“Because of the food you give to me I am always filled up and am able to learn when I come to school. My school uniform makes me very happy and I look nice. I am grateful.” -Evans K. Osei, 8 years old
“Now I have school uniform and food to eat am very happy. You have made me happy I thank you SO MUCH.” -Sandra Nyarko, 7 years old
“My stomach is always full. And I have books to study oh I am happy. I want to tell you that God will give you more money. Thank you.” -Philip Obiri, 8 years old
Here are some photos of school uniforms being distributed recently:
Lots of updates from our partners, Learn To Earn in South Africa…
From the Hermanus branch…
Give thanks for:
Eleven new students who have registered for the Home Management course.
The construction on the new Hermanus branch training facilities is going very well.
Needs:
Continued protection for the building crew at the site
Funding to enable us to complete the new building
Sibulele is a graduate of the Home Management course. She and her six siblings lost their mom recently.
Mpumi has health problems.
Amamkele has health problems.
Bulelwa is trying to get her business up and running.
From the Business Resource Centre…
Needs:
Timely completion of all contracts in Zakhele
All potential contracts that are in the pipeline still
All vacancies to be successfully filled.
The success of the Khayelitsha Festival (23-26 October) that we are taking part in.
All enterprise development initiatives that we are involved in.
Give thanks for:
Several large orders through Zakhele which will keep many unemployed people economically active. This is especially useful as the December holidays loom.
Vanessa’s baby boy is developing very well in her tummy.
From the Learn To Earn Head Office…
Needs:
Fundraising efforts for the balance of the funds for the Hermanus building construction and for the additional space at our Khayelitsha facility.
Our 20 year celebrations planning.
Our funding proposals that are being considered or worked on.
Give thanks for:
Successful applications for funding.
The growth and interest in our Association activities.
The faithfulness of staff, board members and volunteers in serving the organization.
The impact and change we have seen in the lives of our students and graduates.
The ongoing safety of all connected with the organization.
From the Khayelitsha branch…
Give thanks for:
Our first production training pilot course run for graduates of the sewing course as a stepping stone into the Business Resource Centre.
Our woodworking network partners who have been able to take all our students on work placement for 2 weeks once again.
Needs:
Graphic Design students waiting to hear about applications to tertiary institutions.
Employment opportunities for graduates as this has been quiet recently.
Help for students who have dropped out because of family illness, AIDS-related illnesses and one student who was in a car accident.
We recently told you about a new Education project in Ambo, Ethiopia, which several of our MC members visited this summer on Mocha Club Trips. Here are some photos of the progress – it’s almost done! The structure is complete, and they just have to clean up the walls and minor details. Some of the rooms are already being used, and this is already such a better environment for the students!
In the middle of a bad-news world, it’s difficult sometimes to see the GOOD that is happening. We wanted to share some GOOD NEWS from our partners in the village of Jach, Sudan…
When we stepped off the plane in Jach, Southern Sudan, over three years ago, there were no smiles.
Even when we distributed food, blankets, tools, shelter tarps, mosquito nets and other humanitarian relief supplies to several thousand Darfuri refugees who had gathered there, the people were grateful and some wept, but few smiled.
It was too soon for smiles. The nightmares were too fresh. The region too desolate. Hope too far away to grab hold of.
Today, smiles are the first things we see. Smiles, and eyes shining with hope.
Building by building, family by family, the wilderness called Jach is becoming a community—160 square miles, 76,000 strong and growing.
Although primitive by Western standards, the Jach community now has schools, churches, a medical clinic and a marketplace. Twenty-six boreholes provide fresh, safe water to thousands of people and their livestock. Every year, more families eat the produce of their own kitchen gardens.
Jach even has its own sports league and has fielded two soccer teams—a sure sign of civilization in any quarter of the globe.
Most important of all, the Kingdom of God is advancing. Hut to hut, compound to compound.
Hundreds of children meet regularly in Christian clubs to hear the Word of God and be discipled in their faith.
This summer, 18 students began studies in our new Bible Training Centre for Pastors (BTCP).
At the same time, powerful new programming is being translated into several languages for broadcast over Radio PEACE.
Through the faithful gifts and prayers of friends like you, we have accomplished a tremendous amount in just a few years, and we are deeply grateful.
