Party With A Purpose

My daughter turned 17 last Friday. On Saturday, we hosted a birthday party. Besides our family of five, ten guests came to celebrate with us. We had tons of fun playing games (we got from Minute to Win It) such as Extreme Nutstacker, Ka-Broom, and Whippersnapper.

For this year's birthday, my daughter asked family and friends to not bring her any gifts, but instead, to give money to help the orphans in Russia through The Harbor. "At the age of 17, Russian orphans are moved out of institutions. Forced to make a way for themselves, most orphans don’t succeed. More orphans and street children exist in Russia today than in the years after World War II. 10,000 “graduates” from the Russian state orphanage system per year. 8,500 of these fall into drug dealing, prostitution, other crime, and homelessness. 500 commit suicide." (taken from the website)  After we played games but before we serve the yummies (variety of cheesecakes, Double Chocolate Cream Pie, icecream, etc.), we showed our guests The Harbor's DVD. We're so excited that the total of $200.00 was received for this wonderful cause. We're so proud of our daughter for wanting a party with a purpose (although plenty of fun and foods were all had by everyone :)).  To thank our guests, I gave them my hand-made bookmarks with "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27 written on them.