money sent....

Man...satin is such a punk.  thankful that we did not fall into any of his traps this week.
who would have thought that we would have been so attacked spiritually by just depositing the $1101.00 in the EGCH fund.

our dishwasher broke.
our printer died...this one we can't live without...the hubistrators business depends on it.

we've only received 1/3 of our income this month....

plus we have vacation planned for this month.

but this money is jesus'...that he wants to bless his kids with in ethiopia.  not one red cent belongs to us...
so after the checks cleared..the money was deposited on tuesday night.

i'm thankful for the perspective...rather than the alternative perspective which is always such a bummer...

This week...def par for the course.

by his grace.
Gina

Raising funds...we tallied it all up!

a couple of weeks ago we sent out a call to our friends here,
our facebook friends,
and our church family...
to help support our brothers and sisters in ethiopia.
as francis chan put it so well in his fearless message...
"how do i live responsibly while my brothers and sisters are suffering."
responsibly as in 40% of my income has to go to savings...and 10% to tithe[which the only way we budge on is by increasing our tithe, because the lord calls us ALL to be tithing.] and the other 50% to bills and spending money...
so I ask you again...
how do i live responsibly while my brothers and sisters in ethiopia are suffering?
I can not.
I choose not to.
and many of you have come along side to choose to not live the "responsibly" as the world sees it...
but responsibly as we are called to...and that is to care for our brothers and sisters and orphans and widows.
So....
Heres the euchre party...

our funds raised for Ebenezer Grace childrens home is $1101.00!
that is great. such a blessing.
please continue to pray about giving to this ministry...to maybe do a euchre or game party or cupcake sale...
or my emme is selling bracelets that she made for the orphans...she has such an amazing heart.
she's selling them from $1.00-$5.00 whatever people want to donate.

Thank you friends! you rock!
Gina

So dear to our hearts...

This video, my husband put together from our trip...He taught on Sunday and shared this video.  I was in tears a few times.
I just love how each part of it has such a special part in our hearts.  I love to see the hand of the Lord.
Hope you love it!..

Ethiopia 2012 from Tony Giraud on Vimeo.

Be blessed!
Gina
please be in prayer about supporting this ministry....1]by prayer 2]visit 3]donation...more to come on this.  

What a day already!

Today I was up at 6am! I've read my bible...prayed[continueally]. Cleaned the kitchen. Did a load of laundry. Organized the dining room[its my catch all for my crafts]. Ran to the grocery store where i forgot the paper towels:/...I am making jam and homemade beans for dinner. Thinking of making bread...because the homemade bread in awassa is much better than the store bought bread here...and I suppose I am recreating a few of my favorite things there, here.

Still on the list...clean bathrooms, sweep floors and vacuum. It's only 10:26am.

But just because I'm cleaning doesn't mean you have to...so heres a pic of distributing the
headbands...they LOVED these!
[i loved seeing there happy faces getting them!]

and here is a pic of these guys fishing...not too far away was hippos playing in the water and then some kids bathing...and washing there laundry.  I'd say a multi-purposed lake is an under statement. :)

 And we are receiving a refugee boy today, we're keeping him until tomorrow night. Doesn't speak English....this should be fun....but as my husband said it so perfectly...no different than us trying to communicate these last two week.
True. True.

 Love you guys! Gina

New York round two!

So yesterday we landed in new york after 11 hours of flight time.  Seriously that flight seemed longer this time than the first..almost two weeks ago.  I think next time I'd request two night time flights rather than any day time long flights.

We got into new york, and after 11 hours you'd think the airport would be ready for us...the flight staff would be ready for us to "get out".  However we got to our gate and we all stood grabbed our carry ons and then stood there in a line for 20 minutes before they opened the cabin door to release us to the "real world" again.LOL...