And it is just the beginning.
Nurse Peter Mazjoub examines a child at the medical clinic in Jach. Malaria and waterborne diseases are the most common illnesses during the rainy season. When these photos were taken, Southern Sudan was in the grips of an outbreak of cholera.
Many families have turned now to farming. By July (winter in Sudan) most were on their third planting. The first two dried up due to a lack of rain. Crops include okra and tomato plants like these, as well as watermelon, water lily, sorghum and squash.
With each new borehole, at least 500 people and their livestock gain access to safe, clean water for drinking and cooking.
Despite dangerous landing conditions, delivery and distribution of emergency relief supplies continued throughout the rainy season.
Mosquito nets like these are precious cargo as torrential rains spawn deadly clouds of malaria-infecting insects.
There are still many challenges and much suffering in Jach. The Darfur refugee community is still very impoverished. It is difficult to establish a new life in an area where the indigenous people don’t speak your language and still harbor bitterness from the years of persecution levied against the South by Janjaweed militia (which in many cases came from Darfur).
Our partners continue to work with the Church in Jach, reaching out to the predominantly Moslem refugees and showing them the love of Christ through forgiveness and reconciliation.
But students still learn under trees or crowded into grass and mud tukels. Our medical clinic is staffed by a registered nurse who sees more than 100 patients a day. Families that do not live close to a borehole continue to drink from surface water or hand-dug wells contaminated with waterborne parasites.
As we trust in God’s faithfulness for every need and challenge that lie ahead, we rejoice and thank him for all the wonderful things he has already done. And we thank you for your compassion and generosity.
We received this story from one of our partners on the ground in Sudan, Kimberly Smith, in the village of Nyamlel.
We went to two Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps. The camps we visited and assessed today were full of a combination of Darfurees trying to flee the persecution and genocide as well as local farmers whose land has been flooded out by this unusually brutal raining season. The desert is flat; there is nowhere for the water to run.
What we found in the camps were literally thousands of widows, orphans and all manner of broken families suffering starvation and disease and drinking water only from cesspools on the road side. After fleeing their homes, they now scramble to find grass to weave a thatch shelter or a tarp to protect themselves from the harsh rains. The women were picking leaves from the trees and boiling them in a small pot over an open fire so that they had something to put in the bellies of their babies. Most do not have tarps to keep the scorching sun or the pounding rain from their heads. Instead, they simply sit with their nursing babies on the roadside awaiting some form of help that seems to never come.
Widow in front of her “house” with her five children
Of the huge crowd present, one woman (Fabo) stepped forward as their spokesperson. Fabo said, “We have had our husbands to be killed by the Arabs. They have killed most of our children. Many of our women have been raped to death. We have so many orphans among us. Now, we survivors sit here on the road, waiting for help. We thank God you have come. We pray you will help us.”
Please continue to give sacrificially and remember these widows in your thoughts and prayers. To help them, we need:
Editor’s Note: Derrek Fikes was on our Mocha Club Ethiopia trip #3 from July 17th-26th, 2008.
I was able to travel to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with other Mocha Club members back in July. It was the toughest thing I have ever experienced. It was also the single most rewarding and amazing experiences I’ve ever been a part of.
The part of the “trip” I want to focus on are the street kids. They are the kids who have been kicked out of their home, left because of abuse, money issues, etc.
Now, understand something. When I say street kids, I mean kids who survive on the streets. They roam the streets, make their living on the streets, fight for food on the streets, and pretty much live there. They are looked down on by everyone. These kids are amazing. It hurt me to see these kids in these situations. You want to see injustice? Nothing screams it more than an 8 year old boy who has to fight to stay alive and who struggles daily to get a meal.
I wanted to close my eyes, snap my fingers and transport all those kids to loving homes with loving parents. That can’t happen, though. I felt so…helpless. All I could do was love them for those hours and days I was with them. All I could do was show them God’s love. They have been rejected and alone all their lives. Rejected by parents. Rejected by society. Rejected by the church. Rejected by everyone but God.
All we could do was feed them. Hang out with them. Laugh with them. Love them!
