August 2006

Many children in Liberia have very few personal possessions.  They do not have a toy box or multiple changes of clothes.  Most of them spend their day watching their siblings so their parents can work or the children are working by selling items on the street, such as water, CD's, phone cards, etc.  We see lots of school age children that should be in class along the streets when we go anywhere.

People think that they need to have a special skill to go on a mission trip. They need to be college educated so they can teach the local people how to change their "backward ways". 

Sometimes it's the little things that matter.  One of the many "little things" that we took to Liberia this year was kites from the dollar store.  We spent a few afternoons flying kites in the spectacular Liberian winds. 

One day at lunch, we looked out the window of the school building we stayed at to see "kites" flying over the beach.  The local kids had taken trash from the beach and fashioned discarded plastic bags and VCR tape into working kites.  Kids who had seen a kite fly for a few minutes just the day before found a way to create their own, entertaining themselves for hours and learning a new skill.

With a dollar store kite we changed a kid's life.  Who knows what your donation of time can accomplish?   We are planning our mission teams for 2007.  We can only take 16 people to Liberia and we already have almost 10 committed.  Plus we have teams going to Indonesia and India.  We will be sending out emails to people who are interested in changing

kids' lives by flying kites, working on a medical team or doing something special that they can share.  Respond to this email now and I will contact you with some dates for an information meeting about short term mission opportunities.

Please mark your calendars for the Magical Night of Giving at the SuperMall on Sunday November 5th from 7pm to 11pm.  Tickets are $5 and all of the proceeds go to Serve the Children of the tickets that you purchase from us.  We made $4000 last year at this fundraiser.  Contact us to purchase the tickets. 

Sackie wants us to send him a drum set and guitars.  If you have one of these items, please contact us and we will ship it on the next container.

Our kids in India are doing great in school.  Recent rains there have caused a little damage in the village where we have our operations.

Thank-you for all of your support.

Ashley Merwin

Doug Collier