Kicking & Dreaming~ Ethiopia July 2010

We are getting closer to our first ever Ethiopia mission trip in July!!! I am VERY excited!! I have been to Ethiopia personally two times and know first hand how life changing and eye opening it is. I am thrilled to be taking a team of 25 Ordinary Heroes to this fabulous country to serve and love on the orphan and street child. One avenue of connecting with the kids on this trip is through soccer camps. We are taking several soccer coaches and players on this trip (although I am neither :) and are excited to watch the hope that springs forth through people from two opposite ends of the world connected by the love of the game. Soccer brings hope and fun to children in Ethiopia where toys do not exist. We will go in and have fun with the kids, make the connections with them, and then follow it up with love, clothing, food, and basic necessities for their well being. We will be holding camps in many different orphanages, as well as with the street children and the children living in the countryside.

This however is a very costly trip for all of us going, so this is where I turn to you. In an effort to offset the costs for the people going on our trip I would like to offer you the chance to donate to our trip while getting something in return. The soccer coach for Ravenwood Highschool is “selling” the old girls uniforms for $55 a shirt. When you donate the $55 (feel free to donate more if you would like J), you will get a jersey sent to you and have the opportunity to write or draw whatever you would like on that jersey. Mail your jersey back to us with your family's picture. We will take your picture, along with the jersey, with us to ET. When we get to Ethiopia we will give it to an orphaned child along with your picture. Once we give the child your jersey and photo, we will host a game with the children wearing the jersey you donated to them and post it on our blog so that you can follow along on our journey. The child will then keep the jersey and you can know that you quite possibly gave this child their first ever soccer jersey or real shirt for that matter. Of course we will do our best to take pictures of all the kids wearing your jerseys :) You may send your checks to Ordinary Hero, PO Box 1945, Brentwood, TN 37024......or you may donate online and mark in the memo "jersey".

This is an awesome way for your family to directly connect and bring joy to an orphan in Ethiopia and help offset our cost to get there at the same time.

ALSO.....Brentwood Soccer Club is sponsoring an Adult Indoor 6v6 Soccer Tournament, on behalf of the Ordinary Hero Kicking & Dreaming, Ethiopia Mission Trip. Tournament dates are June 12 (Men) and June 13 (Women) and will be held at the Crockett Park Indoor Arena in Brentwood, TN. If you or someone you know would like to bring your team and participate in this tournament please contact Clay Watson at clayw1@wcs.edu . He will send you the sign up sheet. The cost is $450 per team and $400 special if you sign up by May 28. All proceeds benefit the Kicking & Dreaming Mission trip in July.

Come join us on June 12 and 13th for some soccer fun that will help us make a difference in the orphan crisis in Ethiopia.

Email me at kelly@ordinaryhero.org if you have any questions.

Miss Clemmie......what an inspiration

I just can't tell you enough how God uses the bad in life and turns it around into good. I have seen such amazing relationships formed as a result of this flood. I have an amazing story of a family completely taking an east Nashville flood victim family under their wing and showing them love and support in so many unbelievable ways. I will share that story and show pictures in my next post.

I have been thinking about the following story for about a week now. I am completely amazed at God and how He chooses the people that I bump into. I was down in East Nashville checking on a family we are helping because of the flood when up walks a woman carrying a clip board. She hands me a card and tells me that she advocates for that neighborhood to try to fight against violence and keep kids out of gangs. She was also spending the week working with the Salvation Army checking on flood victims. So there we both are doing what we do best when we cross paths. I told her to call me if she found any families needing assistance. She called a couple of days later. She told me that one home that suffered flood damage was the home of an elderly blind woman and her 80 year old husband. Finally after more questions I asked about this particular home she broke down into tears and admitted that this blind woman was her mother. I met her there the following day and captured her heart and story about her mother on video. When I walked in and met her mother it was like a scene from a movie. This is the sweetest, most strong spirited woman in her condition that I have ever met.

After getting footage of her home I went to the building where she has started her after school program and ministry. After watching the video you will understand why she has such a heart and a passion for these inner city kids involved in gangs. She is doing such amazing things to turn that whole community around and it is still mostly under the radar even though she has been named Nashvillian of the year. I would like to see her get more help with her ministry than she knows what to do with. It would be a privilege to help Miss Clemmie in any way possible. But after you hear her heart's cry you will know how to respond. Her heart is for her mother. That is where we will start. After you watch this video you will see the project that lay before us. I am a determined woman :) and I see great things happening for Miss Mary, Clemmies mother. BUT, as you know, I can't do this alone. I need as many connections to get a house transformed as possible. So if that is you, CONTACT ME :) Email me at Kelly@ordinaryhero.org . Tell me how you can help. I am starting a Miss Clemmie fund in which 100% of the funds will be used to cover the expenses of this remodel. We will then take a home decor team, which any of you can jump on board, and transform her place into a haven that she will be proud to call home. So, if you build, paint, sell building supplies, home decor, anything of the like......CONTACT ME . If you want to help with her ministry in any way....CONTACT ME.
Also.....Dr. Wang, look out, here we come :)

This home will be a blessing to this family and the children in this family for many generations to come.

