Dear Friends and Family,
Once again, Project Cure teamed up with WEM for an outreach in the Democratic Republic of Congo this past July. The primary mission of Project Cure was to conduct HBB (Helping Babies Breathe) training for local nurses and mid wives. Corinne, the Project Cure clinics director, along with Chrystal and Laura, two fantastic nurses, gave training and supplies to 16 local professionals from five different facilities. What an awesome job they did. With this training, many babies would be saved at birth.
After the training was completed, the nurses conducted health clinics not only for our children and staff at the family homes, but also for the kids at another orphanage in an outlying village.
The following day, Project Cure and WEM conducted health classes for about 75 families around the Abri De L’Esperance (AE) homes. At the completion of the classes, ‘Kits for Kids’; red bags containing health related supplies useful for the kids and their families, were handed out to the children.
Other great news is that the nurses told us our kids were wonderfully healthy. Thank you so much Corinne, Chrystal, Laura and Project Cure. By the way, Corinne brought her nine year old son, Chase, along to experience the conditions in Africa and DRC in particular. Awesome!
WEM was represented by Julie, Christine and me. Julie arrived in DRC six days ahead of the rest of us and stayed at the Mama Ans house with the AE director, Pastor Nkudulu and his wife Esther. The purpose was to connect with the children on a personal basis before the rest of the team arrived. Since the Mama Ans house is very near the two family homes and the children come by there quite often, it was the perfect place to watch the daily goings on and get a feel for life in Muanda. After the main team left, I spent ten more days at the Mama Ans house and then another three days at a local convent. Since I had my windows open, I could hear the children outside either working or playing. It was wonderful to hear them singing, either to themselves or with others. In other words, they sounded happy and content. I can assure you that Mama Esther puts them to work. The boys are either bringing water for the garden or they are watering the garden themselves. The girls are learning to cook under the watchful eye of Mama Esther or else they are doing other various chores. Wonderful learning experiences!
The children are absolutely precious. On one of the days, some clown showed up (Mama Julie) and the kids had a blast. She handed out the letters that you sponsors wrote and also she gave each child a puppet that was made by the ladies at our church in Colorado Springs. Thanks Sponsors, thanks ladies.
We were proud of the kids for their academic achievements. Freddie, one of the kids was first in his class. Two of the girls were second and three of the others were third. Great work!
While we were there, we looked into the agriculture potential on the fifty five acres of land we have across the river. Also we sought out a location for the clinic to be built on the same land because they will have access to electricity over there. Wonderful opportunities!
The Dutch WEM group showed up at the end of July with a team of fifteen. They worked on the school they are building and also conducted Christian outreaches to the children in the surrounding community. I just received word yesterday that they have also installed solar panels on the Mama Ans house so that they can have light at night and bought two hand pumps for the water wells. Neat stuff!
Thank you so much to all of you for making this a reality. Without you, heavens knows where these kids would be. Thank you sponsors, general supporters, prayer partners, team members; etc. May the Lord richly bless each and every one of you.
Blessings,
Len for WEM.
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