Live in Love is Growing!

As the international division of Heartworks Photogrpahy, Inc., Live in Love is taking the next step in its growth. Beginning in June 2008, Live in Love will be esatablished in Africa as Lori is moving there to continue the work of this non-profit. Please read below as Lori shares this mission.

It is a joy to share with you I am taking my experience and passion for helping children to a new place: Africa. With the prayers of many people and following God’s guidance, I am going to Africa to serve full-time. I cannot deny what God has put in my heart. God has made it quite clear that Africa is where He wants me. It is amazing how He has grown His will and purpose into such a desire that I am unable to imagine doing anything else.

My home and work will be in Mapa Veni, Swaziland, beginning the first of June. The country of Swaziland is located in the far southeastern part of Africa, bordered by South Africa and Mozambique. Mapa Veni is a rural area in the northeastern part of the country and marked by great poverty and illness. Swaziland has the highest rate of AIDS of any country in the world. Physical and sexual abuse of children is rampant. Death and dying are an all too familiar experience. As the average life expectancy continues to decrease, the number of children orphaned by AIDS and the number of child-headed households is increasing. Children not only experience the loss of parents, siblings, and other family, they often face the same future as they, too, are infected. There is extremely minimal alternative housing for children who are abused, who are orphaned, who are pregnant, who are dying. The government provides no support and actually discourages it. There is little food, no clean water, and unsafe shelter.

While these facts and the lives of these children may be overwhelming, I believe there is hope. I believe hope’s name is Jesus. The goal is to glorify God through sharing and explaining His love and the hope of eternal life with Christ to children who do not understand the concept of love or the meaning of hope. With the love of Jesus, aspects of the ministry will include
· helping children understand and cope with illness, loss, death, and grief
· encouraging children to express themselves
· supporting children to see themselves as the beautiful people they are, that they do exist, that they do matter, and that they are loved
· assisting children to create remembrance items and experiences at the end of their lives or family members’ lives to aid with grieving

I will work closely with Pastor LaSalette Duarte who has lived in Mapa Veni for more than 25 years. She started and runs a church, Christian Family Church, and school. She also partners with Children’s Cup missionaries (www.childrenscup.org) to oversee their Care Points where children in this area receive a meal each day. Together we will serve and care for the children in this community through the church, school, care points, and monthly medical clinics. We will meet needs as they arise, as we can, and as God leads. We are planning and building a home for orphans, abused children, and young girls who are pregnant as a result of sexual abuse/rape.

I am going to Africa with Live in Love, the international division of Heartworks Photography, Inc., a 501c3 non-profit corporation established in 2002 (www.heartworksphoto.org). The founders of Heartworks are professional photographers dedicated to serving vulnerable children locally and around the world. The fundamental need for photography in this region to remember the children who are lost and die each year, as well as the therapeutic opportunities it provides, makes us a well-rounded team. To read more and see pictures about Live in Love, Swaziland, our previous trips, and some of the people we have and will continue to work with, please visit www.supportlil.blogspot.com.

How may you help?
· Prayer
· Financially with a tax-deductible donation
· Share this with others
· Purchase or donate needed equipment and supplies (list is included with this mailing)
· Purchase a shirt (or 2 or 3!)

If you would like to support and contribute financially, your donation is tax deductible. One time, annual, and on-going monthly funding is needed. Startup costs to support the ministry are $20,000, which is primarily for the purchase of a vehicle. On-going costs are currently estimated at $1,300 per month. At this writing 30% of startup costs and 40% of on-going monthly costs have been met. You may write a check payable to Heartworks Photography, include Live in Love on the memo line, and mail to Heartworks Photography, 150 St. Charles Rd., Carol Stream, IL 60188.

Thank you for joining me, for partnering with me to give children a voice, to show them and help them know love and hope exist and can be theirs. If you would like to receive correspondence and updates by e-mail, please send me your e-mail address.

The Power of Love

Is there anything stronger than the love of a parent for a child? Team Hoyt would argue “no way”. Who is Team Hoyt? Just a father and son, Dick and Rick Hoyt. They compete together almost continuously in marathon races. When they’re not running marathons they are doing triathlons — the daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.

So, what makes them so special? “Nothing” would most likely be their reply but if you saw them running, swimming, or biking you would beg to differ. You see, Rick can’t talk or walk. When Rick was born the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. While the doctors told his parents there was “no hope for their child’s development,” and that they “should just put him away — he’d be a vegetable all his life,” Dick and Judy Hoyt brought their son home and were “determined to raise him as ‘normally’ as possible.”

As Rick grew “the Hoy’ts were convinced Rick was just as intelligent as his siblings. Dick remembers the struggle to get the local school authorities to agree: "Because he couldn’t talk they thought he wouldn’t be able to understand, but that wasn’t true." The dedicated parents taught Rick the alphabet. "We always wanted Rick included in everything," Dick said. "That’s why we wanted to get him into public school."

A group of Tufts University engineers came to the rescue, once they had seen some clear, empirical evidence of Rick’s comprehension skills. "They told him a joke," said Dick. "Rick just cracked up. They knew then that he could communicate!" The engineers went on to build — using $5,000 the family managed to raise in 1972 - an interactive computer that would allow Rick to write out his thoughts using the slight head-movements that he could manage. Rick came to call it "my communicator." A cursor would move across a screen filled with rows of letters, and when the cursor highlighted a letter that Rick wanted, he would click a switch with the side of his head.

Rick told his father he wanted to participate in a five-mile benefit run for a local lacrosse player who had been paralyzed in an accident. Dick, far from being a long-distance runner, agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair. They finished next to last, but they felt they had achieved a triumph. That night, Dick remembers, "Rick told us he just didn’t feel handicapped when we were competing." Rick’s realization turned into a whole new set of horizons that opened up for him and his family, as "Team Hoyt" began to compete in more and more events.”

More events meant Dick would have to become a long-distance runner. When Team Hoyt began competing in triathlons Dick not only had to become a long-distance biker but he also had to learn how to swim. "I sank like a stone at first" Dick recalled with a laugh "and I hadn’t been on a bike since I was six years old."

As they continue to compete nationally and around the world, Rick experiences success in other areas. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in special education and works at Boston College’s computer laboratory assisting in the development of “Eagle Eyes”, mechanical aides that can be controlled by the eye movements of a person who is paralyzed.

Team Hoyt’s message is simple, “Everybody should be included in everyday life.”

Thank you, Team Hoyt, for showing us 1 more way to Live in Love.

The text in italics is from the web-site http://www.teamhoyt.com/.

To view an inspirational video about Team Hoy, visit http://www.sermonspice.com/ Don't be surprised if you need a tissue.