Sweet Lemons

Happy New Year!!! Now that I finally feel like my feet are touching the ground I feel like I can write to you all. I wanted to share with you two of the projects our family will be working on this year. 2011 seemed to be a year where God showed us so much pain that people were going through. So much hopelessness. Sometimes it was not always my husband and I who saw this...it was actually our girls who would bring it to our attention. So because my girls amaze me I will share with you their project first.

Do you know how many people die because they don't have clean drinking water? I didn't know until my daughter started asking me why people die from not having clean drinking water. I am not sure what sparked her interest in this, but we started searching for answers for her. Did you know that about 5,500 people die everyday because of the lack of clean water. 5,500! I was amazed!!!! Why are we not more outraged about this? What aren't we trying to do more? I didn't have any answers and I didn't know what we could do. My oldest daughters started a lemonade stand for the 4th of July. It started as a way for them to have spending money at camp. One day while we were mixing up a batch of lemonade The Inquisitor started talking to us. "It's just water and some powder? Do you know how many people won't be able to have lemonade because they don't have clean drinking water?" Out of this conversation which lasted much longer than just two questions came "Sweet Lemons". 1 out of every 8 people in the world don't have access to a vital ingredient to lemonade- WATER. Imagine walking miles to a water source than carrying back enough for the family, and sometimes the water still isn't safe. Our goal is to help kids all over the world gain access to clean drinking water, and we will do it one cup of lemonade at a time. On average for every 10 cups of lemonade we sell, we are able to provide a sustainable water source for one child. Will you help our girls this year reach their goal of giving the gift of clean drinking water? Help us make 2012 a year of HOPE for so many!

Having been a family that was once in need I understand how it feels to go to the Food Bank or Food Shelf. I am not sure what they call it here. Often times I have felt that the church should be doing more about people in need. Well...since I am a big believe that WE the people are the church...I am going to stop waiting for the "church" building to do something..I am going to start. So my idea comes from friends of mine. Who have helped us out in huge ways and given us this idea which will help others out in a huge way. I love the help that the Food Bank once gave us. The only problem was that it was a mess of food. No real rhyme or reason. It was just a box full of this and that. So what I would like to do is give items that are very specific and go with a recipe. We are sorting out a room in our basement to store some of this stuff. We also plan to keep on hand extra diapers, toilet paper and city bags. These seem to be the things we are asked for the most when people knock on our door. We still are not set up to accept donations as we don't have our space cleaned out all the way. But we praying that you will help us make 2012 a year of HOPE for people in our area. 

So if you can't tell our theme for 2012 is HOPE!