Friday, August 17, 2007

Girls Gobal Education Fund

I have mentioned Girls Global Education Fund in passing before but have just now gotten involved, and I am so excited. The translator that came with JinMei (and again is coming with Xianbei) is named Matthew. Although he is helping with with A Heart for China, his job is working with GGEF. It is an organization that finds sponsors to send girls that live in rural China to school who otherwise would not get any formal education. It's is amazingly cheap for us to send a girl to school and yet education is priceless to a child's future. For an elementary aged girl it is $40 a year, a middle school girl is just $80 a year and a high school is only $240 a year - yes, for a whole school year! When I first signed up last month, I chose to sponsor an elementary aged girl. When Matthew emailed me about the girl I was to sponsor, he told me that she has two middle school sisters and a high school sister that he is also looking for sponsors. He asked me to pray that all these girls will be sponsored and be able to go to school. They are a family of 6 kids - the others, a brother going to school already and an older sister that hasn't gone to school for years. She stopped going to school so she could help support the family; both of their parents died a few years ago of illness. They are living with grandmom and uncle. When I got the email, I was so moved that I called my best friend to tell her the story. That evening Mike and I talked about it and decided to sponsor the two middle school girl and my mom would sponsor the elementary age girl, our original assignment. Before I went to bed, my best friend called me back and said she would sponsor the high school girl! Within a couple hours we had all four sponsored and I was emailing Matthew back. He was so excited to get our news that he said he was immediately making the three hour round trip (on his bike - he does not have a car) to go tell the family! How amazing to have these kids so excited to have the opportunity to go to school. What a difference it will make in their lives.

If you are so moved by the ease to make such a huge impact on a child for very little financial commitment, please visit Girls Global Education Fund to learn more. There are many more girls waiting to be sponsored. If you sponsor, mention me to be the coordinator - I've volunteered to organize correspondence for those signed up through me. Thank you for your support!

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Xianbei is coming in October!

Last year some local volunteers joined together and started a group called A Heart for China with the goal to bring one girl named JinMei from China to Jacksonville for lifesaving heart surgery. A group called Patrons of the Heart provided all the healthcare including the surgery as long as we got her here and provided for her needs during her stay. She had successful surgery last January. (If you look back in my blog, you can see photos and my posts from that time.) We now have another girl scheduled to come in October named Xianbei (pictured here - on the right). Patrons of the Hearts once again will be providing her surgery and they (her mom and the same translator Matthew) will be staying at the Ronald McDonald House. We are currently raising funds for their travel and stay. Please visit A Heart for China for more information on how to help. We have a lot of work to do between now and October! Thank you!!

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Under 300!

Talk about seeking out milestones - we are finally under 300 days between the latest referral date, now November 21, 2005 and our LID of September 12, 2006. Technically 295 days. At a 7 day/month referral rate, we only have 42 more months. Just kidding; they will eventually speed up - right? Our other milestone is that it was one year ago that we were done paperchasing and sent our completed dossier to CCAI, our agency, for final review and translation. How things have changed in a year. A 14 wait a year ago has turned into 20 months and all signs are leaning to 2-3 year wait. But at least we are a year closer.