While in Mozambique God broke our hearts for a family of orphans. We spent a night with them and fell in love with them so quickly. There are 23 children living at this place, and 2 parents who have graciously decided to look after them. They are cared for financially by our contacts the Rudolph family, and survive by eating only rice and beans everyday and living in tents. They are trying to start a vegetable garden, and they have some goats and chickens. Due to the water situation, neither of these alternatives for food get much water. The children must walk over a km each direction to get water, and then push the 60 litres back in the wheelbarrow. For enough water they would need to spend 22.5 hours everyday pushing it. However, they make 9 trips and try to stretch the water. They desperately need their own well. This will cost $15,000 to dig and equip and they just don’t have those type of funds. However, I know someone who does. YOU! Please look at the following photos, and I will soon be posting a video as well. Fall in love with these children who were living in the bush, until they were found after the cyclone last year eating grass and bugs to survive. See their situation and be pulled to compassion to help in anyway you can by going to www.mozambique-orphans.co.za This is a registered non profit organization, and is very worthy of your consideration.
These are the tents that all of the children live in. On the left is the girls tent, and on the right is the boys tent. There are about 76 more children Jako would like to have living in the orphanage, once they have the funds to build a proper building. His final vision is to see many houses, each with houseparents, who can disciple and raise a small number of children. For now, he wants to build shelter and have water for as many kids as possible.
These are the mats that the children currently sleep on. We took 6 new mats to them when we spent the night there, but that is not enough, and they aren’t that comfortable on the hard ground anyway. Many of the mats are pee soaked, since bed wetting is a common problem among children in new and stressful situations.
This is the shelter for their kitchen. That fire is their stove. There is no kitchen table, only 3 logs that serve as benches for the kids to eat on. I am not joking. This is the kitchen for 25 people.
This is the bathroom (in the green tarp). There is one for the shower (which is just bucket washing) and one with a hole in it to squat over as a toilet.
This is what they take 9 times a day to get water in. They use the water for washing themselves, washing clothes, washing dishes, watering the garden, watering the animals, cooking, and drinking water. The kids have no toys, only 1 ball that is formed from garbage and rope and a volleyball net.
This is Garnesso, one of the orphans whom I fell in love with. She is so beautiful, and she fell asleep in my lap the night we spent there.
This is me and some of the orphans who live here. The little girl I am holding with the short braids is the biological daughter of the houseparents. She is one of the lucky ones.
As you can see these children are in a lot of need. God broke our hearts, and allowed us to share in living with them for 1 night. As we left we realized these kids had no where to go and they are STILL there. Please help them in having a better existance. God loves them so much, and so does my whole team. Mark Stratmann will be posting a video this afternoon from our time there. The music he has used for it is these children singing for us around a campfire the night we were there. Check it out at www.markstratmann.theworldrace.org
