Let us hold unswerving to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23
Hi everyone! Each month the world situation seems to become more extreme and I am reminded of the starfish story (I am sure most of you know it – a man was asked why he is picking up one starfish at a time and throwing it back into the sea, when there were thousands on the beach. His reply was that ‘ it made a difference to that one’) and we are just trying to help ‘that one’ that Jesus puts before us. I pray that all of you reading this has a sense of peace in Jesus no matter what struggles you are going through.
From my blog and the newsletter you will all know that we are trying to help an orphanage and school in Zambia who were left desperate after the drought at the beginning of the year. Thankfully, due to your generous support, we have not only provided chickens but we have also dug a borehole and the school now has a dry season farm with fruit trees. Jacob’s Well Appeal is providing ongoing financial support to cover the costs of food until Christmas, when, God willing, this project should be self -sufficient. We are feeding 120 children who are all orphans but 100 live with other families and 20 are living with carers. There are many children across Zambia and indeed Africa that need help – we are trying to make a difference to those that Jesus has put before us.
The children with their head teacher and volunteer cooks!
The school volunteers cook for the children every day.
It is also harvest time in Ghana, and despite the rains being very unpredictable this year the harvest is better than expected. Our trustee, Liz Lyle, has been in Ghana these last few weeks visiting most of our projects. She has met communities that are struggling but still grateful for the help that JWA has been able to offer. She has seen the toilet block that you provided, as well as visiting mango plantations, the prison and the boreholes, as well as communities requesting our help. The visit has not been without its challenges – the car got stuck in collapsing track due to rain when visiting one of the rural communities. It took 4 hours for the villagers to help get the car out and they were offered boiled water whilst they waited. They eventually got back to Wa in a thunderstorm!
The picture above is groundnut which has been harvested below.
Above is Liz and Ruby looking at the guinea corn crop. Below is the Bambura crop sadly damaged by drought.
It is heart breaking when the women have spent so much time and energy planting the crop – they would have been better just eating the seed we gave them!
Below are the happy women who have successfully harvested their crop – thank you for everyone who supports our seedbank projects!
We are also helping a partner in Uganda called Agnes, who amazingly tries to look after 700 orphans who are basically running wild, through their organisation ‘ Abundant Favour Christian Ministries International’. We have now almost completed the building of an orphanage to house the older children to try and prevent them getting involved in addiction and sexual exploitation. Chris Blackburn, our trustee who visited Uganda in May plans to re-visit later this year or early next year to see the progress of the work. The photos below show how near we are to completion:
We are continuing to send aid abroad, including a container of colostomy to Zambia and medical aid to Ukraine and Cameroon since my last blog. We also sent a mixed container to Spark2Action in Sierra Leone, who are building Hope Farm. Once again I will end my blog thanking everyone for their generosity to this charity, which enables us to help so many individuals. We are a small charity but our overheads are low and so I believe that JWA is able to make the most of your donations and God is able to do so much more!