As Our Own

A few years ago, I was driving home from work and listening to the radio. The host was interviewing a gentleman named Ralph Borde about the organization he founded in India, called Charasia (I've posted about them before). Their mission is to rescue little girls (as young as 6. Six. The age of my own girls.) from prostitution. Since that day I heard Ralph on the radio, it has been our family's joy to support this organization in prayer and now financially, also.

This past week, Charasia had an exciting announcement--they are changing their name to "As Our Own," because it is their mission to love these precious girls and treat them just as our own.

I was going to do a whole post about it because I am so pumped about this organization, but a new member of the board of directors, Amanda Jones, wrote a much better one here. On hers, you can see a picture of the beautiful little girls, too.

It's difficult to read about As Our Own and not want to be a part of it. If you're on facebook or Twitter, you can join their page and get updates and see videos of this fantastic ministry (here is one, and there's another one on their page). Even if you're supporting other organizations or are strapped financially now, Ralph, all the staff of As Our Own, and the children can use your prayers. I've added their site to my blog roll, too.

Each year for Christmas, we give a donation in each of Lucy and Elaine's teachers' names. We've given to Samaritan's Purse, World Relief, etc. This year, our donation for each will be to As Our Own--to let others have the joy in sharing in a part of these precious girls' futures along with us.

And I have to throw in that Ralph is a graduate of a great school. I won't mention the name. But it's the one with the highest percentage of graduates in ministry. You know, that one I graduated from. C'mon, you know you want to sing the song with me now (Juliet, Ann-Marie, Alysa, Kacie, et al): "God bless the school that D. L. Moody founded..."!