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!

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.