Catch-Up #3 – First Feeding Point in Musana

Our first feeding program took place on April 20^th, and was a huge success.

Esther, the woman living on the property where we are beginning the ministry in Musana, met with several village heads and a health worker to establish a list of 66 children who were invited to the first program. More children will be added as we go along. She also recruited five volunteers from the community who came to help, and cooked the entire meal.

When the children arrived, we registered them and took their general living situation information, and took a photograph of them for our files… out of our list of 66 children, we registered 45, and had an additional 10 or so who were not on the list, and will be investigated to find out if they are needy enough to be part of our program.

The food took longer to prepare than expected, but the children had a wonderful time playing and getting to know each other and us. It lasted for several hours, and it was so amazing to finally see the faces of the kids that we will be working with!

The food was a big hit as well, and despite the enormous amounts served, every child finished every bite of their meal- including little two year oldKudzi (the youngest registered), who sat and valiantly ate every single bit of food off of his heaping plate.

I loved getting to know different children, and finding out about their stories. Some of them were tragic; two girls, Talent(13) and her half-sister Sharon(11), live alone. Their mother remarried a few years ago, and moved away with her new husband, leaving her daughters alone. She comes back every so often to bring them food, but for the most part they are alone, looking after themselves, their house, their garden, and somehow managing to remain in school.

Another young boy, Leeroy, is fifteen years old, and lives alone. He was too scared to come to the program on his own at first, and only showed up after much coaxing, towards the end of the day. He has no money, and so had to leave school. I don’t know any details, but he was a sweet, polite boy, and my heart went out to him.

I don’t know anything about this little girl’s situation, but she made me laugh. When asked how old she was, she said she wasn’t quite sure, but she thought she might be one year. =)

There are so many other stories with each of the children we’ll be working with, and I’m so excited to see this ministry begin, and to be able to watch it grow.