Silembe, Zambia | Update 29 May 08

The current status of the HOFO project is:

Completed:
Bathhouse (repair still needed)
Kitchen - Laundry facility
1st Home
2nd Home
Pit Litrine

Under Construction:
3rd Home

From our Team in Zambia:

Hello from Zambia -we are nearing the time where we will be putting the roof on our 3rd home at the House of Faith Orphanage.


I should be sending pictures of this house roofed next week. I'm sure they finished the outside walls today.

After getting home last night from Lusaka, I left at 5:30 to pickup 4 of the District Councilors to do a "site visit". They saw the local people, all giving encouraging words concerning us.


The main floor is finished in the kitchen/laundry. We will grade and pour the pantries (slight grade to keep water out) and entrance (also graded to keep water out) later. Today was the last day of putting water for curing.


Tomorrow I'll haul rocks and pay everyone after a bank withdrawal and buying a few things.


The 2nd house painting is finished and looks good.


Jo Anne and Kathy stayed here last night and greeted the councilors when they arrived today. We will get the information requested to you soon. Jo Anne will send you some options concerning Lovemore's eyes as soon as she can check out everything. All of the children looked great to me today.

God Bless,
from Mike

Please continue to pray for our team and children in Zambia.

Priest urges support for African orphans

By Anne Marie Amacher

“If we educate our children, then we have an asset for the future,” says Father Juvenalis Mutalemwa Ndaula, a priest from Africa who is studying at St. Ambrose University in Davenport.

Read More.......

FAITH REQUIRES ACTION - ZAMBIA 2008 MESSAGE continued from March 27th......

Elizabeth, Housemother for the 1st home at the House of Faith Orphanage in Silembe, Zambia, with Natasha -one of the Orphans living there.

Our Message delivered to Zambia in March 2008 continued....... from Sunday, March 23, 2008.

What about Moses!? Now here is a man that was called the most humble, but he was also referred to as a friend of God.

Moses had Faith! I would have to say that he had to be reminded from time to time of God’s ultimate power, but Moses knew that the God of Israel was the Creator of the universe and the ruler of all man kind.

Moses was a man of special circumstance; once in Pharaoh’s household, and then a Hebrew slave. All of this had changed for Moses, but His God didn’t change. God met Moses where ever he was; on the Mountain top or in the Sinai –Moses was a great man of Faith.

What of you? Are you prepared for God to meet you right where you are? Are you prepared to go where he sends you or will you go at all?

More than 20,000 Chinese Ready to Adopt Quake Orphans

May 28, 2008

This little baby, resting peacefully in the arms of a rescue worker, is one of the estimated 5498 children that have been orphaned by China's brutal May 12 earthquake.

According to Internet stories, one mother who died while holding her baby left him a text message in her phone, "Dear baby, if I die, you must remember that I love you!"

While the youngest orphans probably won't have more than a simple text message or their current clothes to remind them of their birth parents, there are more than 20,000 prospective parents throughout China who are eager to invite these children into their homes.

Read More......

Adoption inquiries soar after China quake orphans children

By Wendy Koch and Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

Adoption agencies are receiving a surge in phone calls from people who want to adopt children orphaned by the earthquake in China.

"There's lots of interest," says Joshua Zhong, co-founder of Chinese Children Adoption International, one of the largest China-only agencies in the USA.

Read More.......

College students compelled to help AIDS orphans in Kenya

By Jessica Johnson (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Thursday, May 29, 2008

The school in the Kenyan slum is a tin shack with makeshift classrooms separated by a single chalkboard.

Out in the school yard, three stones formed the kitchen.

Gataka, one of the slums where a group of area college students and Mount Pleasant videographer Laura Shelton spent spring break, was a place where children played in trash piles lining the streets because the poor there can't afford garbage pickup.

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PAKISTAN: Quake Orphans Still Dependent on Charity, NGOs

By Irfan Ahmed

ISLAMABAD, May 29 (IPS) - Thousands of children orphaned by the earthquake that hit northern Pakistan in October 2005, leaving 85,000 people dead, continue to be dependent on charity and support provide by donors and non-government organisations (NGOs).

According to estimates in the ‘Earthquake Vulnerability Assessment,’ a study conducted by the New York-based Population Council and United Nations bodies in 2005, the earthquake resulted in some 1,700 children losing both parents, while another 40,000 lost one parent.

Read More.........