Rushed down to get our luggage...after passing through immigration...and we waited for almost a good hour for our luggage.  Then walked around the carousel to look for our missing luggage...and someone was kind enough to take it off the belt and set it on the ground.  boy I wish we would have taken that walk around the carousel sooner...cause for some reason when we get down past immigration and to get the luggage my stomach starts to hurt.
We get into our reserved ride to head to our hotel in new york.  So interesting how many people were striking up conversation with us...asking if we lived in new york....why we had so much luggage.  It was neat to be able to share with them what we did and where we went.  We get to our hotel and we order pizza to be delivered...because while we had the energy on the trip going to explore new york, on the trip coming we lacked that energy with a passion...or maybe we lacked that too!LOL.
While waiting for our pizza to be delivered...we looked over because the kids were super quiet... sure enough they were asleep!  poor things had been up for over 24 hours by this point...i however took a few naps on the flight...trust me no one would want to be around me without a little sleep!  and that ain't no joke!  Pizza came, we ate..and we were all asleep by 7:40!
Tony and i paid dearly for that fall asleep so early....1:30 i looked at the clock... 2:00 looked again..2:30 looked again...3 was like oh my gosh I have to get up!  During those hours of laying there awake...i got  the opportunity to pray for the kids at the orphanage and for our friends running it...and the song ran through my heart "the cost."

[one of the boys i was praying for last night while I should have been sleeping!]

[me and my boy on one of our flights home...after our nice long hot shower in new york.]

WE got up at 5 am and took showers...oh how wonderful they felt.  we are spoiled americans I tell you!    to shower without worrying about lizards being hidden in the shower...and not having to worry about the walk to the shower and the baboon that graced us with his presence more than I cared for..... don't get me wrong...i'm not complaining... i wouldn't have changed our experience for the world...but it was a little culture shock.  There were other "hotels" in awassa we could have stayed at...but I really felt convicted by even thinking of going to a "nicer" hotel while we are going to this land to see the people and the community and the way they live and then for us to go to a 4-5 star hotel each night....i don't know just seemed wrong to me.

And while i hate camping more than anything...I think I did pretty good...all things considered.
So this morning..we headed on two planes to get back to Michigan.  Had to run to the grocery store for bread and milk to get us through til tomorrow...and i had thoughts of just a few days ago the "market" we were shopping at...and the hunt to just find cream to make butter.  These memories will be with us for a life time....To GOD I am thankful for that and HIM be the glory.

and a beautiful pic just to show you how amazing the lord is!

[my boys on the top of the mountain that they climbed early in the am while the princess' slept.]

XOXO!
Gina

Monday in awassa, Ethiopia

I can not believe that as of tomorrow we have one day left here in awassa.  Time has flown by.  We have seen the lord in many ways this trip.  We have met many people.  Ethiopians, Americans, Canadians, Swedish, Germans, and the list goes on...I think my favorite part about this country is that this country is warm...even though at times your not exactly sure what is being said, there is still usually a smile on each others faces while trying to understand. I know I as an American can get caught up in my day to day routine and just put my head down and continue to grind through my day without even having to be social to anyone...that is not the case here. Today is the first day we went out on our own into town.  Kinda scared about it for the first couple of days...but after the first couple of days I was ready.   We went and got coffee....oh yum!  Let me just say we went to time cafe and got a double coffee, large 2 ltr bottle of water, and 4 glass bottle sodas and we paid $4.00!  I'm so gonna miss this!  We then ran across the street for our new friend Ellen...she needed some bread to make the kids in the children's home some radish sandwiches....I just so happened to make some butter [a VERY hot commodity here] and all she needed was the butter, bread and radishes which they grew in the garden at the children's home....after we got our bread we headed back to the house and then went and saw the kids again for the 3rd time that day.  Those kids are just so precious!  Each one has captured a place in my heart.   There's [4] that have especially captured my heart....one is a 10 year old girl named marta...her sweet spirit has won my heart...em really enjoyed playing with her today so much...holding hands, playing soccer together....while we were inside em and the girls were outside playing and I could hear all of there belly laughs which was so great to hear! The next one who has also captured my heart is lantou.... She is so precious! I could just listen to her talk for days...she is so sweet and loves Jesus! Soon I will post a video of her love for Jesus... The next one is amanu...this little boy is usually a sad boy, who doesn't smile much, but has been so smiley since we've seen him...he is the little boy that had malaria pretty severe and almost died...he is I believe only 2...oh how I love to see his face light up when we come in the gates...and he just loves to sit on my lap and wear my sunglasses and bracelets.... And then there is mieret...she is beautiful and sweet and just turned one year old...and of course she keeps with my theory of the cuter they are the fiestier they are...she loves to play hard to get.... I could go on about each child there....but I won't this time.... On Sunday tony got to teach at the children's home...that was cool...a little put on the spot, but a blessing for sure.... Tonight was our first walk home hearing the hippos!  That was sweet! Tomorrow [tuesday] on the agenda is lunch with our friends..Rachel and argaw and Ellen [which I'm sure they must be sick of us by now, but wont admit it!]...and then were off to our "house" where there offering kids sports and our kids and the kids from the children's home will get to play around a bit...I'm sure they will love that.   Seriously I can't believe our time here is almost up...everyone one and just about every experience is going to be missed very much! Love, Gina

