Sixth Feeding Point – 25/05/11

There has been a bit of a problem concerning which kids are being accepted into the program, and which are not- parents are complaining, and the village head has given us a new list of kids, some of whom are obviously doing fine. It’s been a bit crazy, and although the village head and other people in the village are being helpful, some people are just causing unnecessary problems.

So we have decided to go around to every child’s house and do a thorough assessment of their situation, and go from there. Today we did the first group of visits, and it was very interesting to see what is really going on, as opposed to what the child has told us. A few of them quite definitely do not need to be in the program, and some of them definitely do.

It will take a long time to finish up all the assessments, but hopefully once we are done, we will have a definite list of the kids who are in the program, no matter what. Pray for us, as we try to sort all of this out!

Fourth Feeding Point- 11/05/11

We now have 105 of the neediest/poorest children registered with us, with more to come next week! It is so exciting to see the ministry growing even just in these past couple of weeks. At the moment we are trying to get more information about the children, and are in the process of creating a website, so more news on that to come. Here are a few pictures from the most recent feeding program (next one happening tomorrow).

Belinda, our 100th child registered!

I don’t have details to tell many of the children’s stories yet, but here is one. We met Michelle (12), O’Brian (10) and Moesha (5) last week when they showed up quite late in the afternoon and asked if they could have food. They were dressed in very ragged and dirty clothes, and looked like they came from a very poor situation, even for Musana. When we asked them where they had come from, they indicated that they live in a village quite a distance from our property. Someone had told them about our program, and they had spent much of the afternoon walking to get there. They noted that they are orphans who live with their grandmother, and only get one small meal per day, as she is very poor. While these children are technically outside the area we said we were going to serve, we simply could not turn them away after hearing their story, so they are part of our program now. While they were very reserved at first, Michelle, O’Brian and Moesha have warmed up and now fully participate in the games and activities.


Please pray for us and the children as we continue to expand the ministry, and develop relationships with each other.

A Dollar For Fun

We tried out one of the churches for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and Moses and Ayana went to the kid’s program. Afterwards we picked them up, and they said that it had been fine, but Moses had a complaint. Apparently they had been learning about tithing, and kids could give some money if they had any. Moses, not understand the lesson, said to us, in a very disapproving voice:

“It was okay, but you know what? They were charging us a dollar, just to have a bit of fun.”

Happy Fourteenth Josh

Practicing on his new electric guitar

Going out for dinner

Third Feeding Point- 4/05/11

Our third feeding point went so well. We had fifteen more children register, and our number of registered children is now up to 92! We had about 109 children show up altogether, and some of those extras will be investigated to see if they need to be part of the program.

Here is a glimpse at an update my dad sent around last week- he figured out some of the statistics of our kids, and I thought I’d post them.

· In terms of caregivers, only 7% of all the children live with both parents(!).

o The rest are taken care of by:

§ mothers (29%)

§ fathers (3%)

§ grandmothers (33%)

§ both grandparents (12%)

§ other relatives (6%), and

§ siblings i.e. child-headed households (10%).

***Just because a child has both parents does not mean that their situation is necessarily good; for instance, one family has 6 children living with both parents, but they are very poor and receive only 1 meal per day because the father cannot work or help much at all.

· All of the families (100%) are subsistence farmers and get their food from their gardens.

o 9% receive 3 meals a day

o 67% receive 2 meals per day, and

o 24% are given only one meal per day.

***Please keep in mind that what these children mean by a meal could include ½ a “mealie” (roasted corn cob) or 1 slice of bread or 1 cup of maize porridge or 1 avocado or 1 banana or even just 1 tomato.

· Five percent (5%) of children do not attend school because their families cannot afford school fees (usually between $30 - $90 USD per year)

Next week school will have started, so we will have to see how it works with all the youngest children coming first, and the older ones later on. I’ll keep you updated!

Second Feeding Point- 27/04/11

The second feeding program happened on the 27^th, and we had 33 new children register! We now have a total of 76 registered children, plus a few who were visiting, or were not registered. In time we won’t allow any but the registered children to come get food, but at for now we’ve been feeding the extras.

As nothing especially different from the first week happened, I won’t go into detail, but here are a few pictures, including the new faces!