The book of James says that “religion that God our Father finds as pure is to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to not be corrupted by the world.” Look after orphans and widows. Pure. Religion. We don’t see much religion that is pure and faultless these days. Much of what we see are the negative things which are affiliated with religion. Yet, God spells it out for us. Look after the poor, the orphans, widows, prostitutes, crack heads, homeless, and etc. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
This “trip” really put things into perspective for me. I am not a big deal. I am but a vapor in the wind. Here today, gone tomorrow. When I pass from this life to the next and get to the gates, I want to hear my Savior say “Son; welcome home, the war is over.” I want to love, not hate. I want to give, not take. I want to live, not apathetically go through the motions. I want to encourage, not dishearten. I want to be an example of Christ’s love, not be just another Christian stereotype. I want to LOVE.
This summer, 1,050 children from grades 4 through 7 attended a “wait4me”
concert at the King of Kings Baptist Centre. Led by the Prevention team of Living, the concert was held for those children who have made a commitment to abstain from sex until marriage and encourage others to do the same. The children came from the neighborhoods of Red Hill, Ocean View, Masiphumelele and Capricorn, places where Living Hope conducts after-school programs daily to help disadvantaged kids.
Through drama done by Living Hope, messages from life skills educators, and music by groups from our local communities, the boys and girls were given encouragement to help them fulfill their goals. Each child received a “wait 4 me” bandana and a wrist band that symbolizes their
commitment. They enjoyed goodies which included a hotdog, chips, sweets and cool drink. The concert proved to
have a positive impact on our children with clear and powerful messages. Feedback received suggests that they all
look forward to repeating the event next year.
Please remember our friends in Sudan as they face unimaginable challenges right now…
Floods leave 40,000 more people homeless in Southern Sudan!
AWEIL, SOUTHERN SUDAN. Heavy rains in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal have caused the Kuom river to overflow in the town of Aweil, driving tens of thousands of people into the bush. This is in addition to 50,000 who fled the fighting in May between government and southern troops in the oil-rich Abyei district.
As conditions deteriorate, high water levels increase the threat of cholera, typhoid and malaria.
The UN recently announced that Sudan ranks in its top ten list of “Hunger’s Global Hotspots.” At the same time, citing “relentless” attacks on food convoys, along with severe budget shortfalls, its World Food Programme threatened to stop air services to Darfur this week. More than 300 humanitarian agencies depend on UN flights, which currently deliver emergency supplies to three million people.
“We currently serve over 80,000 Darfur refugees and IDPs in the Bahr el-Ghazal region,” said Brad Phillips, president of the Persecution Project Foundation [one of African Leadership’s partners in Sudan]. “Although they may not be directly affected by the WFP cutbacks, more refugees in Darfur will flee to our area of operations on the border, putting a greater strain on our resources. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”
Several of the Child Mothers from Village of Hope who are being rehabilitated are now helping serve and lead clubs for other Child Mothers at local IDP camps in Gulu! Here are some photos…
For three years, several thousand refugees from the genocide in Darfur have huddled in and around the community of Jach, which is located just south of the Darfur border. Jach is a wilderness, making it very hard for survival. Temperatures can easily reach 130 degrees during the day. Until recently, the refugees had no dependable water supply. However, Mocha Club and African Leadership have helped fund the drilling of 20 clean water wells recently! New wells were dug next to the medical clinic, school sites, church, landing strip and other strategic locations. Our partners in Sudan have also begun to buy “bowsers” (110-gallon donkey carts) to transport water to those who do not have access to a well and to help irrigate the growing number of “kitchen gardens” being planted every year.
Women in Jach enjoying the well
With this new water supply comes the opportunity for sustainable agriculture programs in the area. Mocha Club is now helping provide the supplies for the refugees of Jach to grow “kitchen gardens” – a variety of vegetables that will be the easiest to harvest and will best enhance the health and diet of the local people, including:
Tomato
Okra
Pumpkin
Onion
Watermelon
Sweet potato
Ground Nuts
A half acre plot is being used to cultivate 10 kitchen gardens maintained by 10 families. This plot of land can potentially yield enough vegetables for 500 people or the equivalent of 100 families! These kitchen gardens will supplement the refugee food supply, thereby greatly increasing health standards and saving many lives. The ground is hard, and the tools are elementary. But the people are determined, hard working and tenacious. And the result is a sustainable food supply in a wilderness that the United Nations declared didn’t even have any water.
