Passports!

Team,
Please check the name on your passport and the name that I emailed you. Are they identical??? I hope so!! If not, please email me ASAP Ryanashlie@aol.com

T-shirts for the Trip:

Team,
Kari and I have both started t-shirt fundraisers for our Ethiopian Adoptions. We would like to offer them to you for $10.00 each! This is a SPECIAL ONLY for our VO Mission Trip team!!! We know that each and everyone of you are working toward the $3,400 expense for the trip. We also would like to have a couple team pictures in the same shirt!!!!

Here are the details:
*You will receive the t-shirts once we are all together. (Either in the Airport or in Uganda) This will save on the shipping cost! We will bring them marked with your name in a suitcase.

*Pay $10 at Paypal.com

*For Kari's Simply Love Shirt put in this email address: gibsongroup@gmail.com
*For Ashlie's Africa Shirt pt in this email: rynsig@yahoo.com

*Please leave in the special notes their address, size & VO Mission Group special rate-
$10- per shirt

Got Questions? PLEASE ASK!!!!!
If the only payment is difficult for you, please email me at Ryanashlie@aol.com and you can mail a check!!!

Please continue to pray for our trip! Love, Ashlie

VISITING AND LOVING ORPHANS FROM HEAD TO TOE

Hi Team! This is a post from Kari (co-leaders) website: MyCrazyAdoption.org. If you aren't registered on her website, you might want to be! You will get an email when she has new post. All of her post are relevant to our team, concerning God, Life, and Orphans!! =)

I’m so excited to have special guest blogger, Sumer who just came back from a 14 day mission trip with Visiting Orphans in Uganda and Ethiopia. We only have 1 more spot open for my crazy team of 25. Please take time today to pray and ask- are you the 1?
Sumer’s Testimony: When looking over the itinerary for my upcoming Visiting Orphans trip to Uganda and Ethiopia, I knew that it was going to be difficult emotionally. Although, I was beyond excited to go and to get to be the hands and feet of Jesus, I had read pretty much the complete catalog of Katie Davis blog posts, and I knew that this work was not glamorous in the earthly sense. But it was pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God – it was glamorous in His eyes.

And of all the places I was to visit on my trip, there was only one that I dreaded…the trash dump. How do you walk away from a child so destitute and deprived that they live and eat in piles of garbage? At least at first, I had envisioned them as just little piles of garbage. I later found out that it is actually mountains of trash as far as the eye can see. And yet, what could I do for them in my one day? Their plight seemed hopeless.

The night before we were to visit these children, I had the privilege of hearing Sammy’s story. Sammy grew up in Korah, a community next to the landfill that began as a leper colony and is now made up of close to 80,000 societal outcasts. The people of Korah are considered untouchable by most, and thousands of them eat from the trash dump daily. Sammy spent his childhood collecting food from the landfill. He acknowledges that it is only by God’s grace that he was able to eventually go to school and get a job. He spends his free time ministering to the orphan children who still live there. Sammy reminded me that our God is hope for the hopeless.

The next day was Christmas Day in Ethiopia and standing in that horrendous place that I had dreaded so much, I knew I was right where God wanted me to be. We served the children a traditional Ethiopian dinner, passed out clothes, and candy, and party hats, and listened to them sing Happy Birthday to Jesus in their beautifully broken English. Later, another team member said she was glad that she went, but she would never go back. I thought to myself I will go back everyday until every child that lays their head down to sleep in that landfill has a home and the hope that only a relationship with Jesus Christ can bring.
There are over 100 orphans who live in the city landfill of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. These children have very little hope of a better life. Amazingly, through my time in Africa, God called my family to spend the summer with these children. For the next few months we will work on getting all of them sponsored to go to boarding school in the fall, and then we will spend the summer teaching them English and getting them ready to go to school for the first time.

=
I will be excited to meet all the members of the Visiting Orphans teams coming this summer, and I will be praying for you as God prepares you hearts for the amazing blessing that meeting the children Ethiopia and Uganda will bring!
Thank you Sumer!!
More Links to read:
http://sumerwithonem.blogspot.com/2010/01/begin-with-end.html

Mark Your Calendar

Bradenton Crew, Here are the Dates and Times of our Fundraising Events:
1. Applebees Dining to Donate- 4pm-9pm
March 18th
April 18th
May 9th
2. March 19th=Childcare for the Adult Wii Tournament, time TBA
3. March 26= Parents Night Out 6pm
4. April 17th= Africa Table for Spring Bazaar
4. May 2nd= Spaghetti Dinner and Silent Auction

If you have not already, please RSVP to the events you are committed to!
Thanks,
Ashlie

Workin hard for the Money!

CRAZY FUNDRAISING IDEAS
Click the link to read Kari's post about how to make this trip financially affordable!!

6 Spots Left, MAYBE....

Kari and I are blown away that 19 adventurous, passionate people have signed up to join us in Uganda and Ethiopia this July! Simply AMAZING!!!! We have 6 more spots to fill, if this is your trip DO NOT miss out!

If you are working on collecting donations, Visiting Orphans now has on online donation page!!! YAY!!!
To send to friends or family, copy and paste this link: http://www.visitingorphans.org/donations/donate.aspx

You can make personal payments for your trip there or others can make donations “in honor” of you. One of the “kinks” of this page at this time, is that the person making a donation in honor of someone else, needs to know the address of the honoree. As you request donations, be sure and include your personal address, so that possible donors can designate their donation in this way.

