Paying It Forward for Mossy Foot!

A couple of months ago, one of our long term supporters, Allyson, held a cooking camp for kids in Texas.  In the process, she shared the work of the Mossy Foot Project with Michael Anderson.

As Allyson blogged about her 50th birthday and how great it would be for friends to make a donation to MF in lieu of a gift, Michael surprised her by emptying his piggy bank and doing just that by making a $50 donation.

What a great lesson in generosity, learning at a young age to "pay it forward".   Guess we can never know what impact our incidental sharing can have.  Thanks you so much for your kindness to the children of Ethiopia Michael!

Welcome Our New Partner, Beautiful Feet

Mossy Foot Project is pleased to announce a new partnership with Beautiful Feet, an organization founded on the realization that "being barefoot can be deadly." The mission of Beautiful Feet is to reach as many needy children as possible with shoes and sandals. This goal is a key aspect of the vision of the Mossy Foot Project as we work toward eradicating podoconiosis in Ethiopia in this generation. Serving in partnership with Beautiful Feet will be an important step to starting many feet on a healthy path. 

Beautiful Feet is a registered 501c3 non-profit organization built on the premise of buy one, give one. Your purchase on their Web site will make one more pair of shoes available for a child in need. These shoes will be distributed in Ethiopia by the Mossy Foot Project as part of a comprehensive treatment and prevention program. We are thankful for this organization and the blessing that these shoes will have in the lives of Ethiopian children.

Meet Aster Lemma

Aster Lemma began to experience symptoms of Mossy Foot disease as a young teenager. After marriage at the age of fifteen, her symptoms worsened, so much so that when she was pregnant with her first child, her husband threatened to throw her out if the child was a girl.When she gave birth to a daughter, he did as he had threatened.

Aster and her little child led a desperate life of rejection and poverty. But God did not forget her. At her lowest moment, able only to crawl on elbows and knees and threatened with execution by the hand of a family member, God granted her a great deliverance and gave her the strength to walk to a clinic she had heard about where good people gave free treatment to poor women like her.

Read her story in her own words on the Mossy Foot Web site and see for yourself how God moved both supernaturally through prayer and visions and naturally through the consistent medical treatment provided by the Mossy Foot Project to restore Aster and her daughter from the brink of death.

Graduation Day! - Mossy Foot Vocational Training

Our President, Sharon Daly, is presently in Ethiopia on her annual management visit. Shown on the left is the joyful occasion of her attending the graduation of 37 young men and women from barber and hairdresser training where she and Meskele Ashine, our clinics director, is shown giving out certificates to the vocational training graduates.
 

In the last photo, the ladies in the red and green dresses are the hairdressing instructors. Nigatuwa, the lady in green is a Mossy Foot (podoconiosis) patient who was treated, received vocational training and is now teaching others. This is a wonderful success story.

These people had suffered terribly from Mossy Foot disease. Previously they had been outcasts in their communities. Following foot treatment and vocational training, they are returning to their villages as self-supporting business people. Their lives have been transformed. Now they have a future and hope.

He Gave His Blood...

Last week, Mossy Foot Project President, Sharon Barlow Daly, had an opportunity to share the history of the Mossy Foot Project with the Perspectives Class at Reality Church, Ventura, remembering and honoring the fact that God works through faithful individuals through the generations.

The featured speaker that night was Dr. Malcolm Hunter, a former colleague of Sharon's father, Nathan Barlow. Dr. Hunter shared a particularly compelling story in the life of Dr. Barlow, a story of redemption through the gift of blood that is particularly timely as we celebrate Easter 2011.

Read about this incident on our Mossyfoot Website. Wishing you all a Happy Easter with thanks for all your support this year!

Barefoot for Mossy Foot at Highpoint University

Students at High Point University in North Carolina learned what it was like to live "One day without shoes" in an event held April 7th and sponsored by the Alpha Phi Omega co-ed service fraternity and the TOMS Shoes Club.

It was wonderful to learn that the students of High Point took the initiative to organize this event and to contact us to let us know that they had elected to gift half the proceeds toward the work of the Mossy Foot Project.

Thanks to all of you at High Point for your passion to help those in Ethiopia who are afflicted with podoconiosis. Perhaps you will inspire others to organize more events on behalf of our cause. Read more HERE

God is NEVER Too Early or Too Late

We are constantly reminded at the Mossy Foot Project that God is the source who drives this work by His provisions and that those provisions are ALWAYS timely.

These past couple of years have been difficult ones to try not only sustain, but to even grow the work of Mossy Foot. Time and again, we reach a point where we wonder if the people we serve will have to "go without" in the coming month Then "God shows up!".

This was particularly true these last two months as we suffered from insufficient income and unexpectedly high expenses. Each month, "God showed up" in the form of a special gift from a partnering church, each time having no idea that they were meeting an extraordinary and immediate need. Last month, it was Reality in Ventura. This month, it is Kononia Community Church in Hanford. Thanks to their stepping forward, we can celebrate God's goodness. What an encouragement to us all!

Perhaps in the coming months, YOU will ALL step up and God will address the need in a totally different way!