Local lady needs your help to take mission trip to South Africa

Cairo native Amanda Redden is using a crowd sourcing website  as part of her efforts to raise money so she can take an extended mission trip to South Africa.
Redden has already served twice in South Africa, and wants to return now for one to two years. Working as a volunteer through Door of Hope, a ministry to abandoned babies there, Redden says she will care for the infants and children and plan activities to meet their physical, mental and spiritual health needs.
“The daily duties will consist of caring for, changing, feeding, and playing with the babies . . .The work isn’t easy and the days are long but the reward is amazing. The love I will give the children will have a lasting impact on their lives,” Redden states on her web page.
Before launching her fund raising campaign on the website Indiegogo on Nov. 19, Redden said she had raised $3,000, but still needed an additional $7,000 to volunteer for one year.
Redden says the fund raising effort, entitled “Miss Amanda & the Babies,” will end on her birthday, Dec. 19. She writes on her web page, “Y’all, having the rest of my funds needed for South Africa by that date would be the most AWESOME birthday gift ever!”
Donors will need to get busy to help Redden reach her $7,000 goal by Dec. 19. As of Dec. 8, supporters had committed $1,421.
Redden is a 2006 graduate of Cairo High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in communication from Brewton-Parker College. She is currently a teacher assistant at Cairo’s First United Methodist Church Preschool.
It was four years ago while working for Lifeway’s FUGE Camps, that Redden first learned about Door of Hope Children’s Mission in Johannesburg, South Africa. She says a video about the organization’s work moved her to tears and filled her with an urgency to help. Then, during her last semester of college, Redden attended a college ministry group’s meeting where it was announced that a mission trip was planned for Christmas break to Door of Hope in Johannesburg.
“Of all the places the small Christian college could have gone, it was to the one place I had always dreamed of visiting,” states Redden. She, along with her closest friend and four others went on the mission trip for two weeks. Redden says that is when she came to love caring for abandoned babies and seeing each baby placed with a loving family. Redden says she held babies, changed diapers, encouraged the aunties that stay full-time with the babies and decided she could have stayed forever.
In 2013, Redden returned to volunteer at the Door of Hope for almost six months.
She says that now, after much prayer, she feels lead to take another leap of faith and return to South Africa in January to stay for one to two years.
Anyone wishing to learn more information may contact Redden at aredden87@yahoo.com.