“Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” - Luke 6:38

For about $100, you could buy your child the latest video game and a sweater for your significant other.

Or, you could give a month’s worth of infant formula to a baby in Kenya to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in breast milk.

Many of us already have our needs and most of our wants met. What if instead of falling into the normal Christmas shopping routine, we honored our friends and family by giving in their name to those with far less?

Come join us at McDonough Presbyterian Church this Sunday (December 4^th) and next Sunday (December 11^th) during the Alternative Christmas Giving Bazaar!  Learn more about our current projects and discover ways you can give to ChangeOneLife this Christmas.  Representatives from COL will be available at our table from 9am-1pm. MPC’s Local and Global Mission Committee will be hosting this event as a way to offer an alternative to the tradition of giving gifts for Christmas.

Rev. Vanessa Sharp with Mother's Milk recipients

Giving to COL this year will: Provide infant formula for babies of HIV positive mothers in Kenya and help continue to fund special medical needs through our website giving program.

Liz Rieckmann

ChangeOneLife/ Lead Blogger

I am excited to share with you news of our continuing relationship with Rev. Vanessa Sharp. Vanessa, who most recently was appointed to serve on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), has agreed to work with us part-time as a Health Ministry Consultant while she pursues her doctoral studies in Kenya. She has been a long time partner of ChangeOneLife, helping extend COL’s projects in Kenya with her visit this past May.

Vanessa arrived in Nairobi on Saturday, October 15. While in Kenya, she will help coordinate our AIDS Alive Projects with Kikuyu Hospital, explore the potential renovation of the rural health clinics in Ndiwa and Lawanda, and pursue medical ministry opportunities in the new country of Southern Sudan.

Although Vanessa has barely had time to settle in, she is already hard at work on COL’s behalf. She has met or been in communication with many of COL’s past collaborators in our three areas of focus (outlined above). I will update you on the fruits of these communications as they develop.

Liz Rieckmann

ChangeOneLife/ Lead Blogger

Only a month to go until COL’s 2nd annual McDonough Youth AIDS Walk! The Walk will be held Saturday, October 1, 2011. It starts at Bethany Baptist and ends at McDonough Presbyterian Church. At MPC we will have plenty of games for the youth, a Christian worship band and lunch.

Besides youth from MPC, we will be welcoming participants from such area churches as Mt. Bethel United Methodist, Sharon Baptist, South Point Presbyterian, Tabernacle of Praise, and Wesley Way United Methodist. We are so excited and expect to double the size of last year’s event.

Remember, youth only need to contribute $25 to participate. All proceeds go to benefit COL’s AIDS Alive Projects in Kenya. Registration forms can be found on the Walk Website. All registration forms and donations are due Sept. 21 at MPC. This will allow us all the time we need to order shirts, plan games, prepare food, etc. So register today!

Liz Rieckmann

ChangeOneLife/ Lead Blogger

Did you know ChangeOneLife is on Facebook? Here’s the link to our Facebook page, please feel free to visit us there now and often. By “liking” our page, you can get the latest COL updates right to your News Feed. You can also leave comments, share pictures from events, and post links to related issues. Facebook is a great place for discussion and we’d love to hear what you think. Like, how do you feel about proposed budget cuts to the global HIV/AIDS budget? Share your views on our Facebook page.

Still need more ChangeOneLife news? If you haven’t already, you can also sign up for our COL Monthly Newsletter. With it, you’ll be kept up to date on the most important developments at COL. Don’t wait around, join today! You’ll be just in time for the April Newsletter.

Liz Rieckmann

ChangeOneLife/ Lead Blogger

Dear COL Friends,

Happy Thanksgiving to you and all of your families! We wish you the best of times with your loved ones on this day of thanks.

ChangeOneLife has much to be thankful for as well. COL has received word that the Rotary Club of Henry County will adopt our two rural clinics in Kenya as one of their key projects next year. These clinics at Ndiwa and Lawanda, known as dispensaries in Kenya, provide the only source of health care for miles around. These dispensaries are also in great need because they lack some of the basic amenities we would generally associate with clinics, like running water and electricity.

Once we have identified a Kenyan Rotary club to act as cosponsor, the Rotary of Henry County will be able to seek matching funds from their district and international bodies. The next step is to get a scope of work needed on the two clinics. Currently electricity and running water are the top priorities, while completing the new building at Ndiwa, which Jo and Vanessa visited in January, is also anticipated to be part of this project.

This is very exciting news for us here at ChangeOneLife! And on this day, we are thankful for the great opportunity this partnership with the Rotary of Henry County will provide to fulfill a great need to the people of Kenya.

Liz Rieckmann

ChangeOneLife/ Lead Blogger

I hope your preparations for Thanksgiving are going well!  Can you believe we have already reached the end of 2010?

First Annual McDonough Youth AIDS Walk

As I was looking back on the year, I thought it might be  nice to reflect on ChangeOneLife’s journey throughout 2010.  It really has been a big year for COL.  We started with a bang, having Jo and Vanessa visit our ministries in Kenya. They brought back word of our Mother’s Milk Project moving forward in Kikuyu Hospital and progress at the rural health clinics, as well as, positive news of Charity’s medical needs being served. In the spring, we had the very successful COL Fashion Show.  And just this fall, COL organized the McDonough Youth AIDS Walk , a community building event that we hope to grow for many years to come.

