It's totally a God Thing

This goes back a few months ago...

I was at the point where I wished there was someone to take over Bottom Blessings for me while our family started support raising and moving to Ethiopia. I just didn't know who and I decided that it was time to go ahead and get rid of the last of the diapers and let that be it, the end of my "project". But it kept nagging at me and I really wished I could still keep it going.

I have people contact me every so often that want to take diapers and people who want to donate. I also have the lady that sews the diaper covers for me (which is super awesome!). So I knew that it could really be an ongoing thing and I could locate orphanages for people while living in Ethiopia. Again I just didnt know how this would work or even know anyone who would want to take over the part here in the U.S.

So I had a fellow AGCI mom contact me and say that they were collecting diapers to take to Ethiopia because they were adopting again and would be traveling there in the near future. I had a small amount at that point that I could send her and knew that I had some more coming in the mail that were being donated. But, I remembered an email from a lady named Holly about this diaper company that her and her sister in law, Betsy, had gotten diapers from when they were collecting them during Betsys adoption. It was called envibum and they really helped with there diaper collecting project. So I got on my email, which I barely checked to email her about it. (keep in mind that the email I had gotten from her was months earlier and we had had no contact since) I signed on and I had gotten an email from her! Here is the email..

Hi Christie,

I've been wanting to get in touch with you for a while, but have been busy with a move associated with my husband's job. I've read that you have been busy preparing to relocate to Ethiopia and I am so excited to see what God has planned for you. My sister (betsyandtheboys.blogspot.com) and I were interested in continuing the cloth diaper ministry on a semi regular basis. Possibly doing a drive a couple of times a year. I am connected with the owner of Envibum who helped Betsy and her husband take diapers and covers (at cost) to Ethiopia when they travelled to pick up there daughter and I know she is interested in helping long term.

I don't know how much of a priority the diapers are to you with your new developments?????

I am wondering if you would be interested in receiving the donations once you are in Ethiopia and distributing them to where they are needed.

We have also been curious as to how different orphanages view the diaper donations from a cultural stand point. (Do they view the diapers as a need?)

Please let me know if you are still interested in being involved or if it is a little much with everything else you have going on right now:)

Holly

This was totally a God thing! I told her that yes I would be interested in keeping with the diaper ministry and that we could use the Bottom Blessings name and everything. This was so exciting!!! We have kept in contact since and have been excited about doing this!

So back a few weeks ago a friend on Facebook posted about this diaper company called The Little Bee diaper Co. I took a look at their website and was super impressed but what they are doing! Here is a description of what they do on their website -

With every diaper purchased The Little Bee Co. will donate a diaper to an orphan in need. Once enough diapers are collected for each baby of one entire orphanage, a "Diaper Drop" is organized to deliver the diapers and help in assisting the orphanage workers with their transition to modern cloth. The diapers donated are the same diapers we sell. Every baby deserves the same high quality we choose for our own baby! Check out the organizations below to see how your contributions are changing the lives of babies worldwide! With every diaper purchased The Little Bee Co. will donate a diaper to an orphan in need. Once enough diapers are collected for each baby of one entire orphanage, a "Diaper Drop" is organized to deliver the diapers and help in assisting the orphanage workers with their transition to modern cloth. The diapers donated are the same diapers we sell. Every baby deserves the same high quality we choose for our own baby!

I emailed Holly to see if she could contact them to see if we could do a diaper drop or see how we could be involved. This is what she got back…

Holly,
Thank you so much for contacting us! I don't even know where to begin with explaining how excited I am to recieve your email. The second I read it my heart swelled with joy and my eyes with tears! It is a long story so please bear with me for rambling but I am simply overwhelmed with how amazing God's orchestrations are!