So here is what all the fuss is about. Watch this video and be blessed. Her voice speaks loud about a world that most of us don't even know exists. Watch blessings pour out of tragedy...on so many different levels. What an Ordinary Hero!!


(silence the music at bottom of page and watch below or just CLICK HERE to go to the link)

Miss Clemmie ~ Ordinary Hero from Kelly Putty on Vimeo.

Mother's Day Bags ......A Blessing

With all of the flood aftermath going on I have not had a chance to post about our Mother's Day Outreach. We had the privilege of collecting items and stuffing 200 gift bags for all the moms and women residing at the Nashville Rescue Mission. The mission was able to host all of the women at their newly remodeled facility that they have not officially moved into yet and have a beautifully decorated luncheon for the women as a special treat for Mother's Day. Ordinary Hero was able to provide the gift bags for the event.

I must give a special shout out and great big Thank You to Carol Harris, pictured below, for organizing and collecting the items for all 200 bags. She did a great job with this event and we plan do this again next year. We could not have done this without her.


We needed several hands to help us stuff these gift bags so I took one of my regularly scheduled bible study nights with all my Tennessee Baptist Children's Home girls and had them help with all the bag stuffing. They loved the thought that they were doing something to help a mom at the mission. I even told the girls that they could pick out something for themselves if they wanted and a couple of them didn't want anything because they said they wanted the Moms to have all of it. These girls are very special to me. They all come from troubled homelives themselves, yet they still have a heart to help others who are in need.

I was shocked to see all of the donations that came in for this outreach. I had never really thought about how much stuff it would take to stuff 200 gift bags.....and nice size bags, at that.
I can't thank everyone who gave toward this, enough. I especially have to thank Waller Law Firm and Manier and Harod law firm for such generous donations given to bless these women at the mission. We definitely could not have stuffed 200 bags without all of the donations. They were just awesome!

I must also say a special thank you to Rebekah Stephens for organizing a lot of the donations through her firm, helping us pick up the bags, and also bringing co workers and friends to help us organize and stuff the bags. Thanks, Rebekah!!

We stuffed bags until dark and even dodged the dive bombing beetles that came out after the lights came on in the pavilion. I had such a great group to help with this. THANK YOU, to my sweet TBCH girls, and Mrs D, for all of your help!!

These bags were filled with soaps, lotions, shampoos, jewelry, small bibles donated by Fellowship Bible Church (thank you, thank you), books, make up......and as you will see below, LOVE.

My friend, Tina Keil, made 400+ cookies from scratch to go into each of the bags for each woman to have a special homemade treat, just to show them that they are loved. Let me be the first one to tell you that these cookies are AMAZING....just like Tina!! Check out her site. She has written an amazing book, titled Free To Be Beautiful, and she can lead you to worship like no other with her angelic voice, so make sure to check out her music. She has a beautiful spirit. Thank you, Tina, for taking so much time and love to make these cookies for the mission Moms.

Carol, thanks again for doing such a great job with this and being such an amazing Ordinary Hero.....you should be proud!!

Here are a couple of pics taken from inside the mission when I got them delivered.
And lastly, a special thank you goes out to Holly Fisher for making us such cute tags for all of the bags. It was such a nice added touch to remind these women that we love them and so does God. Thank you, Holly!!
Many people ask me how I do everything I do. Well, now you see. I could never do what I do without such amazing Ordinary Heroes jumping on board to help. I little from each person completes a big task. It is how it was meant to be. I appreciate all of you. And these were some very excited women to receive such great gift bags. Thanks to everyone who gave toward this project.
I will be posting another testimony from the flood in the next day or so. It is one that I have not gotten off of my mind since I heard it. I can't wait to get it out to you. It's a total God story how I ran into this woman.

Helping Flood Victims

Whoo!! This has been such a busy week with all that is going on, I haven't even had time to blog. We have found 3 families in East Nashville that we are helping try to get back on their feet. I specifically wanted to help those who are not getting much help. I rode downtown to check on the Officer's home who works at my children's school. I heard that he had lost everything. I pulled up to find people pulling out their belongings by the mountains. Everything they owned was starting to pile up outside. I found great devastation but I found such great faith as they tried to take in all that had been laid upon them. We are going to ensure that they get their house rebuilt and furnished, and we are also having meal sign ups for this couple and their 4 small children.

