Ezana

This is Ezana.

He is 6 years old and lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with his mother.  His father is dead.  We are sponsoring him through an organization called Yezelalem Minch.  The small amount of money that we provide gives him food, medical care, schooling, clothes, shoes, and helps his mom out too!  A social worker even comes to his house and checks on him and his mom to make sure they are doing ok.

Yezelalem Minch is a great organization began by, and run by Ethiopians to help AIDS orphans in their communities.  They not only provide the practical needs for these kids and their families, they provide them hope that they do indeed have a future and work to reduce the stigma of being an "AIDS orphan" in a country where that stigma is still very very real.

Orphan Sunday is November 7th, 2010 this year.  Yezelalem Minch is doing a HUGE push to try to find sponsors for ALL the children they help by this date, but they don't have enough volunteers yet.  Do you have $30 a month?  I do.  For us, that's:

Less than 1 tank of gas
1 pair of kid's shoes
2 tickets to a movie
A very small trip to the grocery store
A co-pay at the doctor
A pedicure

For more information, check out:

 http://www.helpsinternationalministries.org/outreach/yezelalem.shtml

And to all you parents out there who struggle with our sometimes borderline spoiled, almost entitled, soaked-in-American-materialism-despite-our-best-efforts, (likely) biological children?  That Ezana is our sponsor child is no accident.  I have a 6 year-old.  Sometimes he doesn't like what I set out for him to wear to school.  Sometimes he gets upset that there is butter on his fresh, warm bagel in the morning rather than whipped cream cheese.  Sometimes he whines when I tell him that it is time to take a nice, hot bubble bath in a sparkling clean bathtub filled with tubby toys.  Those are the times when I look at him, and then point to Ezana's picture on his nightstand.  There are no words required.  The conversation is over.  Just sayin'.