Wednesday, October 31, 2007

A BIG Thank You!

Big thanks to our wonderful friends at 24-7 Prayer!!

Every year at the global gathering of the 24-7 family, there is a raucous auction, done with great celebration and hilarity, that raises funds for someone who is close to the movement and in financial need. This year it was decided that half of whatever was raised would be sent to Africa via Byron and Lisa so that we can assist an old Maasai woman who is like family to Wild Hope.

Ngoto Milai sold most of her cows to educate her children. Sadly, the local school was so under average that her children never scored well enough to go on and complete their high school education and they have never been able to find paying jobs. Her last couple of cows died in the drought a few years back. When Byron was in her area some months ago, his Maasai Mom asked him if there was any way we could help her begin some sort of small business so she could provide for her children and grandchildren.

Everyone was shocked and delighted when the auction raised $2,000! You would have been shocked too, given that the items sold were things like a spiral notebook decorated with photographs and jar of home made jam :-)

With the $1,000 that we have for this dear Maasai mother, we will be able to help in two significant ways. First off, a gift of goats or a couple of cows will be a huge blessing. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we have enough in hand to set up a small business co-operative with this lady and a few of her friends who are in similar circumstances.

We are absolutely thrilled we can bring two forms of assistance with this one wonderful gift!

And by the way, Lisa put one of our Christmas stars, made by Wild Hope Artisans, in the auction and it sold for 50 euros. That's $70 and that's a record for a Wild Hope Artisan star!

Oh and PS... If you hear a rumor that Lisa was called upon during the auction to enter a Flamenco Dance-Off (the crowd pooled their resources and paid 100 euros to see the contest) then we thought we'd better let you know that, yes, it's true. She danced her little heart out :-)

Friday, October 19, 2007

October Hurries On By

Family...

The Wild Hope Moms (Lisa and Tammy) have been in full-on home school gear around here. The kidlets (aged 17 down to 8) are faithful and (almost always) sweet students. Of course, no one is perfect! And we moms admit that it can just as easily be one of us who is feeling cranky and less than inspiring.

Still, we are thankful for a good start to the school year and we celebrate with a welcome break. Chase turned 15 at the beginning of the month and this weekend sees most all the crew off on a camping trip to Lake Natron. Poor Sianna had to stay home with a fever :-( At least she's with her excellent mom, Tammy. Tammy was staying home anyway because the Russell family are raising four puppies that lost their mama! Phew! It's a lot of work but, oh my, those puppies are cute (and healthy!)

A place to settle...

Byron and Peter have spent hours and hours and days and weeks, scouting out land, leads to land, rumors of land and plots of land. Wild Hope is dreaming of a place to do demonstration gardens, house teams, do training, build residences etc. There has been much activity around this dream in the last few weeks but no official news quite yet. Please pray! We'll let you know as soon as there is something to know :-)

Sales up for the Artisans...

The cool of July and August has pretty much faded and we are into warm October days. There is a buzz of activity toward the Christmas rush on our Wild Hope Artisan products. Warm weather and Christmas go together for us and Christmas means a lot of sales for the project. It's very exciting to see eager shop owners making orders these days. We are thrilled to see the hard work of the women Artisans being appreciated and valued and purchased.

New ideas and plans bubble along and we take steps toward making things happen. These are good days. So much hope!

PS: The latest on Sianna is that she has Scarlet Fever. Goodness! We're praying for good recovery and that it doesn't move through all the kids...