Friday in awassa, Ethiopia

Mans heart  plans his ways but god directs his paths.~proverbs 16:9 This is the case for yesterday.   We had planned to just go explore the community...to see the needs around and in awassa....however on our walk to Rachel and argaws home we ran into Ellen...and she told us that the orphanage was short handed today due to sickness with 2 of the mamas. We held babies...played ball with the older girls....had swing time with the younger boy...the other younger boy was sick.  We took lots of pictures that we will update when we get home...but all the kids loved trying on my sunglasses and wearing my necklace.   I'm so thankful that the lord directs us...because I would have hated to miss out on this day. We went and had lunch at my all time fav [time cafe]...I had two[!] coffees and pizza for lunch..our friends who have been here for 6 years said ok there are these little salt balls on the pizza...you can just pick them off...when the pizza arrived I said hmmm that's funny cause it looks like peas...sure enough...that's what they were...I had a really good laugh over that...Some of the peas looked extra janky...but they were non the less peas.  After lunch we headed back to the orphanage....while our kids stayed back at our friends home...to prevent them from getting sick...Isaac did choose to come with us...but we warned him sickness isn't the same here.  I felt he was old enough to make the decision on this own. I'm proud of him for his decision. Emma is being fought over by our friends boys. She has mentioned several times that she doesnt like to be fought over... Her exact words were " because I mean im not the last cookie on the plate mom!" oh this child!  Gotta love her personality. The boys have done a really good job just playing with the kids and keeping them occupied... So far em was sick last night with some breathing issues and ezra was sick the first day[stomach ache]...but we've been on top of things with some home remedies and lots of vitamins. Ezra has already said he wants to come back here again next year...em has said she wants to move here.  I've just really enjoyed our new friends,this new community and all gods beauty in everyday. By his grace which I am so overwhelmed by! Gina

Thursday in awassa, Ethiopia

So I've written this blog post several times and it just isn't coming together right.  Our time here in awassa has been awesome.  The lord is good. So far we've seen the children's home and helped organize there clothing closets while tony painted with what we "jokingly" said was lead paint :/ Today we are going to kind of explore the community a bit more.  We are praying to the lord continually for his will while we are on this trip. Several kids have come to us begging... It breaks my heart. I hate to say no... But if you give to one you must give to all. And this walk we take everyday...is the kids asking us for money and water and chocolate[i love their accent!] This morning the lord has burdened my heart to do some form of outreach for this community.  We will continue to pray on this and see if this is in fact the lords will or just my human heart to want to help... One of the days we were here, several kids came up to us and held our hands and asking for things...stained clothes/ dirty clothing....dirty faces...but offering to sing and dance for us as we walk...an image I won't forget.   Love you guys! Gina

Wednesday in awassa, Ethiopia

Hello family... Day two and our days are flying by! this morning we woke early... But had such a good night sleep!  We felt rested and ready to go.   We headed to Rachel and argaws house....we went to the bank...exchanged the feed [1] orphan Monies into burr...wow did we look like kings! Lol... Well really jesus looked like the king that he is...cause this is his money to do what he wants with it. Then we exchanged our money to pay for our room and food and such... We then headed home for lunch.. Oh wait I forgot to mention I had a double of that amazing coffee I spoke about on my last blog post...seriously so so good! I'm so hooked! During lunch we had a friend join us....it was so neat to see our friend...we had been waiting. Then somehow we lost track of time...and oh snap...we were suppose to be back at their house to go to the children's home at 4:00pm...we left our housing at 4:40! Oops our bad...guess we've adjusted to Ethiopian time already...cause per our friend Rachel everyone is late....i was just keepin it real. Jet lag doesn't seem to be an issue at all for us. Praise him!  Tomorrow we will be getting to work...I'm excited to be helping in anyway possible..I will update again as I can. Love, Gina