I then looked across the street and saw an elderly woman and two small boys pushing water out of the bottom floor of their home by themselves. When I walked over and asked, she told me that she did not have anyone except a friend that had been helping her pull all of her stuff out of the home. I discovered that she is a grandmother who has taken in her 4 grandchildren and she is all they have. Those children were just precious. Those boys had mops with bleach water and were doing the best they could to wipe down all the walls as their grandmother was trying to lift things after just having a hip replacement. I told her that we would get her some help with everything......and thus, I found my second family to help. The next day I went by to check in on them and bring them some dinner and took two of my children. The next thing I knew they were all out in the open lot beside the home playing kickball and then basketball. When we left they were asking when could we come back and bring the boys to play again. The next day three Ordinary Heroes stopped in to check on them and the next thing I knew they were telling me to meet them at the park. They had all four children with them and were taking them out to play. I showed up with my family and we had pizza, played basketball, football and had such a great time with these kids. We were able to get them away from their reality for just a little bit. I see lasting relationships developing and people investing in these children whom we did not even know just a few days ago. Lives will be changed and this is how it all works. This is how God brings good out of the bad. This is how God connects people who would not otherwise have found one another.

The third family is a single mom with three children whom was referred to us by the Youth Life Learning Center. An ordinary hero took her some things yesterday for her three children as she waits this out to see what becomes of her apartment. She and her children are currently living with her mother. They lost everything they had.

If you would like to help any of these families, please email Charlene at info@ordinaryhero.org . You may also donate to our Project Restore fund by clicking on the donate button on the right side. Just put "Project Restore for flood victims" in the memo. We will ensure that these family's homes and lives are restored.

You can watch the video below to see such strong faith in the midst of such devastation. This is what I walked up to find. This is just one story out of the three and I plan to get the other stories put together as well.......whenever time allows :)

(Silence the music at the bottom of the page to watch the video) or click here to go to the link.



This is just one out of hundreds of stories out there. These flood victims need our help. All the Ordinary Heroes pulling together to help is what gives these families continued hope to move on after the storms of life.

Also...Check out our new BLOG button on the right sidebar. Many thanks go out to April and her hubby for getting that on here for us. You can now copy and paste the code into your blog and it will bring people directly to this blog without having to go through the site. It's a great way to keep up with all that is going on with Ordinary Hero. I update the blog much more than the site.

Help For Flood Victims in TN

Ordinary Hero is collecting donations to give to flood victims that were hit hard this week. There are many people that lost everything due to flooding. I can honestly say I have never seen anything like this before in my life. These pictures I have posted don't even hold a candle to what downtown looks like. These are just in my neighborhood. I was trapped on all sides by water raging over the roads and could not get out. Fortunately, we live on a hill and were not affected, but there were thousands that were not so lucky.

I will be getting out tomorrow to see firsthand the damage in the inner city. I will post updates as to the families that we will be helping. There are people in need of clothes, food, under garments, all basic necessities as they try to start over. I also heard one specific need of a car for a family that is struggling. As you will see in the pictures, there were so many cars devoured by the flood waters. We are excepting money donations online as well as here locally in the form of donated items. Please contact Kelly@ordinaryhero.org if you are interested in donating particular items to these flood victims. I will tell you where to send them depending on if you are local or not.

New Waiting Children and some Adopted...Yay!!

Head over to our Ordinary Hero site and check out the new waiting children I just listed under the Celebrate Children link. Pictured above are an infant HIV+ girl, a 1 and 1/2 year old girl and a little boy age 4-6. I am thrilled to announce that I got to add the word "Adopted" to 1 girl, 5 boys, and 3 sibling groups. I just added new waiting children, 4 girls, 5 boys, and 6 sibling groups to the site. These new waiting children are anywhere from infant to age 15. There is one HIV+ infant that is just adorable and paper ready for those of you who are called to adopt an HIV+ baby. There are many children waiting to be adopted. Also, check out the featured little boy as well as the featured twin girls on the site who have been waiting for some time. They are precious.

So go to the site and click on Ethiopia and then look for the "read more" link under Celebrate Children. There are three separate links for boys, girls, and siblings. Check them all out. Your future child could be waiting for you. Contact Sue Hedberg, listed on the site, for more info on these children.

And let me know if you feel drawn to one of these children. I always love hearing your stories :-)
And above all else, pray for these little ones to find their family.