FROM WORTHLESS TO PRICELESS!

When Angelina was dropped off at the Dominican Republic orphanage, the caregivers nearly gagged when they saw her.  They had never seen any child in such terrible condition.  Not only was she starving to death, but she was full of worms and parasites, and her small, bony body was covered with open sores.  Instead of clean, healthy hair, her tiny scalp bore several raw, open sores full of squirming maggots.  She had been considered worthless, but her rescuers saw that this little bundle of human misery was priceless.

God saw her intense suffering and responded to the prayers and tireless love of her new caregivers with His specialty - miracles!  She was completely healed from all of the parasites, worms and infections!  He began  healing her heart, too.  By the tender age of five years old, she was running and playing with the other children, smiling joyrfully and acting like a normal child. 


Their smiles say it all! 

They are loved and fed now!



 When the caregivers first saw Angelina, it was nearly impossible to envision a normal future for her, but the impossible has happened.  She is being loved, cared for, fed and clothed.  She might remember that her parents abandoned her and that no one wanted to care for her.  She might remember being hungry and hurting all over her body.  She might remember what it was like to be considered worthless, but those days are over for Angelina.  She is surrounded by love now!  She knows she is priceless!




Gary VanDyke embraces orphans
in the Dominican Republic

Children like Angelina are the reasons we do what we do.  They are priceless to God and to us.  We provide food to the orphanage that rescued Angelina, and to so many others also unloved, abandoned and orphaned.  We change the future of these children by giving them the strength and nourishment to live and grow.  Their needs are great, but we start with the most critical.  Jesus said, "Feed My lambs," and that's exactly what we do.

 Choosing to feed just one child for $15 a month seems like a small step, but when it is the difference between life and death to that child, it's a giant step toward a hopeful and promising future.  

We Help Care For 600 Orphans in the Central African Republic!

There are 600 orphans in orphan care centers we support in the city of Bangui, Central African Republic. CAR is home to a staggering number of orphans, largely due to AIDS, but also as a result of civil war and parasitic disease. In fact, of the 4,000,000 people living in Central African Republic, one-third are orphans!  A community in Bangui near one of our centers is built on a mass grave, which is poisoning the water, making the children in the area very ill.  Everyone, including Edmond, the orphan director over the Bangui centers, is heroically living life without many basic needs. Even so, Edmond lives and breathes caring for the orphans in his centers. 

The centers in Bangui also provide Bible instruction, occupational training, and tutoring. The teachers are asking for more food to send home with the orphans because they are not getting enough, but there are other important reasons to send food home. Many families forced to care for orphaned children in their extended familyare burdened by another child to feed when there is already so little to eat. When the orphans can bring food back with them, they are viewed differently, as helping provide for the other children in the family who are just as hungry, but aren't orphans. Food for Orphans is partnering with Vision Trust to send a large shipment of food to Bangui. 

The teachers are champions of the orphans in this region. They visit the homes of the children and check on each one, reporting illnesses to the center nurse, and exploring why some children have not been coming to the center. They, along with Edmond and his family, demonstrate daily what it means to obey James 1:27, faithfully caring for the fatherless and the orphans. They do everything they possibly can to safeguard these fragile, precious little ones, but they are facing enormous challenges.

Orphans in countries such as CAR deal with many more layers of tragedy and loss once they lose their parents. In addition to being a burden to their caregivers, they are often loaned to work for other families, which means that they are unable to walk to the center for school and their meals. Removing the children from the centers who are not being allowed to utilize the resources set aside for them is a very painful decision, but it seems to be the only way to let the orphans' caretakers know they can't use the orphans as they want to without losing needed food and support.

Please pray for Edmond, his family, the teachers, the 600 orphans in our centers, and this troubled nation where even the children with parents are suffering from hunger and disease. Please pray for the resources to send a large shipment of food and supplies to this area, and for God to show that He is the Father of the fatherless, and that He is faithful to meet their needs through those who have so much more. 

Are You Growing A Garden Like This?