Tuesday in awassa, Ethiopia

Hello family! Well our first full day in awassa was nice... We were very tired! Well that's actually an understatement... We left new York on Sunday evening...headed straight for Cairo Egypt...that was a 10 hour flight time...we however sat on the runway for 2[!] hours...please feel free to insert your saddest face here for me....the flight to Cairo wasn't too bad...a little long... But we all slept for a few hours..praise god! We had a day tour lined up in Cairo that was interesting...we will have several pictures to post as well as much to say later on that trip...like me on a camel!!! Shut up right?!?! That's what I was thinking as I was doing my best not to fall off that thing!  In case you were wondering...camels are very deceiving!  There hugely tall! [notice all my exclamation points! Yep it's how I felt...fo sho!] We left Cairo at 10:45 and headed to addis...this is where the fun just begins.  We head out of the terminal and more visa's need to be filled out...which normally wouldn't be a problem except that it's now 3:30 am and I didn't get much sleep on the plane.  I filled out all 5 visas [cuz Tonys handwriting is atrocious] and as we are waiting in line I start to feel very sick and weak and as if kinda that cold sweats feeling...while we stood  inline for our visas I decide to try and sit and see if that helps... Sadly it didn't.  We continue through customs which there was a lot of people on that flight and because we had so many visas to fill out we had to be the last people in the customs line...but we thought... Okay smooth sailing from here...except I'm still feeling sick...like passout sick...and our thought is get out from customs and find me something to drink...to my very sadness there were no place to get drinks...just a place to grab our luggage and wait in the next line to have it rescanned through security.  Praise the lord only one of our 10 bags got flagged...headed out of the airport and I thank god for Rachel and her assistant Ellen!  They had been waiting for us...ready for our 4-5 hour journey to awassa. The driver was nice...I felt extremely sick still so on our journey to awassa I tried to sleep in Tony's lap...only waking up every time we got stopped by the police.  I felt so bad for our driver and us too... He planned a shorter trip and so did we... But do to all the stops by police and get coffee our journey took 6 hours... But praise god we stopped for coffee cause it gave me the "opportunity" to feel better.  After puking this sweet guy came up and offered me this piece of fruit...known for making them feel better..rachel said kindly no thank you and ordered me a delicious coffee!! Um I'll take 12 please!! Seriously I can't wait for more! We finally made it to awassa... To rachel and argaws home.  We got to unpack all there goodies from their parents and friends. Then we got to show them a small glimpse of all the amazing things you guys have supplied for them.  We let them know how awesome our church family is!  And our online family who is also supporting them.  Providing for their children's home[they prefer that word over orphanage.] We love you guys!! Thank you so much for every donation. We took a short trip to the children's home..that was so cool!  The workers are also such sweet friends...one man who works there also offered to borrow his friends car to let us borrow it...he picked us up in his bejudge [my spell is prob off] but it's like a mini cab...you cram as many people as you can in one..our friends can put 3 adults and 4 kids in one!.. Such a sweet guy... They have 3 new babies in the children's home. How cool is that.  One set of twins that are 9 months old and weights less than 10lbs!  Sweet Jesus i don't even understand that.  One infant that there not sure the age...prob around 2-3 months? Then we headed for our home.  To unpack,nap since we hadn't slept at all the night before, shower since that had been a few days too, and then off to dinner with our new friends...who I know it's only day 1 but really love them and their hearts!!  Til next wifi signal. Love you guys! Gina 

an bigger update is coming on our travels...

