Operation Choose Hope

Life is all about choices.

I would love to have you over for tea some time to tell you all about the choices I’ve made in my life. Some of them bad, like when I stole Megan Lemke’s valentine’s necklace in the 3rd grade. Some of them good. Really good. Like when I fell in love and married Mr. Michael Lewis Johnson. But sometimes we don’t get to choose what happens to us, like when out of nowhere we found ourselves, instead of at a crib side, at a grave side.

Our first born Hope Michael would be 10 years old next week. She is and always will be one of the great loves of our life. What she taught us about life (among many things) is that when you feel like you can’t go on you can either choose to let that moment consume you and let ugliness take over, or you can choose to have hope that whatever the seemingly hopeless moment, situation, health event, abusive person, whatever it is…IT IS NOT forever. It had a beginning and you will give it an end, and you will go forward with hope.

That’s what we did with our grief journey.

Part of our healing process was to reach out to others and to give to babies who are in need. Prayer was the most important thing, but the next was to focus on a project and think about being the kind of parents Hope would want for us to be. Even though she was no longer with us, she did great things to our broken hearts and helped us to heal. There is a huge story to tell here, but this isn’t the time. I just wanted to share enough to be able to invite you to join me in Hope’s 10th birthday project: Operation Choose Hope!

This year we are collecting gently used and new baby items , shoes of ALL sizes, as well as cash or gift card donations, and sending them to the Congo in Africa. A friend of mine runs a medical clinic there and disburses the items to the families he sees. He was raised there so he understands the people and how great the need is. They really can use anything.

There are three easy ways to participate in Operation Choose Hope …

1. Drop off donations in Portland, OR; Kent, WA; or Olympia, WA (just message me on Facebook and I’ll get you the drop off details)
2. Mail donations to me, Darbi Johnson, 4309 Shale St. SE, Olympia, WA 98503 
3. Submit a PayPal donation to mikedarbi@earthlink.net

Of course, you can pray over this project and share with others as well! Thank you so much for letting me share my story!