Country Updates
Zambia
Pure Nard Preschool
The school year in Zambia started late on February 1st instead of January 4th because of a rise in COVID 19 cases. However, school has been going very well so far.
What’s new?
- Increased number of students since 2020
- Added second baby class for a total of 4 classes: 2 baby, 1 middle, 1 reception (kindergarten)
- We thank God that Reception teacher Felistus and her new baby Evalyn are doing great!
- We met with parents to encourage them to continue being active participants in the school activities to continue promoting quality education.
Sustainable Pig Farming Project
Progress is happening! Pure Nard Ministries plans to complete the first half of the pig pen very soon. Then they will start adding pigs to the pen while finishing construction.
Why pig farming?
- Provide sustainability, food security and life skills training
- Provide job training in livestock husbandry skills for Teen Challenge participants
- Provide several jobs for people in the community
This self-sustainability approach to ministry has a long-lasting impact and will continue to give those we serve in Zambia opportunities for income generation to fund ministry operations and development.
Prayer Requests
Pray for this year’s new staff and students as they transition, for Felistus and her new baby, the sustainability pig farming project and for the health of all the staff, students, and the young men in Teen Challenge.
Liberia
Action Faith Institute
AFI is grateful to God for the support from STC! The entire school was out of water recently and water had to be fetched outside of the school grounds, holding up the school schedule. STC’s donation helped AFI purchase a hand pump for water, as well as COVID supplies such as water barrels, sanitizer, soap, and masks.
Romeo’s Success Story, by an AFI Staff Member
Romeo Ballah is a 10-year-old 4th grader with a unique servant heart. He lives right beside the school in an unfinished building with his unemployed father. Romeo comes on campus often to help clean up the school in appreciation of his sponsorship from Serve the Children. Romeo does this voluntarily, which means a lot to us because it fulfills the motto of the school, “Learn to Serve” and speaks volumes about a grateful heart. We believe Romeo will be a great leader with a servant heart.
Prayer Requests
For the growth of the computer lab, for sponsors for many other students in need of sponsorship, and for all of the students’ and staff members’ health.
India
The Lasina School and Emmanuel Education Center
Despite pandemic challenges, the staff in India have continued to persevere by the Lord’s grace. The school in Lasina is still closed, but the teachers travel to the students’ homes to teach them and provide homework.
Emmanuel Education Center in Mumbai reopened in September! We thank God for the dedicated teachers who educate children well in the Mumbai slum in such difficult times.
- All the children and teachers there are well
- The Center runs 6 days a week for about 40 children.
- We provide one nutritious meal and education per government curriculum.
Vocational Training
Classes for Mumbai slum youth who have dropped out of school are going very well. 20 boys and girls are completing basic computer courses and 20 girls are in basic tailoring classes. Completing these courses will give students a marketable skill and the needed confidence to learn more and get jobs or start their own small businesses.
Prayer Requests
Pray for the safety and health of our staff and children. A second wave of COVID has hit India and the new strain is spreading across the country. Please also pray we can continue to provide nutritious food to our children at Emmanuel Education Center.
Thank You!
We are thankful for all of you and all your prayers and support! We started off the holiday season on Dec. 1st with Giving Tuesday. We raised $2,715 to help feed the children of Mumbai that attend our Day Center. Thanks to your generosity we are able to provide these children nutritious food and give children across the world hope and a future!
Meet Mr. Albert
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| Serve the Children’s work could not happen without our wonderful local partners! We would like you to meet Mr. Albert who is a teacher and social worker at the Emmanuel Education Center in India. At the Education Center he teaches the local languages Hindi and Marathi to the younger students and math to the older students. He is very good with the children and they enjoy his teachings and respect him. After teaching in the mornings Mr. Albert does community visits to meet with the parents of the students and other community elders. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 and the imposition of the lock down the Emmanuel Education Center has not been allowed to be open. However, Mr. Albert has been a great help with the food distribution in the slum community. He also has been explaining to community members the importance of regular hand washing, social distancing, and the use of the face masks and hand sanitizers he has been distributing. We are so thankful for Mr. Albert and his commitment to serving the children and community at the Emmanuel Education Center. |
A Day in Life of Raghu
Raghu (shown in the picture with his mother and sister) is a 14 year old boy living in the slums of Ambernath in Mumbai, India. His parents work as Rag Pickers collecting plastic waste and metal to earn a daily wage to provide food for the family. Raghu does not go to school. Each morning he gets up with his family and they eat leftover food from the day before if there is any. Then Raghu along with his parents goes into the city to collect plastic bottles and metal items.