Hi family...a bigger update of our travels is coming...I'm sorry i haven't had much of a chance with a wireless connection...i'm boot-legging rachels internet.  She and her family are super sweet!  They have been so gracious to our family....most people would be like ok...how about we skip a few days of seeing each other...but nope not this family...although they could tell us that and we'd be totally ok with that! ;)
We spent the day at the orphanage....those kids have all stolen my heart. more on those beautiful kids later.
Please pray for 2 of the mamas at the orphanage and the kids...as well as our family and Rachel and Argaw's family...that we don't get any of this typhus(?) sickness going around...and for healing for the two mamas...as they are sick.
Ok.  I gotta run...hopefully i will update later tonight but forsure tomorrow.

Love you all!
Gina
p.s God is amazing! :)

preperation....

I seriously can't believe that we are only...

11 1/2 days away!

WOW. Something I thought that seemed like an eternity..

Its here. 

This morning on the way to school we prayed. [like always.]

but this time we asked the Lord to speak to us. 

I told him, were listening. Please speak.

Then as I was on my way home from taking the kids to school...

i was praying.  Asking the Lord to prepare our hearts.

To see things we are so unfamiliar with...

the breaking of our hearts for others...

to Love unconditionally.

To be lead by him.

The Lord gave me an image in my head.

And it brought me to tears.

tears.

after I saw that image in my mind...I prayed that i would be able to able to do that.

to set myself aside.

to be used by him for his glory only and always.

 I don't want to share the details of the image he gave me.

but I want to see Him bring it to be.

I want to hear Him so clearly.

Sometimes i'm hard of hearing.

So I say scream Lord...and I'm listening intently.

Your will be done...not mine.

We covet your prayers.

I will soon be posting an update of the supplies the Lord supplied through

HIS willing body...

the hands and feet of jesus that you all have been...and are.

Love you all!

Gina

You can help us help the people of Ethiopia!

My family and I have our plane tickets! EEEKKK!! So nerve racking!  God is doing amazing things already.

We have a layover in Egypt which we have booked a tour for the kids to see the pyramids.  It will be so neat to read to them the scriptures while looking at them to understand that they were built in biblical times.  I'm also thankful we found something to do while we wait for our 11 hour connecting flight.  Hopefully this little outing will give them enough energy to get back on the plane for the next jont.  Ethiopia! 

So we asked the beautiful family that runs the orphanage if they are in need of anything for the kids there, or the families that are being sponsored by people just like you.  And she did give us a list...Would you pray about helping us stuff our suitcases to the max for these beautiful people?

Needs for the orphanage:

Shoes for girls sizes 10-11 all the way up to 3-4's.

Boys and girls clothing mainly for older kids...preteen, teenagers to young adults and pretty much anything in between....but if you feel God laying a specific size that is not listed here on your on heart...listen to Him, He will have a plan for it!

The orphanage gets a lot of infant clothing donated...so that's why that's not being requested.

Samaritans purse shoe box items...small toys, tooth brushes, small books, coloring stuff....all that you would put in one of those shoe boxes...


Our Needs:
We still could use monetary [$$] donations for our trip....this is costing every bit of the initial we felt God calling us to save.. $10,000.00 plus more...So if God is laying it on your heart...There is a donate button on this blog, or contact me for our mailing address.  We still have many expenses to pay for...Lodging at multiple locations for just over two weeks, transportation,  food for 5 people for two weeks, Tony taking two weeks completely unpaid, immunizations $1,000.00!  We had not idea!  and others...

oh and i still am selling headbands to raise money for this trip...like this... completely customizable [you pick your colors]...just email me if you want to buy one...$25.00 per headband for woman or a lot smaller for you daughter for $15.00.  :)

FEED [1] Orphan Money... Also still accepting donations....items still available for purchase.  contact us if you need more information.

Prayer!  please pray for us.   pray for our time there.  pray for our hearts to be opened.  pray for safety.  pray for us to be the hands and feet of Jesus to anyone and everyone we come in contact with.

Pray for health for our family.  Specifically Emma has to get a lot of shots, and her little body doesn't hand shots well.  But as a friend said today...God's got this!  Amen, he does...but we covet your prayers.

Pray for wisdom and discernment and filling of the holy spirit with our entire family.

Okay, I gotta go run sweet Emme to the doctor now, cause she is sick, again....

XOXO!  
WE really do love you guys!
Gina
P.S our travel dates are June 3rd-June 15th.  :)