The Blog

The anticipation is growing, bags getting packed and final prepartions being made.

Two weeks from today another let them LOL team will be heading to Sierra Leone. Our primary purpose: to visit villages for future well sites and to open our Children’s Home.

It seems it takes me about a year after being there to be able to get through a day not tearing up thinking of my friends there and the challenges they face every day just to survive. Our worlds are so different. I have everything and every opportunity at my finger tips; while they struggle for the basic necessities of life. I find my mind drifting off to those red dirt roads. I can be cutting the lawn, grocery shopping, making dinner or driving and my mind wanders. I really feel like I have one foot here and one foot there. Part of my heart is definitely there.

I ran into someone I know at the grocery store the other day. She asked me about our upcoming trip and wondered if it was weird for me to be in the store we were in seeing so many choices when I had seen people who have very little food. I said yes, but I commented on something else that strikes me. While they have very little they have so much joy and fullness of life, a real sense of community. We have so much and can struggle to feel content. “They live in extreme poverty, and yet they are rich in community and contentment. We live in material abundance but a poverty of community and contentment.”

So, I’m packing my bags with a full heart thats ready (and actually looking forward to) being broken again. That may seem weird, but that brokeness has led to a fulness of life and appreciation of each day that I don’t know I would’ve gotten any other way.

I hope you will join me and our team on this journey. We are able to go and do all we are doing because of so many of you. You are a part of this, and we will bring you with us in our hearts! There will be posts and pictures on let them LOL’s facebook page each day of our time there.

Kate

 This little girl is 4 years old. Both of her parents died when their boat tipped over and they drowned. She is one of the children who will be living in let them LOL’s children’s home.

It is hard to believe it has been two years since we launched let them LOL! We had NO IDEA that so many people would get involved and that so much would happen in such a short time. In the last 2 years, together we’ve raised funds for 32 clean water wells! We’ve taken 2 trips to Sierra Leone, and recently raised the construction cost for a Children’s Home for orphaned and impoverished children. Hope is rising in villages in Sierra Leone because YOU got involved!

We would like to personally and with all our hearts say Thank You for joining us! We endeavored to help those in extreme poverty and in that process we have met some of the most incredible people! Many who are now are closest friends!

Below is our first Blog entry from October 2009

Thanks Again!

With Love,

Joe and Kate (let them LOL cofounders)

Friends and Visitors |
We’ve had a heart to be a part rescuing and helping those inphysical poverty for years now.
We’ve had a heart for the continent of Africa.
We’ve grown in compassion for those who have beensuffering there.
We’ve partnered with organizations over the years to help provide hope for those with none.
We’ve given limbs, sponsored education and housing, and organized a Walk for Water to provide one water well.
Our burden has grown stronger.
We’ve been stirred to do more. We’ve dreamed for years.
We are excited to finally move from “good intentions” to ” action.”
We’re launching this organization “Let them Laugh out Loud” with the hopes of raising more money than we could ever give.
With the hope of inspiring others.
With the hope that together we can do more than we could have done by ourselves.

Get the ring tone.
Wear the shirt.
Use the Water Bottle.
Hang the art.

PASSITON.

Together we can let “hope rise” with the sound of laughter.

Joe and Kate

Our on the ground partner Global was just in Sierra Leone. They took this picture of Violet. You may remember that Violet is baby Jonathan’s mother. He was a 10 month old who died on let them LOL’s first trip to Sierra Leone. I can not express the joy in my heart  seeing this picture! When we first met Violet, her baby boy was dying. She was distraught, and had a vacant stare. On our most recent trip we visited her once again. She was so much more hopeful, though was again overwhelmed with sadness when she showed us where Jonathan was buried. But in this photo she seems happy, joyful and hopeful. Now instead of a dirty stream, she and her children have a clean water well (provided by people from the let them LOL community). Instead of uncertainty, she now has HOPE.

Look at the joy on Violets face and see the difference YOU are all making.

A community here for a community there.

Kate

Cofounder, let them LOL

It has been almost a year since Jason volunteered to be an intern for let them LOL. He has spent countless hours donating his time to help those he has never met. Always, willing, always wearing a smile and ltlol gear, Jason has been a huge part of a very fruitful year here at let them LOL.

We recently asked Jason why he’s involved:

“I remember about one and a half years ago seeing people wearing the black LOL shirts. I think that was what originally attracted me to the organization as strange as that sounds. I really just thought the t-shirts were cool. After asking about them and visiting the website I found out that the profits from the shirts went to build clean water wells in Sierra Leone, Africa.  I remember thinking that it was the coolest thing that I could get some cool clothes and also help someone else. Plus the ringtone is priceless.

I had also been thinking of something else I could do to help people. I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do or how to go about it. A lot of the purpose behind what I was going to do was that it had to be completely selfless. I really felt called to serve somewhere and help people where I could in no way say that my time or money was in any way benefiting me or that I could use the word “my” in describing the cause. So it wasn’t going to be something to help my city or my family or my church or my friends. I’m pretty sure that after seeing a video and hanging out with some of let them LOL’s volunteers at a meeting after they returned from Sierra Leone I knew that this was the right organization to serve with. It turns out that all of the things I thought wouldn’t be affected by serving with LOL really were. I see the change in a lot of people in the city I live in, a different bond in the church I go to, a whole new group of awesome friends that I get to serve with, and a family that also wants to help out and support an amazing cause.”