Since our last post four families have traveled to Ukraine at least once and returned to our community with their forever child/children. A total of 7 children have been adopted and our now US residents living in Longmont. Each welcoming party at DIA was heartfelt and touching to see families share in the joy of adoption. The Hooker and Pittel families have been part of the UOO support group for many years and we are so pleased to announce that both families adopted a young teenage girl. The Gazdik family jumped into the world of adoption little over a year ago and have returned from Ukraine with 4 siblings who were part of UOO camp 2010. After 3 years of determination and perseverance, the Rogé family returned home with their forever daughter, Lizzie just over a week ago. Heidi and Felix met Lizzie at UOO camp 2007 and committed to adopt her when she was only 11. They never gave up and now are reunited once again. To find out more on the Roge adoption story, visit their blog at http://heidifelixukraine.blogspot.com/.
Each family has their own unique, special and incredible stories that go along with their adoption. Each adoption is a victory and rescue of another child. It takes “Just ONE” to change a child’s life. Currently there are 2 families in Ukraine pursing their own adoptions. The Garrett family is on a mission to adopt 2 2010 UOO campers. Our pastor Clay Peck and his wife Selene are on a rescue mission as well, adopting a beautiful 16 year old from the Kharkov region. Their blogs are below if you would like to stay updated with each day they spend in Ukraine.
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Camp is getting closer and everyone is getting very excited. We just wanted to let you know of a few outstanding needs. Please consider how you can help! Also, we have pictures of the children coming to this year’s camp … read on to get to the link!
For the Community Dinner We need the following food for the community dinner on July 11. Please contact Heidi Rogé if you can help with this need.
There are still MANY open slots for meals for the kids during camp. You can either bring the meal yourself, donate food or donate money for the food. Please contact Kari Volf if you can help with this need. Photos of the Kids In case you haven’t seen them yet, we now have photos on the web site of the children who will be coming to this year’s camp. Awesome! FUNDRAISER
Tuesday, May 25th 6:00pm – 9:00pm Come join us and get juiced up! A portion of the evening sales will go to UOO. 1067 South Hover Road Longmont, Colorado UOO is giving away FREE tubes of mini M&M’s as a spring fundraiser. We ask that after you enjoy your yummy candy to return the tube to UOO filled with Quarters! Please call or email us and we will get you as many tubes of M&M’s as you would like! Thank you for your help ! UPDATE
We want to thank everyone who participated in this fundraiser! Tubes are still coming in, but so far we have raised $2,661 !! Crafts…..Cooking…..Coffee….Cards…
We are looking for help with all of them! We hope you can pick one way to help with the 4C’s. See below with how you can get plugged in. Something for everyone! If you have any questions, please email or call us. Crafts We are working on supplying craft supplies for orphans in Ukraine. Please see list below and contact us if you can donate items. If you would like to donate money specifically to help with the crafts, please donate to UOO through “Just Give” or send a check via snail mail. The craft collection drive will end Feb 26th, 2010. Craft Sticks- large size (300)– these are those large tongue depressor things…we use them for lots of games. You can usually get them in bulk or perhaps from some kind doctor who wants to donate a lot of them!
Buy Coffee … Help OrphansJust Love Coffee Roasters and UOO are teaming up. Any purchase of coffee from the website will help provide funds for Ukraine Orphans. $5.00 per bag will be given to our camp funds. Click and order up some Java! – all Fair Trade. Thank you to those supporters who have already started purchasing thier coffee through us! Cooking … 2010 European Cookbook We are actively pursing a cookbook that will include not only Ukraine recipes but from all around Europe. Please help us by digging up some of your grandma’s old European recipes and send them our way! Send your recipes via email or snail mail. We are looking for our supporters to contribute by providing a recipe or two. Please call (970) 535-4399 if you would like additional information. Thank You! As always, thank you from all of us with UOO. Without all our supporters, we could not continue to offer HOPE to the lives of orphans. Thank you for your love, support, and prayers. Sincerely, Kris & Clarke Stoesz We’ve just created a new video for Ukraine Orphan Outreach that shows some of the staggering statistics of the children in Ukraine and what UOO’s heart is for them. A special thanks to Jay Stocker for letting us use one of the songs from his Hidden in My Heart album. The 2009 Summer camp is all wrapped up, but it was a simply amazing time with the kids! Here’s a large selection of picture from this year’s camp. Click on a thumbnail to see the full size picture and enjoy!
The Loveland Reporter Herald just wrote an article about our most recent summer camp. Check it out by going to: http://www.reporterherald.com/news_story.asp?ID=23943
Bad news! The 4 day camping trip that the kids were supposed to go on has been canceled due to horrible conditions at the campsite. Why not just move it, you say? All of the camping equipment, tents, trailers, cooking grills are stuck in the mud up in the Lake Granby area. Therefore, we can’t move it to another location or reschedule it. That’s OK, though. The UOO team has a backup plan and we sprung into action.
Yesterday after church service in Loveland, we went to the local park and had lunch. The kids got to play in the river and with the water toys at the park. It was a great success! We then went to the Stoesz house for games and dinner. The kids rode their first American bicycles, got into a water fight with squirt guns and perused the Stoesz farm. Just a quick note on the squirt guns, why didn’t they have those cool, technically advanced toys when I was a kid! Darn it! Dinner was a a choice of lasagna or spaghetti, or both! Bread, salad and veggies were our sides. Since we still had birthday cake in abundance from Saturday, that was desert. On Saturday we held our annual camp birthday party. If you’re not familiar with this event, let me explain. The orphanages in Ukraine only celebrate mass birthdays twice a year and some orphans aren’t aware of their birth day. Heidi and I witnessed one such celebration at SB last November. There are no cakes or presents and usually the treat is a bowl of fruit. We at UOO decided a couple of years ago to have our own mass birthday party complete with games, hot dogs, cake, ice cream, presents, punch and even a pinata or two. This pivotal event is remembered by the kids for the rest of their lives. I have had the orphans tell me so on our trips to Ukraine.
Our next event of the day was an evening at the Colorado Speedway in Erie, CO. There were several categories of races and the kids were asked to present the trophy to the winner of this 30 lap race. Tickets, dinner & drinks were donated by the generous owners of the Speedway and they even reserved a section at the finish line for the kids! Thanks Colorado Speedway! Sasha concerned that his driver is behind. What a cute, angelic face and a sweet kid! |
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