There is a beautiful place in impoverished Zimbabwe called God's Garden, carefully grown and nurtured by Yana and Davison. And what makes it so beautiful? Not what, but who! Yana and Davison, and the 500 children they love and feed. Only 240 double orphans (no living parents) are registered with God's Garden to be fed and cared for, but more than 250 children with one parent who do not get enough to eat at home also line up at mealtime, and they are fed along with the others.  Some of the children walk 10 km just to get a meal. 

Davison and Yana care for God's Garden with just a few faithful volunteers who feed and teach the children .  To these children, they are the link between life and death. 




Zimbabwe has some serious problems.  The government wanted to stay in power, so they took land away from farmers and divided it up, giving it to lots of people who have no idea how to grow anything, so the new landowners would vote for them. Furthermore, the country is in a very serious, longterm drought and there is no irrigation. 

Most medical personnel have left the area because of the dramatic lack of medical equipment and supplies.  When children need treatment, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to find what's needed.  How tragic for a country that is being devastated by AIDS and HIV!  Most of the 500 children have worms and other parasites from their dirty water, and many are ill with infections and viruses.  Yana and Davison want to raise enough money to dig a well to provide clean water to their children. 

VisionTrust and Food for Orphans is partnering with Yana and Davison to provide a large shipment of food, medical supplies, over-the-counter medicines and children's books to enable this faithful couple to continue caring for God's Garden.

Emmanuel

“And they will call him Emmanuel:

[Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 7:14]

Recently my church had a guest speaker come to talk to us about his charity helping orphans of the world. He told a story that really moved me….and I think it will move you too.

“Milton” had just taken the position of president of this orphans charity when he found out that they had 800 orphans who had lost their sponsors because of the economic downturn. He decided then that the charity would not take on any new orphans until those 800 were sponsored again.

Now, during a trip to some of his orhans in Africa, he was asked to speak with a man who had walked for two days to talk to him. Milton agreed and sat to talk with this man. The man told him he was a retired teacher who owned a small farm. On his farm he was caring for 157 AIDS orphans…all by himself. Due to the drought in their country, the farm wasn’t producing enough for the children to eat. He had walked 2 days to ask Milton if his charity could find sponsors for his children.

Milton explained to him that although he understood his predeciment, he would not be able to help his children because of their new policy. He explained how they were trying to find new sponsors for the 800 children who had lost their sponsors because of the US economic problems, and their new policy was to find sponsors for these children first.

The retired teacher nodded his understanding and asked if he could pray for Milton. “Sure,” Milton told him. Then the teacher stood up, put his hands on Milton’s shoulders and prayed for Milton, the charity, the 800 children who needed sponsors and for the “horrible horrible economic troubles in the United States.”

After that prayer, the teacher thanked Milton for his time, left for his two day walk back to his home and Milton sat there feeling “this small.”

When he turned to his interpreter, Milton asked, “what was that man’s name?” His interpreter replied, “Emmanuel.”

Did you know “Emmanuel” means “God With Us”? It took a man, walking two days and praying for what he thought was a horrible situation here in the US — when he had 157 starving and sickly mouths to feed, clothe and educate all by himself — to bring God’s will back into the charity. One cannot arbitrarily decide to help or not to help when God is in the details. HE will find the way, we just have to let Him lead.

Since their meeting, Milton has managed to find sponsors for almost all of Emmanuel’s kids. After telling that story, members of my church were lining up to sponsor one of Emmanuel’s kids.

Now, Food for Orphans has been asked to help this charity with food to help feed their orphans. We would LOVE LOVE LOVE to be able to help feed Emmanuel’s kids, but we are a small charity and our funds have all been earmarked for existing orphanages.

This is where you come in. We know you can find a way to help.

How many times have you eaten out this week? Two? Three? More? How much did you pay for just ONE meal? In the US, the average meal in a nice restaurant costs about $15.00. ONE meal. That same $15.00 would feed ONE orphan, ONE healthy meal, every day for ONE month!

Now, is your waistline starting to expand? Could you forego just ONE meal out each month so that an orphan could have healthy meals EVERY DAY for a month?

