Anna Lipscomb (photo credit: Sharaya Mauck)

It’s time to rally together and show the world the might of the SUSIE Sisterhood! Anna Lipscomb, SUSIE Mag’s December cover girl who has raised over $65,000 for the Global Orphan Project, has been nominated as a finalist in the America Inspired contest hosted by Examiner.com.

If Anna wins, she’ll receive $50,000 in prize money. She has committed to giving that money to the GO Project to continue helping orphaned and abandoned children throughout the world.

Anna needs your support! YOU can vote for her once a day through January 27. Here’s how:

Go to www.examiner.com.

Click “Sign Up” in the right hand corner of the screen.

Create an account (be sure and ask your parents’ permission first).

Cast your vote for Anna in the America Inspired contest (Outstanding Youth category) once a day through January 27.

Spread the word — get your family, friends and community to vote for Anna, too! Post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Announce it in church. Tell your school. Send out an email to everyone you know.

By gathering support for Anna, we’re giving her the chance to share this $50,000 with orphaned and abandoned children. Let’s do it, SUSIE Sisters!

Happy January, SUSIE Sisters!

We have some super-exciting news to share with you! After working with the Global Orphan Project, we’ve declared a winner of the first-ever SUSIE Christmas Challenge! Drum roll, please …

Joslynn, creator of Help4Haiti, is our grand prize winner! Joslynn raised an amazing total of $2,265 for the GO Project. She and her mom, Penny, will be traveling with Anna Lipscomb and her mom to Haiti to visit the Saintilus village, along with other villages in the area.

Here’s what Joslynn shared about her experience with the Challenge:

The Open Her World Christmas Challenge was such a life-changing thing for me spiritually. I didn’t rely on others to give me money, and I didn’t persist in asking for it. I decided that God would work through the hearts of the people that could give financially. He even worked in me by putting it on my heart to give all the money I had earned in December to the girls in Haiti. I learned that most of the time, those who didn’t have as much were the ones who gave the most.

I raised money by first telling my church about it. These people are my family, and I knew they would support me in the best way they could, whether it be financially or through prayers. I then gave an information sheet about what I was doing to other area churches in our community. Finally, I sent out letters asking people to consider their part in this opportunity. The results overwhelmed me!

God’s faithfulness overwhelmed us, too! Because of what ALL of you did, the SUSIE Sisterhood will be sending a grand total of $6,454* to help orphans in Saintilus! You focused on others this Christmas season and have been a reflection of Jesus’ selfless love and compassion. We know the lives of orphans will be changed because of your sacrifice. The SUSIE staff would like to give you a huge thank you, and so would the GO Project! Here’s what Trace Thurlby, president of the GO Project, wanted to share with each of you who participated:

The Global Orphan Project would like to thank you for helping care for orphaned and abandoned children through SUSIE’s Christmas Challenge. By following her heart, Anna Lipscomb helped provide dozens of Haitian orphans with a home. By following your hearts, you’ve helped children who were fending for themselves in the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Now, they no longer worry about their next meal. They live with the care of a house momma. They go to school. They have a future. Each one of you helped replace their hunger with hope.

Anna also shared a word of thanks and encouragement with the SUSIE Sisterhood for partnering with her in her efforts to share God’s love with Haitian orphans:

I am so amazed at what you did for the teen girls in Haiti through the SUSIE Christmas Challenge — over $6,000 raised … WOW! Thank you to all my SUSIE Sisters who took time to be part of it during an already busy holiday season. What you all did WILL make a difference in the lives of these orphans. Let’s keep encouraging each other in the year to come as we seek to reach out to “the least of these” — in our own communities and around the world!

Precious SUSIE Sisters, we are so excited about what God’s done through the Challenge! Thank you for every sacrifice you made, every prayer you prayed and every dollar you raised. We pray God opened your heart in a new way this Christmas season! Let’s follow Anna’s lead and continue loving and serving those around us. You are His light to the world!

The 2011 SUSIE Christmas Challenge winner, Joslynn, and her mom, Penny.

*This total includes online donations and checks that were mailed in to the GO Project. Checks were not counted toward an individual’s total in the contest, but they were counted toward the overall grand total.

Happy New Year, SUSIE Sisters!

We know many of you are curious about the winner of the Christmas Challenge, and we are, too! We’re working with The Global Orphan Project to get the final results tallied, to ensure that all funds have been received and to declare a winner. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we have this process completed so we can celebrate together.

To all of you who participated in the Challenge – THANK YOU! Your efforts are making a difference in the lives of girls in Haiti. God’s love and compassion are shining through you, and what you did was so worth it! Thank you for shining His light!

-The SUSIE Staff