I noticed that while we have been using photos in blog posts and emails to describe all these great events, we haven’t collected many of them in one place for your easy access.  SO, I’ve created two new galleries in the right side menu, one for the Spring Fashion Show and one for the Mother’s Milk pictures taken by Jo and Vanessa in January.

Keep checking back regularly for more pictures.  I hope to have some from the next phase of our Mother’s Milk Project soon too.

Liz Rieckmann

ChangeOneLife/Lead Blogger

To All Who Participated and Helped at the McDonough Youth AIDS Walk:

McDonough Youth AIDS Walk participants

What a great day! Good weather, good food, good spirits, good health, and some money raised for a good cause!

If you were there Saturday, you were blessed. Almost every walker completed the walk (we had two sets of bad blisters). People had a good time. Walkers got to meet and have fun with people from other churches. And the singing was infectious—even if I started us out on the wrong key!

There are almost too many people to thank: Liz (coordination); Destiny (hosting and directing games); Kevin & Jay (food); Nathan (tables and drinks and cleanup); Doris (photos); Members of EverPrayer band (entertainment); Bob & Jeremy (set-up); Ruth Ann & Tim (registration and EMT); Henry County Police Dept. (escort).

Special thanks to Rev. McBride and Antoinette for bringing such a large and committed group from Tabernacle of Praise church and for Gail and Mary bringing members of their youth group from Wesley Way UMC. Several adults from McDonough Presbyterian marched with our youth including Doug, Betty and Monica.

We couldn’t have had such a meaningful and safe experience without all of you!

Blessings & thanks & let’s do it even bigger next year!

Mike Griffin, Pres/CEO

ChangeOneLife, Inc.

“helping the world’s poor people to know the miracle of good health”

PS, we will be putting lots of photos up soon. So check back regularly.

Dear COL Friends,

We had a very special guest at Saturday’s ChangeOneLife Board Meeting. Grace Lindvall, who will serve as our Kenyan Intern, flew in from NYC for the weekend to become acquainted with COL’s mission and AIDS Alive Projects. Grace is a Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteer in Kenya for 2010-11 and leaves for Africa soon. She currently works in NYC at a YMHA-sponsored summer camp and is also a recent graduate of the University of Michigan with an English/Political Science double major.

In Kenya, her primary placement will be at the Organization of Africa Instituted Churches; however, approximately 10-15 hours of Grace’s time and energy each week will be devoted to helping promote and coordinate ChangeOneLife medical mission projects.

Her principal emphasis will be on helping initiate and coordinate health-focused retreats that will promote HIV/AIDS education for adolescent Kenyan girls. Her other COL responsibilities will include assessing and revitalizing our Mother’s Milk project at Kikuyu Hospital; determining needs of our partnered rural clinics in Ndiwa and Lawanda; and developing contacts and following up with indigent patients (like Charity) with urgent medical needs.

From left to right: Jeremy Harrison, Mike Griffin, Grace Linvall (YAV Intern), Kevin Fisher, Ruth Ann Welty

We are extremely excited about our new partnership. Please pray for Grace’s safe trip, as well as continued success in meeting and overcoming new challenges abroad.

Liz Rieckmann

ChangeOneLife/ Lead Blogger

Dear COL Friends

Blessings on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Yesterday we here at ChangeOneLife had a very productive board meeting. The second half of the year promises to be a busy and exhilarating time for us. From past COL blog posts, you already know about our plans to fund a YAV Intern in Kenya and a fall Youth AIDS Walk in McDonough. However, we are also looking into some other entertaining fundraising options such as a November Dinner Theatre Event and possible online Cookbook sales. Return here often for more details on all of these events (and more) as they will be posted here first.

With all of these fun projects on the way, we are also in need of some more helping hands. COL is currently looking for new board members with fresh, innovative ideas to help grow our small nonprofit. If you might be interested in working with us, please contact ChangeOneLife CEO Mike Griffin at mike@changeonelife.org or leave a comment below with your contact information.

Liz Rieckmann

ChangeOneLife/ Lead Blogger

Dear COL Friends,

We would like to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for Vanessa and Jo during their trip to Africa.  Jo returned home safely to Georgia on Monday, and Vanessa arrived safely in Ghana on Tuesday.  They will both be sending along more detailed reports about their trip in the next week, so please keep reading to learn more about their travels.

Vanessa and Jo ended the trip with a visit to the COL-sponsored clinics in western rural Kenya.  The two clinics, the Ndiwa and Lwanda clinics, were first sponsored by COL a couple of years ago after COL acknowledged the clinics’ financial needs for restoration.  On Vanessa and Jo’s trip, there was reported much positive news.  The Ndiwa clinic has been restored so well in the last year that it even passed Minister of Health inspections this year.  In Kenya a clinic that passes Minister of Health inspections qualifies for medical supplies from the government.  For the first time since its establishment the Ndiwa clinic was able to receive these much needed supplies.  So thank you to all our COL friends for helping make this small miracle of good health possible.

Please stay tuned this week to view pictures from the clinics.  We will be receiving more pictures and reports from Vanessa and Jo in the coming week.

Welcome home Vanessa and Jo!

-Sarah Parsons/ COL Lead Blogger