Concrete Dam in Mbeere, Kenia

Bob and Hope Organization of Germany a huge thank you for partnering with us in giving the Mbeere People a Concrete Dam that was able to trap water that will provide water to the community until next rainy season..The leaders of our Ithera Christian Centre who are the managers of the massive Dam told me that they were able to put fish into the Dam as a business venture and the results are awesome, the community is now buying fish alongside fetching water..This is the gospel that is tangible! Edward Buria

A School in Lodja (DRC)

Lodja is just about the geographic centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was once quite a well-to-do city, bustling with life. However during the last 15 year three different armies marched through the city, leaving devastation behaind them. Rape, pillage and destruction was their legacy. A great number of the population to refuge in the jungle. Only during the last three years have they finally started to return.
Society has been devastated. All the factories have closed down. Communication with the outside world is difficult. Once you leave the city limits the road ar impassable. Hordes of children wander from one extended family to the other. Parents often have alcohol problems and cannot give their children any kind of example.
Pierre-Albert and Beatrice Ngueliele oved from Bussels  to Lodja a number of years ago. They went to do a classical missions ministry. However the problems they met changed their outlook. The market was empty of any vegatables und basic commodoties were head to get. People -Christians- sat around hoping that God was going to change things and through a miracle everything would change.
Pierre-Albert began to teach the people that if they didn't put seeds in the ground, there would be no harvest. God's provision was all around. People didn't respond too quickly to the message.
Although Nguelieles went to the Congo with lots of promises of support from people, this support never actually materialized. However they have built a primary school and been able to give around 200 children hope for the future.
HOPE has joined them and helped to provide new desks and benches and at Christmas we provide the pupils with new uniforms.
The first batch of pupils will leave the primary school soon and we want to build a secondary school. This will have three grades and two classes in each grade - the capacity for 180 - 240 children. We hope that we can help to really make a difference in Lodja and invite you to stand with us and support this worthy project.

Women carrying water cans to provide for their families

Tailoring training in Pakistan

Trainee tailors and dressmakers in Pakistan

An exciting project that we are starting is called ARTISTIC HANDS. 15 women from extreme poor backgrounds will begin training durch February 2013. The training continues for 12 months and after sucessful completion of the course, the participants will be in a postion to earn their own livings and also that of their families.

The target group as discribed by our Pakistani partnersare: widows, poor and needy, orphan young ladies, dull and over aged girls, prostitute ladies.After six months the women start earning money and this goes to pay for the sewing machines which they may take with them after they finish the course.

This is a real oportunity to empower people in poverty to rise up and take their future into their own hands. 

News from Kenya

It is with great joy that we received the news from Kenya that they have been able to distribute 150 pairs of shoe took place yesterday. Besides the shoes they are presented the pupils with socks and a number of lockers were brought to the school for the children to use. A number of these pupils must walk long distances to school and sometimes they do that barefoot.
It is moving to know that the children are given breakfast at 6,30 am and during the day they also get lunch. Most of them wont have anything to eat later in the day.
Education is a key factor to bringing the children out of poverty.

We are so glad that we are able to partner with EDFRI International, who's headquarters are in Meru, Kenya.

Children get their new shoes

East Africa

We continued our help to Kenya during the first part of the year. We helped provide food for around 15,000 people together with EDFRI our partners in Kenya. A harvest was expected in March and in fact the first fruits of beans had been already harvested around Christmas. Things were looking good, but then just before the maize harvest torrential rain destroyed a great deal of the yield.

Once more the situation was desperate. We were able to help build a dam in the Mbeeri area – about 200km north of Nairobi – which is a great blessing. Women from this area had to walk 15km one way, to collect water from a lake near a power station. That is thankfully history. The other sand dams that were built were a great help but unfortunately there are not enough. People heard that “our” communities had water and walked, sometimes a long way, to take water. The sand dam reservoirs had to provide for many more people than planned. We hope to continue build more  dams.

A fishing cooperative has been launched in Turkana. They have three boats at the moment and 50 people are dependent upon each boat. This project is sustainable and helps the people to generate their own income and feed their families. The members of the cooperative have come out of a refugee camp that has been supported by EDFRI for a couple of years. Turkana is the most impoverished area of Kenya.

Christmas activity

We had a Christmas drive to gather funds and called it FULL OF LIFE. We had some bags made and offered them to people for 30 Euros. The cost to make them was around 2 Euros. We said that we would give them the bag and give the contents to a child in Nepal, India, Kenya, Congo or Ukraine. Many people didn’t actually want the bags! But they generously gave funds for the contents. We haven’t got the reports in yet with all the photos etc., but we were able to send money to all of the places mentioned about. We are supporting 14 orphan children in Nepal. They have got new school bags with the necessary school equipment. They also got new shoes, school uniform, warm winter jackets and quilts for their beds. Four children got beds! Many others were given similar things.

In India, we support a children’s home and there too all the 120 children got new shoes, but besides that, AIDS orphans were helped with clothes and school things. 200 children in Kenya got new shoes. 200 children in Congo got a new school uniform. When you think that they hardly have anything else to wear, this is quite something. They wanted the children to know that the uniforms came from us, so they had HOPE (our organization) printed on the t-shirt. Unfortunately there was a mishap and they forgot the letter “E”. HOP – considering that in French, you don’t pronounce the “H”, we have been relegated to being “OP”! In the Ukraine 200 families were provided with food parcels.

We were so pleased that we reached our goal and were able to bless so many people!