Pastor Sell's Blog will Really be a Blog Now.

It's exciting to see Friends of Mercy continue to move forward. Our new and improved web site will have so much more information than before. We will be able to update it regularly. That means that this blog will really function more like a blog than an announcement or advertisement blog.

I will be able to provide more information here about my travels and some of the work we currently are getting done.

So, it will be worth your time to check back regularly. By the way, it is here that I'll write a daily diary from our upcoming trip to Kenya in October. As soon as our new web site is live at

(http://www.TheFriendsOfMercy.org/)

I'll take the time to reorganize this blog.

Look around our field test web site

New Field Test Site Here,

just remember it isn't live yet at our normal address above.

Blessings,

Pr. Mark Sell

August 1st -- Friends of Mercy to Launch New Web Site to Help AIDS Orphans and Battle FGM

By August 1st, Friends of Mercy's new web site will provide more information to help AIDS Orphans and girls fleeing female genital mutilation. This link:

Friends of Mercy - New Web Site - Field Test

gives you a peek into our new web site in the midst of construction. It is functional right now, but is not in its final form, thus it is not found at TheFriendsOfMercy.org.

The new web site will not only offer mountains of more information, but will also provide opportunities for visitors to the site to download brochures, forms, documents, papers, power point presentations, and much more.

Other information will also be available about our organization. Learn about the members of our board of directors, our other projects to serve Christ's saints facing terminal illnesses and minister to those who choose to participate in hospice programs.

Pray for wisdom as you might consider sharing your blessings with the children of Kenya who are in need and most of whom have no parents.

Do You Know Who Waris Dirie Is?

Waris is a supermodel.

She is beautiful, wealthy, and circumcised.

Her name means "Desert Flower" which is also the title of one of her books about Female Genital Mutilation. You can learn about her story from her foundation, the Waris Dirie Foundation which leads her fight against Female Genital Cutting.

"Born into a nomadic Somali family, 39-year-old supermodel Waris Dirie survived the traditional form of female genital mutilation that kills hundreds of women in Africa every year - including her own younger sister and two cousins...
... Dirie remembers the mutilation only as 'that horror.' As a little girl, she was blindfolded and held down by her mother, with only a cloth to bite on to relieve her pain, while her clitoris was cut out with a dirty razor. The same procedure, Dirie says, killed her sister - along with many other girls in Somalia who were cut in the wrong vein and bled to death or died of an infection. But Waris, who survived this tragic procedure, shows a strength, not only of the physical sort, but also a strength of mind, body and soul. Dirie underwent this crime...survived...and she is living AND campaigning to tell about it."

Friends of Mercy is working to raise awareness among Lutherans about the problem of FGM with our fellow Lutherans in Kenya. I met with the Maasai elders and other leaders to develop a program that will build a refuge center called the Entito Rescue Center for girls. This compound will include a grade school, a medical clinic, and other facilities so that the school could board 500 girls and up to 200 girls who want to break the cycle of FGM.