Trip to Shashemene!!

We took a day and traveled out to Shashemene to visit some of our P61 sponsored kids. It was sooooo good to see our little guys! As soon as we got there we had Winker and Sisay waiting on us. 

The kids are all getting their uniforms passed out to them when we got there. 

 We started passing out sponsor gifts and all the kids were thrilled! They always especially love the picture albums. 

 Many of you may see some of your sponsored kids on here as we gave them their gifts and visited. It was so great seeing all of them again. 

 Stacy had not seen her sponsored girl since our OH trip last year. It was awesome to see them connect again. 

 Denae is Sumer's nannie and is such a huge help to her. She is darling!

 Ashli is busy at work getting everyone checked off the list. 

 Another happy sponsored child!

 Winker is wondering where his friend, Christian (aka, "Girl") is :)

 Getting to grab a bite with them in the feeding hall. 

 Two amazing friends and women of God, Ashli and Sumer...

 Some of the faces at Shashemene.....

Check out that fresh paint behind Deborah and the boys, thanks to our last OH team, led by Jeremy B. Great job!!

 Michelle, this one is for you :)

 Sisay was so sweet, he had a handmade notebook he had made me filled with stickers and scriptures. Love this kid!

 The little roommates!

 This young guy below was so proud of his sponsor that he went and got a picture just to show me. 

Then this little one did the same thing :) I'm telling you....sponsors mean the world to these kids. 

 We had a great time with the kids. We said our goodbyes and stopped at a beautiful place to eat on the way back to Addis. This place is just gorgeous! 

Masti, our driver Getchu and Deborah strolled down to the beach

 Looks like they had a blast!

 This was the perfect end to a great day in Shashemene. Sumer made me aware that there are still 10 children currently attending Shashemene who are going to the school but DO NOT have sponsors. You have seen through these pictures how much sponsors mean to the children. They become like family. If you have been moved by this blog at all and would consider sponsoring one of these 10, then please contact Erin@p61.org to inquire about sponsoring one of these young ones.  You can forever change their future and it is such a reward in return to simply have them in your life. I could be taking your package over next time :) 

 More of Africa to come......

Spreading love in Ethiopia

 Our second day in ET was great! We went to Hope Enterprises to feed the homeless. I had never been there before and was blown away by this place. This is the ONLY feeding hall for the homeless in Ethiopia. They feed children in the mornings and feed adults and children in the afternoons. In one day they average about 1000 people. The 6 of us went in and served everyone. We helped prepare and then passed out the injera and gave each person two big scoops of a type of sauce filled with beans, veggies, and spices. We were not allowed to take pictures at all :(   In this place you truly serve the poorest of the poor, the blind, the lame, and the beggars. It is extremely sad, but such a joy to be able to connect with them all through serving. All the girls in my team really walked away with a life changing experience.

 We then stopped and passed out some pre-packaged goodie bags for some of the folks on the streets.

 They are always in desperate need, especially the mothers with babies.

 They always light up with joy to discover that we are giving them full outfits for themselves and their children, along with snacks and candy.

 We spotted this little buddy sitting on the side of the road with his mother.

 We stopped and gave them a goodie bag. What a cutie!!

 This is for all of you Ky fans out there!!

 We then had some business to tend to so off to the Hilton business center we went.

 We had one bag mix up out of the bunch and Deborah was soooo relieved to get her bag back that we had to take a picture of it :)

 We grabbed a bite and discussed what tomorrow will bring......Shashemane!!

Can't wait to see some of our sponsored kids and show some of you yours! Stay tuned......

Mennonite Couple Shares About Ethiopian Adoption

I want you all to meet Kevin and Krissy from Ohio. They are an amazing Mennonite couple whom I met while here in Ethiopia. They are adopting their first child and share about what led them to adopt in this video. Be inspired and have your eyes opened about adoption in the Mennonite Church by taking a moment to watch this video. Thank you, Kevin and Krissy, for sharing your story with Ordinary Hero and inspiring many!
Click Here to go to the direct link or silence the music on the right sidebar and watch below.

Ethiopia~ Here We Come!!

Well, we made it to Ethiopia! The 6 of us met up in Washington as you can see above. Check out our new October Long sleeve T's. These are super cute and comfy and will be available in the OH store. There is an OH grant contest coming this week so be on the look out :)

Deborah, pictured below, is ready to kick off this Sponsorship program!!

We were running this first day on major jetlag so we made a stop at Kaldis with our awesome guide, Masti!!

We then had some packages to hand out to some of the P61 kids at the new Akaki boarding school that they are in so we headed over there. I met up with my amazing friend, Eden, whom I just love!

Robel was showing us his room.

We line the girls up in order to pass out some new jammies for all of them.

Here, Ashli and Sumer sat them all down to talk to them about being grateful :)

 It was great getting to see some of the joyful faces that we first met just over a year ago living in the trash dump.

 This was especially neat for Stacey, who met these kids last year on our first OH mission trip while they were living in the dump and had not gotten sponsors yet.

 Of course I loved getting to catch up with Ashli and Sumer from P61 ministries.

So this kiddo below with Eden was so cute. He was having Eden translate a letter for him to his sponsor.

All I know is his sponsor's name is Michael. So if you are Michael, then this kiddo loves you and misses you. He said it over and over :) How sweet!

We were sooo wiped at the end of the day! I tried to sneak a pic of the girls sleeping on the way back to the guest house but Deborah caught me :) It was a great first day getting to see how the world of sponsorship works. It is an awesome, life changing experience for these kids.

Stay tuned for my next post. We met the most amazing couple. First we saw them on our plane and then they ended up staying at our same guest house. They are here to adopt and bring home their new baby girl. It is their first child. But the most fascinating and awesome fact to their story is that they are a Mennonite couple. I videoed their story and will show you in the next post. Stay tuned!!

Ordinary Hero Grant Offering Starts this Monday!!!!

Hello everyone!!

Just a shout out to all of you that we will be holding a GRANT CONTEST starting this Monday morning at 12:01am and lasting until next Sunday night at midnight (central time!)

We have some new items in the store for this Grant offering!  It's a Fabulous baseball tee and some of you may have seen Kelly and some of her trip mates modeling it as they were on their way back to Africa! She is there now and will be blogging (hopefully) soon!

We have also added some great OH scrabble jewlery necklaces too. They are great!! They make great gifts and great stocking stuffers!!! :)

Lastly, since we didnt hold a grant contest last month we will be holding 2 GRANT offerings this month. One now and one much later in the month. You are welcome to play in BOTH and yes, past grant winners can play again and can continue to win!!. Keep fundraising folks. For the second GRANT offering we will adding even more items to the store for your friends and family to shop from!

Start compiling your list of people to send emails too, etc and get a game plan on how you are going to WIN!... Just remember for their purchases to count towards the grant contest all sales starting Monday am will count.

1st place in sales gets $500 in addition to 40% of everything you sell!
2nd place will win $300 in addition to your 40%...
3rd place will win $200 in addition to your 40%...

So that is $1000 that will be given away with this FIRST grant offering this month! Woo hoo! :)

If you know someone who is fundraising for their adoption or mission trip would you PLEASE tell them about the affiliate program with OH and tell them to sign up today so they can play!

If you are an OH affiliate and did NOT get an email from me this am, then I do NOT have your email address. Please send it to me asap so you will have communications from me about the contest! Email me your info to gina@ordinaryhero.org

Best of luck to all of you!!!

Gina Payne