Think about it. And that’s a pretty small sacrifice to make. It will make you healthier and it will make that orphan healthier. Of course we wouldn’t think of limiting you to ONE meal…how about 2 or 3?

“Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world.”

That’s how the song goes. I think He’d want us to love them too. All of them.

Won’t you follow His example and help us feed those hungry little ones?

ONE meal is all it takes.

$15.00. ONE meal for you.

Thirty meals for ONE orphan.

That makes a BIG difference.

Log on to our website foodfororphans.org and donate now.

Make your own One Meal Miracle.

Be an Emmanuel.

You’ll be glad you did.

http://www.foodfororphans.org/ 

The Last Supper?

Here’s an interesting interpretation of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” by the late Joey Velasco.  I found the juxtaposition of the children with Christ at the Last Supper to be quite profound … at least as far as Food for Orphans is concerned.

Think about the title of this blog, “The One Meal Miracle”. Do you know where that came from? It came from Jesus himself. He performed a one meal miracle when he fed the 5,000 from a small boy’s lunch of 4 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. That is our inspiration here at Food for Orphans. We want to make every meal for the orphans we support to be that miracle.

The children in this picture by Joey Velasco appear to come from several socio-economic levels. Some are dressed nicely for a meal with the Savior. Others maybe not so nicely. Some may have parents. One is apparently a street kid who’s learned to fend for himself however he can by taking money from the purse while he’s looking around to see if he’s getting noticed.

See the small child beneath the table? He’s the orphan. He’s stuffing his poor face as fast as he can because he’s so hungry. These are the little ones we try to help. We don’t want them to feel like there’s not enough food. Jesus would feed them all they need. Food for Orphans wants to do that, too.

The children we feed come from many many different circumstances. Some are desperately hungry like the little one under the table, just grabbing the scraps. Others are in better places, in an orphanage that feeds their little bodies as well as their little souls, and gives them a nice soft bed to sleep in and lots of hugs and love. But we know they all need help. I sometimes wonder, “how many of our little orphans have had their ‘last supper’? The very thing we are trying to prevent happens anyway … somewhere.

Consider the story I posted a couple of years ago about Stanislas:

He was hungry all the time ...

While visiting the orphans in Central African Republic, we met Stanislas, a brave little nine-year-old boy. His aunt had been caring for him since his parents died, but a few nights earlier his aunt also died.

Life had been tough for all of his nine years. After his aunt's death, he faced the challenge of finding food on his own. As an orphan in the Central African Republic, Stanislas' home was made of mud and sticks. He was hungry all the time because finding food was very difficult. His body was weak and his bones were twisted from malnutrition.

But Food for Orphans promised Stanislas that we would make sure he had food to eat every day. That day he enjoyed a rare lollipop. That night, brave little Stanislas died.

We wish we had found him sooner.

We know we can't feed all the starving orphans in the world,

but we’d like to try.

This is where YOU come in.

How many times have you eaten out this week? Two? Three? More? How much did you pay for just ONE meal? Did you know that in the US, the average meal in a nice restaurant costs about $15.00. ONE meal. That same $15.00 would feed ONE orphan, ONE healthy meal, every day for ONE month!

Now -- is your waistline starting to expand? Could you forego just ONE meal out each month so that an orphan could have healthy meals every day for a month?

Think about it. That’s a pretty small sacrifice to make. And it will make you healthier and it will make that orphan healthier. Of course we wouldn’t think of limiting you to ONE meal…how about 2 or 3?

“Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world.”

That’s how the song goes. I think He’d want us to love them too. All of them.

Won’t you follow His example and help us feed those hungry little ones?

ONE meal is all it takes.

$15.00. ONE meal for you.

Thirty meals for ONE orphan.

That ONE makes a BIG difference.

Log on to our website foodfororphans.org and donate now.

Make your own One Meal Miracle.

You’ll be glad you did.

Support Food for Orphans with GoodSearch

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You can even download the GoodSearch toolbar on your own web homepage and any time you search and shop online Food for Orphans will benefit.

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