When my husband and I first began our journey into this mission/business it was actually just a business. I had begun cloth diapering my son and created a diaper that I thought was great and my husband and I set out to start our own "Cloth Diapering Business" It was going to be a boutique style store and there was no thought of using our diapers for a mission at all. One morning during my devotions the Lord spoke to me and told me that this "business" my husband and I were working on was not ours but actually His and that it was not to be a "business" but a "mission" to help babies in need, specifically orphans. I talked it over with my husband and shared what God had laid on my heart and he agreed that the Lord was speaking to him as well! We have both travelled on the mission field and missions are so close to our heart. We also share an intense love for orphan ministry. I have wanted to adopt from the time I was a little girl and my husband has a little sister who is adopted from China. He too has always wanted to adopt. We plan to do so in the future. We had no idea how to incorporate a mission with a cloth diapering business and didn't even know if cloth diapers would be a helpful thing for orphans. I started talking to our friends who are missionaries, thinking back to our previous trips and the diapering conditions we encountered and researching online diaper donations for orphans when came to a blog about a family whose sole ministry was taking diapers to orphans! It was Knowing No Bounds! I read their blog and it was during those moments the Lord said, "This is it! Use the profits you would have recieved to instead donate diapers to orphans in need." I shared the blog with my husband and we awwwed over baby Zek and Adam and Christie's journey to him! I put on my "to do list" to email them just to let them know what we were going to be starting up and that we would love to help them by donating diapers to them....and then life happened. The list was lost, we got overwhelmingly busy really fast, time passed quickly and I soon couldn't remember the name of their blog spot or the email info to contact them. I'm sure I could have sat and tried to find them via google but it always seemed that I was busy with something else.

When I read your email my mom and sister were sitting in my office with me and I literally yelled "THIS IS THEM!" "This is the family that God used to speak to me" I then proceeded to share with them the story I just shared with you! I am amazed that God allowed you to find me when for months, actually nearly a year, I have had on my "To Do" list to contact them!

So all of this to say I am so happy to "like" you on facebook and help spread the word about your mission! I would also love to offer Adam and Christie a spot as one of our "Diaper Drop Donations" We are currently working on one in Xian, China right now and have one scheduled after that for another organization in Uganda. Then we would love to add Knowing No Bounds as our next one! Our first major drop was a donation of 250 diapers to an organization called Serving His Children in Jinja, Uganda. Our China drop is 500 diapers and we would love to help Knowing no Bounds put diapers on all the babies of an entire orphanage they are working with in Ethiopia. Because our donations are based on sales we have no idea when we will have the donation available. As we sell diapers we load up the donation boxes and once we have enough for on organization we move right on to the next. If this is something Knowing No Bounds would be interested in we would love to partner with them or Bottom Blessings or however it works best for you all!

Thank you again so very much for contacting me! God is so good! Thank you for choosing to serve him with your amazing ministry! I look forward to talking with you in the future!
Loads of Blessings,

Jona

The Little Bee Co.

My eyes filled with tears and my heart was pounding. It was so amazing how God was working. He is awesome! I have often wondered how much of a difference what I was doing was making. (because I couldn’t witness the difference). Now I am in awe of the difference it is making!!!

Bottom Blessings has been amazing! What started out as a little project to send enough cloth diapers with Adam on his mission trip turned in to sending over 1000 lbs of diapers over so far, plus this! Plus who knows how much more! And how much more it’s going to be. I can’t wait to see all that God has planned for this!

So now we are going to be the next The Little Bee Co. diaper drop when I go on my trip in March!!! And I think I have already located an orphanage to take them to!!!

To top that off Bottom Blessings is going to be a Mission Retailer for The little Bee Co. diapers!!! How this works is

• For every diaper you purchase from us a diaper will be donated to Bottom Blessings.
• Any profits made from the sell of the diaper will right now go to help fund my trip to Ethiopia in March and once my trip it over the profits will go to mine and Adam’s ministry in Ethiopia and also back into Bottom Blessings for purchasing diapers to donate and any admin costs that may come up.
• You can buy the diapers for yourself or as a gift (so for every one you buy one is donated)
• You can buy the diapers to be donated (so for every one you buy to donate another one is donated)

I will have a store up and running sometime soon to sell the diapers. I am so super excited about this!!! So keep your eye out for the diaper store!!!!

In the meantime go ahead and check out our super cool shirts to help fund my trip to Ethiopia in March!!! Just click on the store button on the right side of this page!!! or click here... http://ourtriptoethiopia.storenvy.com/

Thanks for reading!!!