Then in the afternoon the family goes to the dumping ground where the local municipal dumps all the garbage collected from the city. Here Raghu separates the waste and looks for items he can sell in the recycling plant. He does this without wearing any gloves and often cuts his fingers due to unknown sharp objects from the garbage. The family receives their day wage in the evening and then they buy only food and go back to their slum community. His mother prepares dinner for the family. He goes to bed right after dinner waiting for another day to repeat the same routine to survive.
The outbreak of the Coronavirus has affected the whole world. It has affected the people living in slums of Mumbai immensely. The people fear they will die of starvation rather than infection from the virus. The Indian government has issued a complete lockdown for 21 days. This means Raghu, his family and many other families like his cannot leave the community to work to provide food. Life is quite difficult for Raghu’s family and all the others in the slums of Mumbai.
Thank you for all your support on #GivingTuesday!
Because of all of you, we met our goal and raised $5,000 to feed our Day Center children one meal a day in the slums of Mumbai. Many of these families earn a meager living by picking rags from the dump and selling them. These children are vulnerable to human trafficking, disease, and a lifetime of poverty. Now they are receiving nutritious meals and know that they are loved. These pictures are of the children excited for the hard-boiled eggs we provided for them.
Being Present
By Jeni Gregory
I was privileged to go to India in November with the 2018 Serve the Children team. I see faces in my mind as if it were yesterday.
Our team was honored to work in a Mumbai slum considered to be the largest in the world. Open sewage, extraordinary poverty, lack of education, sex trafficking … all combining to beat down the human beings who lived there. The people we worked with were like you and me. They had dreams for their families. They had hopes for a better life. They were very hard workers who strove to put food in their children’s bellies every day. They laughed, they cried and they understood why Serve the Children was there.
The most important part of my being on a team is remembering that it is not what I DO that is critical. It is about BEING with people. In fact, the importance of “BEING” seemed more significant than I remember on other trips. I knew I needed to slip into God’s intention. It was a comfortable place that did not require me to do anything but rest in His Presence. That lesson came across clearly through one particular little girl.
I don’t know this little girl’s name. Yet I knew she needed to be near me. She kept looking at me the way I remember my own children staring when they needed ME. My instincts told me it was not about something I could do. She needed to be close, with me paying attention. I might have been unable to solve the greater problems she was facing in her young life, but I could do something about her need for my attention.
I scooped her up and put her on my lap. Immediately I could tell we both relaxed. It was as if, at least for that moment, we were both where we belonged…in the love and safety of God’s grace. I knew that me just being present was enough, as long as God was in it.
God may ask you to go on a mission trip and there is no doubt it is to serve others. Your first reaction may be to say, “I have no tools that could be used.” When I went to India, it simply meant showing up, being present and giving my best self in service. God filled in the rest. That was His lesson for me. What does He want you to learn?
We have exciting mission trip opportunities for 2019! We have a team going to Liberia June 15-28. The first team meeting for this trip is on Sat. March 2. We also have two teams going to India August 3-16 and October 12-25 and a team going to Zambia June 30-July 13. If you are interested in going on any of these trips check out our website for more information and email Doug@servethechildren.com.
Empowerment
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
I am very grateful for your support for Serve the Children during 2018. Recently, I returned from a 15-day mission trip to India with April, Jeni and Noel. One of the goals of STC mission trips is to become involved with kids and young adults on a personal level, and we had a great time doing just that.
We want to empower people. Empowerment is the process of helping people become stronger and more confident. We believe that the children and young adults we work with in India were created for more than poverty with no opportunity, so empowerment is a vital part of what we do in our two locations.
