When I stepped onto the grounds of the Lifesong school in the tiny little village of Adami Tulu in Ethiopia, I instantly knew that something was different.

I wasn’t sure why. This was the last of many Lifesong projects I had visited. It wasn’t the one I was expecting would capture my heart and imagination.

But it did.

In 2009, Lifesong for Orphans partnered with the Adami Tulu Meserete Kristos Church, to open this school. They bought some land with a run-down three-room school building. The doors opened in January 2010 to 80 children.

Each child is fed breakfast and lunch every school day. For many of these kids, these two meals a day, five days a week, are the only real meals they get. They told me there, “no plate is left empty…especially on Mondays.”

Tuition is about $1.50 per month, but only about 40% of the children have parents or relatives able to pay tuition. The school’s per-child operating costs are just $11.23/month per child. The remaining operating budget is covered by scholarships from Lifesong or Compassion International.

The Kids

Many of the children at the school are double orphans, who have lost both their mother and father. Others are single orphans, many of whom have lost their father and now have a HIV-positive mother struggling to care for them and their siblings. All are vulnerable children sitting on the razor’s edge of destitution.

The kids who come to this school get a rich education that will include both English and computer skills – the keys to a great job in Ethiopia. Eventually, more specific technical and trade skills will be taught in higher grades, but that will come with time.

I believe that the model Lifesong has developed – combining education with two meals a day – is a powerful way to make a serious and sustainable dent in the global orphan crisis.

The education gives each child the tools they need to secure a job and become self-sufficient. The meals give each child the ability to stay in school and play a significant role in keeping families intact and preventing kids from becoming orphans.

Our Plan

Can you and I solve the global orphan crisis in 2011? Probably not. But can we make a big dent in changing the world? I think we can!

Here’s the mountain we’re going to try and climb…

1. We need to find seven leaders for our fundraising team. Cacey and I can’t do this alone. We want to identify seven different people or couples who will each agree to help lead the fundraising effort and each have a goal of raising $7,000. We’ve already got commitments from two other couples (for a total of three). We just need FOUR more people willing to do something radical to change the world. Is that you?
2. We need to raise $35,000. Those funds will be used to build a new four-room classroom building at the Adami Tulu school site. The building will be able to more than double the current capacity of the school and handle the next two years of expansion. This is a fraction of the cost of building the same building here in the US, with efficient concrete block and tin roof construction.
3. We’re taking a team to Ethiopia next summer to raise the walls. Some time in July or early August, a group of us (including both Cacey and me) will head to Adami Tulu, Ethiopia. Lifesong staff will have ensured that the foundation for the new building is already in place. We’ll build the walls and perhaps the roof too. For those who can’t do construction work, there will be opportunities to assist with a medical clinic that one team member will be running, and perhaps some special programs with the kids.
   In addition to our work in Adami Tulu, we’ll be touring several orphanages. If you join us, you’ll come away from this trip a changed person: changed because you’ll see the global orphan crisis firsthand and you’ll know what you can do to make a difference.
   The trip cost will be somewhere around $2,000 to $2,500 total per person. If all seven of our fundraising leaders achieve their goals, we’ll actually have some extra funding to help defray the trip costs for team members so that number may go down.

I hope this plan makes you as excited as it makes me. Ever since we walked the soil of Ethiopia nearly one year ago, I’ve been burdened with the need to make a difference for the 163 million orphans in our world.

This is real, concrete action. And the impact will be felt for years to come.

Here’s how you can take action today.

• Help make the first donations to get our fundraising effort started! You can donate online via PayPal using your credit card, or you can send checks to: Lifesong Adami Tulu Fund, PO Box 40, 202 N. Ford Street, Gridley, Illinois 61744.
• Could you be a member of our fundraising team and commit to helping raise $500 or $1,000? We’d rather you try and fall a bit short than not try at all! If so, e-mail me or leave a comment on this post, and we’ll equip you with everything you need to do that.
• Can you become one of our fundraising team leaders and commit to helping raise $7,000 toward the overall project goal? We need FOUR more people or couples to become fundraising team leaders. Yes, it may be out of your comfort zone…but it will be worth it! E-mail me and let’s talk.
• Are you interested in joining the team that goes to Ethiopia next year to build the new school building, hold a medical clinic, and tour several orphanages so you can see for yourself the incredible opportunities that exist to solve the global orphan crisis? We’d love to have you.

Photo Credit: Ron and Jenny Anderson, Bob and Ann Meyer, Leslie Ringger