Our trip to bring our baby girl home from Ethiopia was a life changing experience. It is easy to become numb to the statistics about poverty in the world but impossible to ignore when you see the suffering with your own eyes. I will never forget witnessing children sleeping on the sidewalks or drinking out of a mud puddle on the side of the road for as long as I live.

In Africa, 85% of the population is without clean drinking water. Almost a billion people struggle every day to collect water that's likely to make them sick. Women and children bear the burden of water collection as they walk for miles and miles for something that we take for granted when we turn on the tap. Everywhere we went in Ethiopia, we saw people walking, walking, walking in search of this most basic human need.

Dirty water kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Children are especially vulnerable as their bodies are not strong enough to fight off diarrhea and other illnesses. 90% of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water are children under 5 years old.

Addie was almost one of those children. At 3 months of age, she had lost 1/3 of her body weight and was extremely malnourished as a result of salmonella that had ravaged her little body in the orphanage. This could have been easily avoided if there had simply been clean water for bottles and for nannies to wash their hands.

Water changes everything. Just 4 short months later, Addie is a healthy, chubby-cheeked, sweet and happy baby. Her body is thriving and she has more than doubled her weight since we brought her home. She has blessed us in so many ways and lets her light shine for everyone that she meets.

I am hoping to fund a well so that all the orphans left behind in Ethiopia and children everywhere can shine too. Together, we have an incredible opportunity to provide clean water for those in need through charity:water. An average water project costs $5,000.00 and can serve 250 people with clean, safe water. A donation of just $20.00 can give one person clean water for 20 years. And the great thing about donating to charity: water is that 100% of donations go directly to the water projects, and we will get to see exactly what project our dollars funded.

Please join me by making a small sacrifice in honor of the special children in your life. Thank you!