Day 100: Leaving Home

Leaving America can often be hugely eye-opening.  We've grown up here, and the access we have to water, food, education, and homes, seems so ordinary.  We don't think twice about where we will get food to fill our stomachs.  And the simple twist of the faucet unleashes gallons and gallons of cold clean water.  But to go away from this country, and enter another that is not as well off as our own, we then see how most of the world lives.  Unreliable electricity.  Unclean water that must be retrieved.  Many people without jobs, living in need.

The trip becomes a clarifying lens.  We suddenly are able to see clearly the blessings that we have.  Gifts.  Skills.  Resources.  Money.  When we learn and begin to understand the needs in these other places, we also can see how we are called to help.

John just returned from Africa, where he experienced this firsthand.  We've been processing his trip, and there are exciting prospects on the horizon.  Ways that we may be able to bridge our lives with theirs.  We hope to make a difference.  I'm excited to perhaps share this dream with you in the next 260 days.  

HALO, Helping Art Liberate Orphans, is an organization founded by Rebecca Neuenswander Welsh.  Another dream that was born from a trip outside of the USA, and is now flourishing. 

"In 2002, Rebecca went on a mission trip to Honduras. It was there her life took an unexpected turn.

"I encountered a girl named Daisy, she was living on the streets, she's six years old, she was begging on the streets for water," Rebecca said. "And I'm thinking how do I live a six-hour flight from here my whole life and I have no idea this is going on?"

Back home, Rebecca shared Daisy's story with kids in America. They were so moved they started fundraising - $5,000 went to orphans in Mexico. Soon, Rebecca began to receive artwork from them as a thank you.

"We had all this artwork and we decided to do an art auction," she said. "It just went over so well, because you sell a piece with a child's story and it's so powerful for people to be able to connect to that.

In 2005, Rebecca formed the charity - helping art liberate orphans - or HALO. 

"We would do art therapy with the kids and it just helped them communicate better and raise their self esteem," Rebecca said. The organization currently supports 11 orphanages around the world.

HALO also serves more than 1,000 underprivileged kids at educational centers in Kansas City and Denver. Last year, Rebecca's charity raised more than $300,000 to support the kids.

"It's about reaching out and really wanting to make a difference," she said. "Everybody wants to do something they just have to figure out how to do it."

Rebecca found that by using her own strength she was able to help build a strong life for others." CBS News


Helping Art Liberate Orphans from Ambitious Pixels on Vimeo.

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Day 65: Loving orphans

"Daphne Sheldrick was the first person in the entire world to successfully hand rear newborn fully milk dependent African Elephant orphans, something that spanned 28 years of trial and error to achieve. By the year 2008 The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust had successfully saved and hand-reared over 82 infant African Elephant calves, two from the day of birth. Currently, over 40 of the Trust’s hand-reared elephants are fully established and living free amongst their wild peers in Tsavo, some returning with wild born young to show their erstwhile human family. Based at two established Elephant Rehabilitation Centers within Tsavo East National Park others are still in the gradual process of re-integration with yet others in early infancy at the Trust’s Nairobi National Park Elephant and Rhino Nursery. The Trust has trained a team of competent Elephant Keeper who replace the orphans’ lost elephant family until such time as the transition to the wild herds has been accomplished, something that can take up to 10 years, since elephant calves duplicate their human counterparts in terms of development through age progression. Those that were orphaned too young to recall their elephant family remain dependent longer, but all the Trust’s orphans eventually take their rightful place amongst their wild counterparts, including those orphaned on the day they were born.

Read about the first orphan Samson who arrived in 1954." The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

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