Monday, May 14th

A friend called and thought talking to a local paper was a great idea for some advertising for my crop in June. Thought I would post the email here for anyone who might not know what is going on in our lives! HA!

Hi Steve,

I'm Melissa Osborn, we spoke on the phone about our family adopting from Rwanda. Here is a little bit of the story.

On March 11, 2007 our preacher Mark Henderson stood in the pulpit of the Quail Springs Church of Christ and gave a summary of their recent trip to visit our missionaries in Kigali, Rwanda. They spoke of an orphanage in Kigali with 46 babies in one room wearing rags as diapers and the 6 sweet nuns who were trying to care for them along with all the other children in the Home of Hope orphanage. Our preacher said he tried to rationally find a way to help them with things, but all these children needed were families. My husband and I agreed, and so did 2 other families. So our four families have been working with the US government to adopt a total of 7 babies from this orphanage by the end of this year.

Our preacher Mark, his wife Sharon, my husband Dave and I are trying to get to Rwanda in early July. The other 2 families are looking at going over in the Fall. We all already have children, some biological and some adopted. We were not looking to increase our families, but feel called to help raise these children with a chance for life. Since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 where 1 million people were slaughtered, the country has been trying to rebuild. But the number of orphaned children is staggering. We know that we can not save the whole country, but if we can make a difference to one or two children....well, we just have to try.

Each family has been fund raising to buy the costly plane tickets, cover government fees, and lodging while we are over there. We had a yard sale, we've been selling on ebay, offering to do extra work for people, whatever it takes. We have 2 more fund raisers planned. One is an all day Scrapbooking event being held at the Church building on June 2ND. It will be from 7am-7pm and the cost is $30. Another is a child field day on Sat. June 9Th.

The ROC foundation (Rwandan Outreach and Community)is helping us by providing a place for tax deductable donations to be made in our name. Mike O'Neil from OC is on the board.

I guess the biggest story would be the growing Trans-racial community that we are bringing to Edmond and the metro. People are going to see us all over town and we would like them to be educated about who we are and why our families look the way they do. We keep calling our selves "The New Normal".

If you think this is a story and would like more information all the families are open to talking. We are excited and chatty...you have been warned!!

Thanks for your time!