also said since Etta took them from their mother they had known her to be their mother until recently when they were told that their biologcal mother is in Ivory Coast.Presently,they do not have a sleeping place,school fees and food.They are sleeping with this family's children in one room and eating from their pots.This is why they asked me to assist them which I myself am facing hardship and in school.
For the pictures,Patricia is in a green t-shirt and her sister in white t-shirt with white head-tie.Sory for the delay in sending you the information;I was out of funds to get the pictures and to scan them.

Will you help? Can you help send one of these girls to school this semester? Would you give one dollar to do it? John and I are sending Patricia to school. Her total school bill is $265 (this includes tuition and fees, uniform, text books and notebooks). Jenefer needs to go to 9th grade. Her total bill is $210.00. I will put a thermometer up on the side of my blog (as soon as I figure out how!) to show the progress. I will also put a donate button. If you can't give one dollar, give one cent! EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!