from hope to reality

If you haven’t yet watched our Ethiopia video, let me encourage you to take the next 3 1/2 minutes and watch it.

This is our Ethiopia video that premiered at our recent benefit concert with Caedmon’s Call. It was created by Brannon McAllister from footage captured on our recent trip to Ethiopia. The children shown in this video live at one of the orphanages with which we work, an orphanage located in a village with [...]

The staff at Carolina Hope wants to thank Desiring God for their very kind and thoughtful blog post about our recent trip to Ethiopia and our upcoming benefit concert.  Lukas Naugle’s post was encouraging to us.  It has been our great privilege to partner with them in these ways.
(Donations to help Ethiopian orphans can be [...]

(Donations to help Ethiopian orphans can be made here. Tickets to the Ethiopia Benefit Concert can be purchased here.)
:: picture taken by dan ::

(Donations to help Ethiopian orphans can be made here. Tickets to the Ethiopia Benefit Concert can be purchased here.)
:: picture taken by dan ::

The picture below was taken at the same orphanage where these three pictures were taken (one, two, three). As I mentioned in the post of the first picture linked to above, we had just handed out colored pencils and paper to the children. They were all very quick to sit down to start drawing. [...]

These children were enjoying watching themselves as I filmed them. And yes, I was listening.
Wesen, the gentleman speaking, is talking about churches sending mission teams to this orphanage to serve these orphans (builders, teachers, musicians, electricians, health professionals, people who just love spending time with children, etc).

[Update: Donations to benefit Ethiopian orphans can be [...]

Marty McAlpine, Media Engineer at Desiring God, accompanied us on our trip to Ethiopia to video capture much of what we did while there. The director of the orphanage where the picture below was taken told us that many professional cameramen come through their particular village (a village with 20,000+ known cases of AIDS) to [...]

:: posted by dan ::

This picture, as well as the last, was taken in the neediest orphanage of the three with which we are working. These children have great food support needs, space needs, and clothing needs. Yet look at this little girl’s smile. This is a smile that is blossoming in the midst of profoundly difficult life circumstances. [...]

I’ve dreamed about Ethiopia every night since my return from that amazing country. One thing I am learning is that you really don’t visit Ethiopia when you cross its borders. It visits you. Ethiopia — its people, its cultures, and especially its orphans — presses itself in upon your heart with great weight. I’m still [...]