Zoom Fund for Student Sponsorships
January 8th, 2020Zoom Fund is a great group of kids in Nebraska who are helping me (Laurie) to fundraise for the children in Kisii. Thanks Ailani for writing this up!
Blog
Thanks for reading about my adventure! The most recent happenings are posted up top, older stories as your scroll.
Sign up for the newsletter so you can learn about new articles and happenings with LGtA!Read more
Bad Lighting, Crappy Mirrors and Having No Idea What You Look Like
October 2nd, 2019
Mirrors
Some say girls like mirrors. It’s nice to be able to look into a mirror and see if you have mud or food on your face. Or a boogger in your nose. Or some weird growth. It’s nice to have a full length mirror: to see how your outfit’s looking, to check if you sat in dirt and to check if you’re gaining or losing weight.
Many places I’ve been in Africa have not had mirrors! In America, it seems that they are everywhere. Certainly everyone has at least one decent one in their home, and I’ve always had several.
Fabulous Gratitude Exercise – Something for Your Bullet Journal
May 3rd, 2019
Gratitude
About 2 years ago I did a gratitude challenge on Facebook (Laurie Goes to Africa on FB). I was pushing myself to spend 30 days listing 3 things that I’m grateful for in the morning and 3 things that I’m grateful for at night. I was hoping it was going to TRANSFORM MY LIFE.
Shame and Vulnerability
December 6th, 2018
Scary topics, eh?
Read more I recently finished reading “Daring Greatly” by Brene Brown.
Her first TED Talk is one of the top 5 most viewed TED Talk’s ever (with more than 35 million views)… funny enough, she was petrified after giving the talk and didn’t want anyone to see it!
Great Books for Helping the Poor
October 1st, 2018
I love learning. I love building my mind. Although I try to not be a perfectionist, I do desire to be as close to the best that I can be as possible. That’s why I’m always trying to grow, learn and improve. I believe in working smarter, not harder and what better way to do that to learn new things? I don’t have a degree in International Development, Business, Children’s Work or Sociology, (my degree is in Chemistry), but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be equipped properly. Here are 5 books that I’ve read in the past year that have really helped form and guide what I do in Kenya. They are some super helpful and suggested reading for missionaries, development workers or other people working with the poor.
Read more Little TSA Lock Miracle Story
August 1st, 2018
Check out my story of how God reminded me that he’d take care of me using at $15 TSA lock in Kenya.
Read more Primary Project 2: Tutoring Family-less Children
May 11th, 2018
A big thing I’ve been doing in Kisii is tutoring these sweet kids at the children’s home. I’m not just catching them up on things they’re calling behind in, but I’m teaching them the love of learning and teaching… and showing them love and attention.
Read more Primary Project 1: Small Business Owner Training/Mentoring
April 10th, 2018
Poverty alleviation is one of my main passions and it’s also one of the main things I’m working on here in Kisii Kenya. As the main activity in fighting poverty I’m training and mentoring small entrepreneurs with skills to improve their businesses, increase their profits and ultimately escape poverty.
Read more 2 Weeks of Poverty – Completed…
March 6th, 2018
Well. I finished my 14 days of poverty: living on 2$ a day. I originally thought I would/could blog during that time, but it just didn’t work out. But here I am. And here’s the update. (When I say 1$, I’m also saying 100 Kenyan Shillings, usually that’s pretty close to the exchange rate.) Read the intro to this experiment here.
You don’t get to have your comforting foods
You’ll be staying home more because you can’t afford the transport
It’s hard to have a social life because you can’t pay for a motorcycle, you can’t go out to eat/drink and you don’t have enough food at home to entertain
Keep the lights out when you can: because you can’t afford all that much electricity
You better not have to go to the doctor, because that will definitely put you over budget
I finally get why people don’t buy the larger supply and save the money per weight: because they just don’t have the money. Period.
Read more Two Dollars a Day for 2 Weeks
Things I learned about while living on 2 dollars a day:
Two Weeks of Poverty
February 17th, 2018
In a way I feel like a pretentious, privleged fool for doing this. In another way, I feel like I have to.
Read more