News from Project Samuel, Seleni, South Africa
The following is a brief report on Project Samuel from Dan Fair, our in-country missionary. This is our first Orphan Care Center and we are thrilled with how this model is working. There are so many orphans in this rural village because AIDS has killed the young adults--there are few mothers and fathers left, so the grandparents and other elderly are the only ones left to take care of the children. The Orphan Care Center is the base of operations and support; through your sponsorships, we can provide meals, a safe nurturing environment, and the children are still able to spend evenings with their extended family and caregivers. This arrangement maintains the attachment to their extended family and community; they are not completely removed as they would be in an orphanage. Please read:
Project Samuel in Seleni is now completely up and running. The Orphan Care Center is finished and Mama Christina has moved in, the land is completely fenced, and the child sponsorship is in full swing. In December of 2008 as a gift from the sponsors, we bought all 68 kids of Mama Christina's Orphan Care Center new shoes for school. With the orphan care center fully running, every child in the sponsorship comes to the center in the morning before school and has breakfast, changes into the school clothes and washes their face and brushes their teeth. The ones old enough for school leave and the younger children stay for Creche (preschool). After school, the kids return to the center, change into their playclothes, wash, and have a short Bible study and prayer before eating their afternoon meal. They then stay inside the center grounds and play where they know they are safe. The only return home to their caretaker at night to sleep
Mama Christina has put together a soccer team of her older boys and we provided them uniforms and equipment and then invited them to a tournament we were hosting with other schools. Her boys won the tournament and we saw that Mama Christina is a true Soccer Mom at heart! She has also started to teach the older children how to garden and has given each one of them a small plot. We are able to provide the seed and tools. Last September we had a nurse and nutritionist from a missions team evaluate the kids. With their suggestions we have added a variety of foods to their diet which is having a wonderful affect on the kids. In January we started adding some standard preventive medicine for the children and they are doing very well. Dan Fair, April 2009
From a trip to New Life Children's Home, India
My family joined the One Life Child Sponsorship Program when the program was announced. I was working in the children's area at church that day, but my husband and our two sons found me and proudly showed me the information and picture of a solemn-looking little Indian boy named Mahesh. He was exactly 3 months younger than my youngest son, which was a fun fact. We put his picture in the "homework" drawer and prayed occasionally for "our child." Whenever we had opportunity to send a letter or a picture with a team traveling to India, we'd fire one off and hope it got to him. Knowing that our monthly $32 was helping to feed and clothe a child was a warm fuzzy but not much more that that.
Fast forward to February 2009, when a unique set of circumstances found me at New Life Children's Home in India with a team of Westsiders. I walked along the boys' side of the enthusiastic "receiving line" that greeted us, shaking hands and asking names. The children were healthy, happy and delighted to be with us. Suddenly, from the most beautiful child in the world came the name "Mahesh." I didn't have a rational thought from that moment on...I was blindsided by love. To spend time with him and his "brothers" in that environment of hope and joy was priceless. He will never just be a picture in the homework drawer again, but rather a piece of my heart left on that side of the world. Good-bye was brutal, but I am counting the days until I see him again.
God used that day, that place, those children and Mahesh to speak of the gratitude and joy that He desires from me. One Life...you...me...we are helping save children from physical poverty and hopelessness. Thanks be to God who has rescued each of us from so much more. Kim Perkins, Feb 2009
One Life Catalog
One Life now has an online catalog available here. This catalog offers you a wonderful way to make a Global Impact. You have the opportunity to support a variety of organizations that serve our brothers and sisters in need, and ultimately further the Kingdom of God. Take a look.