The morning after we arrived in Lalibela, Ethiopia on Sunday, Sept. 9th 2007, we walked to the Love & Hope 2000 Children Center first thing after breakfast. Although it was Monday, the children weren’t in school because they had the whole week off for Ethiopia's Millennium Celebration. We got to meet, for the first time, the fourteen boys we’ve been supporting to live there for the past thirteen months. We were tickled when we saw in their bedroom side by side on the wall, a picture of Jesus next to the famous Barcelona soccer player Ronaldinho – that said it all.

We brought with us twelve digital cameras and two laptops that had been donated by many generous individuals specifically for this trip. We presented the cameras to them, labeled with their names. We told them that we would like to get to know them and their village better through their eyes. There were several different types of cameras, so Tom gave them each their own private photo lesson on how to shoot photographs. We paired some of little ones with older children. We asked them to take 5-10 pictures per day through Wednesday. The first day was about getting comfortable with the cameras.  The pictures were a little out of focus and the subjects were of themselves and their friends. Their favorite part was replaying each digital image which resulted in the batteries wearing down quickly. We expected that the children wouldn't be familiar with digital cameras, but didn’t realize how scarce they would be in Lalibela overall. Three days later we kicked off The Millennium celebration with a slide show. As a surprise, Tom and Yvette had spent five hours  downloading their over 800 photos to create a slide presentation.  As they watched, they would yell "that’s my picture," "I took that picture," "hey that’s me!"

Now, for the first time you have the opportunity to view these beautiful, sometimes funny and touching images.  Please enjoy them and remember that it takes very little to make a difference in a child's life.

Read more about the Lalibela Project: www.lalibelaproject.org