In Lasina, we are transitioning from a residential school to vocational training. We have closed the hostel and will transfer our students to other local schools, but we will continue to support them by supplying funds for their uniforms, school supplies and school fees. We started a vocational school on the campus and currently teach young people from local villages Microsoft Office and tailoring. For just $80 per quarter for a 3-month course, we can teach them a skill that can secure a good paying job. Without these skills, these kids would probably end up as farm laborers earning about $3 per day. Lasina is a very rural village and we are the only option for vocational training close by. In June, we plan to add two additional courses: mid-wife and nurse’s assistant.
In Mumbai, we have two ventures empowering women and children. The city is surrounded by slums and we work in one of the smaller ones. In this area, children as young as 3 years old are left to fend for themselves in appalling conditions while their guardians search for work to scrape a living. Girls like the one pictured in class with me here, as young as 13 years old, are married off so the family has one less mouth to feed. .
We give these children an opportunity to learn English and provide a meal for them, which is often the first meal for them that day and possibly the only meal. Sponsored girls can attend a local full-time school and escape the risk of being married off. All of these children were created for something more and we provide them the opportunity to reach their potential.
In a very poor area of Mumbai, we teach tailoring classes to groups of women. After completing the course, they can use the certificate to get work in a local clothing factory or they can use their earnings to purchase a sewing machine and establish their own business. We had the privilege of visiting the home of three sisters who have completed our program. Two of them are in college and one is finishing high school. They are able to pay for their educational costs with the money they make from tailoring. They would not be able to be in school otherwise, since their family could not afford the fees.
I invite you to join me this Christmas with a single gift of $80 to sponsor one student for a three-month computer or tailoring class, or donate $360 and change the lives of four people in 2019. They were created for something more, and with your help, they can have hope and a future.
Dr. Doug Collier
President of the Board
Karan’s Story!
Meet Karan, a boy from our Emmanuel Daycare Center who is 14 years old and lives with his father, mother, two younger brothers & one younger sister. His father is a rag picker who walks from house to house collecting garbage, sorting plastic and metal items to sell to the recycling plant. His mother stays home due to illness. Karan works to support his family so is unable to attend school. He is the bread winner of his family at age 14 because he is left with no other options; even though child labor is illegal in India. The family lives in a small tarpaulin covered hut without flooring, a bathroom or toilet.
Karan very regularly attends our Daycare Center in the morning but can only stay for an hour to study before he has to leave for work. He has a desire to learn to read and write but due to circumstances he has been unable. The small amount he earns ensures that there is food for his family and they do not starve like most others. This family cannot afford to put children in school or provide clothing or shoes. These kids wear old clothes donated by our friends from local Churches. Karan (he is on the left in the picture) is just one of the children that received the gift of socks and a new pair of shoes because of your giving. The new shoes have such a significant impact on these children who have nothing and work so hard. They are filled with joy and can travel safely. There are so many children like this and Karan is just one of them. Our Emmanuel Daycare Center is a safe caring place for these precious children to be loved and supported even if it is only for an hour. Karan has been given hope and knows he is loved.
Making a Difference in India
We are here in India with the rest of the Serve the Children mission team. We can tell you firsthand that we are providing quality education for the children at our school. Great instructors are teaching English, math, science, and more to a lot of eager minds. But this is not our only goal. We also want to graduate students who continue to make a difference in their families and communities while they improve their own lives.
In addition to the government-required subjects, we teach life skills, including:
- Sewing
- Embroidery
- Cooking
- Gardening
- Animal husbandry
- Caring for the environment (everything is recycled)
- Barbering skills
We are also making a difference in the lives and futures of the poor and marginalized in Mumbai. Please watch these short videos produced by John Keay (less than a minute each) featuring two women, Maria and Bharti, who graduated from our sewing program recently. They now support their families by sewing clothes for neighbors and friends. Danny and Glory meet with them regularly to see how they are doing and share Christ with them. Maria made the grocery bags with the STC logo that you can purchase at our office or at the October 7th auction.