Kids and Coordinators

Wednesday June 3, 2009

Today was a good but very long day. Last night, Katie (one of the interns on my team) got a terrible nosebleed and she had to be taken to the clinic nearby. After bringing her back from the clinic, she had one more nosebleed during the night so Paul (one of our leaders) decided that Katie shouldn’t go out into the field with us today. So 6 of us went to meet the OVC Coordinators in Chawama again today. We went through section B of Chawama village today, and the houses were much more spread out, so we had to do a lot of walking. We must have walked over 6 miles today in the hot sun, greeting Zambians along the way. We were able to visit 7 children, ages ranging from 5-17. Some of the kids are very shy and we have a hard time opening them up, but I think about how I would feel if I was a kid and a group of strangers came into my house and starting asking me invading questions, I would be pretty hesitant to answer also.
After going through Chawama, Martha, the director of Every Orphan’s Hope, invited all of the interns over to dinner for the night. We got to eat delicious steak, salad, and Zambian beans. Afterwards, Martha got to talk to us about the whole process of sponsoring a child for Every Orphan’s Hope, the challenges that the ministry is facing right now in the face of a changing economy, currency rates, etc, and how it’s hard to properly distribute the money just because of how much need there is in the communities. It breaks my heart to know that there are so many children who require so much need, and Every Orphan’s Hope doesn’t have the money or the means yet to help everyone that needs it. All the OVC Coordinators are working for Every Orphan’s Hope completely as volunteers. They work because they have a heart for the children in the communities and they love to do God’s work. I have tremendous respect for the coordinators who donate their time, energy, and their money to the ministry and to helping us get around the villages.

Thursday June 4, 2009

Praise God that we haven’t had any power outage in the past day! They said that the power generator that broke has been fixed, so we should be getting consistent power from now on. :-D We had the chance to meet all the OVC Coordinators from Lusaka, Chibebe, Kabwe, Kitwe, Musonda Falls, Livingstone, and Kafue today. The coordinators got to give everyone an update on how the children that they look after are progressing and growing. The biggest issue seemed not to be getting the children food, but the children money for school tuition. The Zambians believe that if you put the child through school and teach them enough, then they can get a good job and the food issue won’t be an issue anymore. The most important part about getting to know and help these kids, is to minister to the kids and tell them about Jesus. I also found out today that I will be going to Kabwe for 5 days next week, and I got to meet the coordinators from Kabwe. All the coordinators are very nice and excited to meet us. After hearing some of the testimonies from the children in different areas, it makes me think that if the sponsored children are having this much trouble getting by, the un-sponsored children are having an even worse time. That is why we need to continue to be an advocate for these children so that they can get sponsored!