Have you thought about starting your own personal blog to share your story? It's simple, trust me! Go to blogger.com to make your own Blogspot (just like this one). Feel free to call or email me if you have ANY questions, I'm happy to help.

If you have any questions about immunizations, passports, or payments, PLEASE email or me! Ryanashlie@aol.com 941-448-5781
Hugs,
Ashlie

$$ APPLEBEES $$

Happy Friday Team =)

If you are in the Bradenton, FL area please mark your calendar for:
Thursday, March 18th
Sunday, April 18th
Monday, May 24th

Applebees, off of St Rd 70 by Creekwood, will give us 10% of the sales from 4:00-9:00. Customers HAVE TO have the flyer with them.
Woodland will print them and we can pass them out at church on Saturday, March 13th and Sunday, March 14th. We will also promote it on Woodland's E-News. We will each have a stack of flyers to pass out to friends and family.
Please email me at Ryanashlie@aol.com if you plan to participate in this Fundraiser.

If you are not from the Bradenton area, I highly encourage you to contact your local Applebees to set up dates!!!!


Have a great weekend,
Ashlie

15 Members of our team and GROWING!!

15 of you have registered, AMAZING!!! Kari and I are thrilled!!! Only 10 spots left, don't hesitate to apply if you know this is your trip!!!
Apply at: Visiting Orphans

Please check out MyCrazyAdoption tomorrow for a very special report on the Mission Trip from our Co-Leader Kari Gibson.

Amanda Lawrence is the Exectutive Director of Visiting Orphans. She is a huge inspiration to me and is organizing the travel arragements of our trip. If you have Facebook, you seriously should request her friendship. Everytime I read her status updates I have to stop, think and pray. Tonight she sent me this email:

BASICALLY Haiti is happening to children all over this world….the media is just not covering it. They lose their parents suddenly to HIV, malaria, malnutrition, starvation and other horrific ends to a life. Or, they are traumatized as they are just abandoned and left with a feeling of worthlessness, feeling forgotten and not knowing the consistent love of a parent or anyone else. Some orphans never even get to see outside of the building of their orphanage. Orphans in this world, unless visited by God’s people, will not know their Savior as their Abba Daddy. He is their Father and He is the only one who in our absence can gie them the consistent love they were created to receive. If we don’t go…who will go for us?

Watch this Video:

I hope you will get a chance to watch the video. It says everything I would want to tell you about our calling to go and serve.
With Love,
Ashlie

February 1st Meeting

The planning of the trip is coming along great! I'm excited to announce that Kari Gibson, the author and founder of MyCrazyAdoption.org is going to Co-Lead this Mission Trip. Check out her site for her recent posting about the trip.

Many of you have RSVP'd to our meeting on February 1st. It will be at 6:00pm at Woodland Community Church, in room #115. We will be discussing the timeline, application, fundraising, and immunizations.

Please feel free to invite anyone who might be interested in this trip. We are looking to build a team of 25 people, which can include anyone who has a passion to serve. We currently have people joining our team from New York and Missouri!!!!

I look forward to seeing you on Monday!
Joyfully, Ashlie
Ryanashlie@aol.com

Moving Forward!!!

Many of you have contacted me about the next step in the Mission Trip. Below are the steps you should take to secure your place in our team. Please save the date for Monday, February 1st, we will have a meeting at 6:00 at Woodland Community Church. Please RSVP to Ryanashlie@aol.com if you plan to attend!

What to do:
1. To secure your spot on the Mission Trip fill out the application on Visiting Orphan's website: http://www.visitingorphans.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=34009

2. Get a passport- If you already have one please check the expiration date!!! Here is the website to apply for a new one or renewal: http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html

3. Make and appointment at Manatee County Health Department (or your local health department) for immunizations. I just went last month for my shots. They are extremely helpful and will tell you exactly what they recommend for a trip to Ethiopia and Uganda. Yellow Fever is the only shot that is mandatory, although I went ahead and got all the recommended shots, including Hepatitis A and B, Tetanus, and Typhoid.
If you would like to do your own research start with:
CDC (Center of Disease Control) http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/content/vaccinations.aspx

4. Gather friends and families home addresses and email addresses to send a donation request letter. You can also start to work on your own letter, I sent you a template early on. Let me know if you would like me to resend it.

Please let me know if you have any other questions and I look forward to seeing you on February 1st. *I will have fundraising plans to share at the meeting, please try to attend!

Thanks, Ashlie
Ryanashlie@aol.com

Welcome 2010

Happy New Year!!! I woke up this morning and thought, "What will I do this year to make a difference in the world?" I then remembered, I'm going on a mission trip to Ethiopia and Uganda!!!! 2010 is going to be an amazing, life-changing year. Now that the Holidays have come and gone, it is time to get serious about our mission trip. All the information will be communicated through this blog and email. We have a lot to do to prepare for our mission.
First, take some time to look over the trip guides that I emailed, explore the Visiting Orphans website and read a little about Amazima. (Link to your right) Recently, I found out that we have been chosen to visit Amazima, in Uganda. It is an orphanage and school started by a 20 year old American named Katie. She feeds 400 children 3 meals a day. I cannot wait to hug her!!! On July 24th we will be serving lunch to 400 children, playing games, making crafts, and teaching a bible story. Our trip is filled with opportunities such as these.

I hope this blog puts a smile on your face today! I look forward to planning this trip with you and seeing how God works in each and every one of us.

**We are still recruiting members of our team, please forward this blog to interested friends or family.

Next topic: FUNDRAISING!!!

Smiles, Ashlie