First ever Lahash fundraising banquet!

Plans are underway for our first Lahash fundraising banquet. While the event is not until November 14, the banquet planning team has been meeting for the past several months praying, dreaming, planning, and letting the banquet theme, “Your light will rise”, infiltrate every area of our lives. We rejoice that Susan Tabia will be our speaker for the evening, and that her personal travel plans are coming together well. We wait and work in anticipation of an amazing night filled with the stories of the children, video footage to help us connect with our East African family on a more personal level, rousing African music, and of course, tasty food.

On Saturday August 15^th, eight Lahash volunteers (the “Captains”) met at the Melody Ballroom to network and brainstorm together about ways to invite both old friends and new to participate in the upcoming Banquet. The team immediately united with a passion for raising both awareness and funds for suffering children in Uganda and Southern Sudan. As they brainstormed a list of people and businesses to contact, the excitement for the event steadily rose throughout the team. The continuing role of the Captains is to invite 30+ friends, family members, churches, and businesses to financially sponsor each of the thirty tables. The team is also looking for hosts for each of the tables, who will have the opportunity to invite nine of their friends to join their table for the event. We anticipate that at least 300 guests will join us for the evening!

There are many opportunities to help make this banquet an amazing event. There will be a host/sponsor meeting Wednesday, September 2 at 6pm at Berean Baptist church (4822 N Vancouver Ave) where we’ll be sharing a dinner of pizza and salad and explaining these opportunities in further detail. If you are at all interested in either of these roles, we encourage you to attend! If you cannot attend, but would like information on serving as a sponsor, host, volunteer, or attendee please contact Mandi Stonehouse at mlstonehouse@gmail.com. Also, if you would like to join us in praying for this event, please contact Dana Bertermann at bertermann@hotmail.com.

We hope to see you Wednesday!

Storehouse at Amazing Grace repaired!

We just got an update from the folks at our Sudanese orphanage of Amazing Grace. Some of you remember a couple months ago we had severe windstorm damage to the storehouse at the orphanage. Eric Chapman and others raised funds to repair this structure that helps provide for the kids. Here are the photos of the repairs!

The building sustained heavy damage in a rainstorm. Pretty powerful to be able to rip off the roof!

Local workmen were hired to replace the roof, and repair and repaint the walls.

It now looks so much better! Thank you!

Finishing up phase 1 at the office!

Our Portland office renovation is going well! Thanks to all of you who've been by to paint and sand and nail and clean. And thanks to everyone for the contributions that have enabled us to buy the supplies we've needed! It's very encouraging. We are now down to $2,725 needed out of a total of $5,000. For those that would like to share funds for this effort - you can visit our online donation page.

We've gone with some muted yellows, greens, and tan for the old home. And we'll be putting up some white trim to finish the process.

There are still several rooms that need paint, sanding, floors, and fixtures. This weekend (for those in the Portland area) we have some workdays available:

* Thursday (August 13) 8 AM to 8 PM

* Friday (August 14) 8 AM to 8 PM

* Saturday (August 15) 8 AM to 2 PM

Email our office if you'd like to schedule in some volunteer hours!

From New Office Upgrade!

Meeting Ashina Awour

We are meeting with Ashina Awuor a 9 year old girl who goes at Tenderfeet education center. She come from a family of a single mother in Kibera and her sister Shamira Achieng who also goes to Tenderfeet. She is at Pre-Unit and she love Maths and her hobby is cooking. The father died after a short illness leaving there mother to take care of them. Before they used to be in a different school but there mother was not able to pay school fees for them. There mother sells Fish but this is not enough to pay rent,school fees and food for them . she is so grateful that she is at Tenderfeet where she has met many new friends and she learns a lot at school.