The 1,000 Member Facebook Cause Challenge - "Upping The Ante"

OK.... First of all thanks so much for all your recruiting efforts. We are now only 128 members short of our goal of 1,000 members by New Year's Day 2009!

And a new recruiter has busted her way into the Top 5: Kate Dundon (Don't worry Carolyn... you are still tied for 5th!).

Since we need a big push in the next couple days... we are "upping the ante"! The individual with the most recruits from 2:49pm until the ball drops at Times Square in NYC (EST) will receive, not only a professional matted photo from our very own Leah Craver, but a copy of our DVD film, "Such A Medicine Is Love", and a handmade bookmark from one of the children in La Limonada!

Remember, you can invite up to 60 friends a day to join the Lemonade International Facebook Cause!

With just over 28 hours to go, the 1,000 Member Challenge continues...

Click on the facebook logo below to go to the LI Facebook Cause:

The 1,000 Member Facebook Cause Challenge

As of today we have 814 Lemonade International Facebook Cause members. The challenge is to get to 1,000 by New Year's Day 2009.

So, we have 186 more members to add in just 4 days!!

Our top recruiters have been huge in helping us get the word out about our work among the incredible people of La Limonada in Guatemala City. Maybe you can bust into the Top 5... which include:

Jeremiah Griswold
Sommer Wisher
Rachel Mellett
Carolyn Talley Ball

We have taken note of the recruiting stats as of today.... and will award a professional photo, from our very own Leah Craver, to the member who recruits the most people in the next four days!!

You can invite up to 60 of your friends each day... for some of you more popular people that would be 240 of your friends that you can recruit in the next four days!!

The challenge is on... click on the Facebook Logo below to go to the Lemonade International Facebook Cause.

School Shoes For Christmas... Delivered!

Thanks to so may of you who donated over the past month! Because of your generosity, School Shoes were delivered to more than 260 children in La Limonada over the past few days!

About 60 children on "The Other Side" were invited to a special Christmas bowling party over the weekend where all of them had the opportunity to bowl for the first time in their lives. After bowling they had hot dogs for lunch and then were given their school shoes. They were so thankful!

More than 200 children received their shoes at a gathering at the original school in La Limonada yesterday. And with extra donations that were received we were able to provide all of the teachers with a Christmas bonus for all their hard work throughout the school year.

Thanks to Life Of Hope for providing shoes for all the children on "The Other Side" and to Lifepointe Church for helping to provide the Christmas bonus to all of the teachers... to the Cincinnati Occupational Therapy Institute for a very generous donation... and to and to all of the individual donors who responded with such incredible generosity during such challenging and uncertain economic times here in the States.

Thank you again for providing school shoes for the kids to wear as they begin a new year! Here are some photos from the bowling party and of some of the children from both of the schools as they received their school shoes:

Lemonade International @ Lifepointe Church in Raleigh

We have established an awesome partnership with Lifepointe Church here in Raleigh, NC. Donnie Williams and the whole staff have been incredibly supportive in giving us an opportunity to share our work with the church community. We were with them last Sunday and will be there again the first two Sundays of January. They have set really high goals for having individuals and families sponsor children from La Limonada! It will be very exciting to see what comes out of this. It may just turn out to be a great start to a New Year with a church right here in our city!

A couple weeks ago Lifepointe showed the following video to give the church community an overview of what Lemonade International is all about. Check it out:

Pray For Rick

Please pray for our friend, Rick Grove. I just talked with him as he was lying in a hospital bed recovering from a heart episode that occurred about a week ago that led to the need for open heart surgery. He is recovering well and feeling much better, but would be grateful for your prayers fof a full recovery.

Rick is a close friend of Tita's whose organization, Life Of Hope, has partnered with Tita to help support the work she and her team are doing in La Limonada.

Our prayers are with you, Rick!

How You Can Help

We get a lot of questions from people wondering how they can help the work of LI. Here are some practical ways you can make an impact and help bring hope to the people of La Limonada:

1. Join our Facebook Cause and invite your friends to join

2. Follow us on Twitter

3. Send an email to your friends with a link to our website

4. Sponsor A Child

5. Invite us to share about our work and show our film (we do churches, businesses, house parties)

School Shoes - Thank You From Tita

We officially have reached our goal to be able to get school shoes for Christmas for all the children at both schools in La Limonada! We actually received more than we needed to cover the shoes, so the donations received over and above the cost of the shoes will help to provide a great Christmas party for all the kids.

Thanks so much to all of you who gave so generously to make sure all the kids received shoes for the upcoming school year.

Tita wanted to say a big "thank you" to all of you who helped with this...

For those who help raising funds for the Christmas shoes:

I just want you to know "thanks"!! This is a blessing for the kids and they parents, it is going to be the pair of shoes for they school year which will start in January. For the team, we just love to see how we cry out to God, wait on Him and see how He show up with the miracles.

Thanks for making this possible, I know there is people that can not give any money but they pray and intercede, we all are a beautiful little piece in God's mosaic and it is something that every day and more I value or appreciate.

So, to all of you, thanks so much for doing your part and making all this possible.

More From The Art Camp

One of the volunteers posted on a bog about some of the experiences at the Art Camp. You just have to read the following two posts!!!

http://diasporaofhope.blogspot.com/2008/11/guatamala-city-meets-el-faro.html

http://diasporaofhope.blogspot.com/2008/11/boy-named-moshi-and-ocean-that-knows.html

Art Camp - Photos

For those of you who were involved in the Art Camp for about 80 of the kids from La Limonada... thank you so much for the huge impact that week had on their lives! It was a week they will never forget.

Tita told me tonight, "It may have only lasted 5 days, but for those kids it will last a lifetime!".

They got to see the ocean and the beach for the first time... roast marshmallows for the first time... they laughed, learned, painted, danced, sang... and their lives have been changed.

Thanks so much to Tita's friends from BuildaBridge and Estrategia de Transformación... and the people from El Faro Camp for making this possible!

School Shoes For Christmas

Some of you have asked how you can help the children of La Limonada as Christmas approaches.

Each year Tita and her team host a Christmas party for the children and present each of them with a new pair of shoes... shoes that will last for the entire year. To us, a new pair of shoes for the school year is just a necessity, something we purchase without thinking much of it. For these children, it means so much to know that someone cares enough about them to buy them a pair of shoes that actually fit.

It means so much for them to know that they have something that was bought especially for them... when a pair of shoes is usually shared between all of the children in the house. The excitement they have to wear their new shoes with their school uniform is something amazing to see!

If you have been to La Limonada or if you know the type of neighborhood it is, you would understand that the kids need a sturdy pair of shoes to protect their feet. This would be a great way to give a gift for Christmas that wouldn't require shipping and would be a huge help for Tita as she seeks to buy shoes for all of the kids!

Life of Hope has given enough to purchase school shoes for all the kids on "The Other Side" (about 50 pairs)... so there is still a need for about 210 pairs of shoes. Purchased in Guatemala City, each pair costs an average of $15.00 (a total of about $3,100).

If you want to give a gift of school shoes for one of the children (or more) you can do so by going to our Donation Web Page, then choosing "One-Time Donation". In the "Fund" drop-down menu choose "Vidas Plenas - The School", and in the comments box type "School Shoes".

Presentation

This is a shortened version of the PowerPoint presentation we show when speaking to groups. It will provide you with a summary of the work we are involved in and of our outlook for the future.