When Hunger Comes
One morning in April of 2020, Janet woke up realizing she didn't have any food to feed her children and no money left for essentials. She had been caring for her children on her own for years as a widow, struggling even in the best of times. Her son had suffered from osteomyelitis, a life-threatening bone infection, for years, with multiple surgeries draining all of their resources before sponsorship. Through the gift of sponsorship, he received treatment and has become the top student in his class at Sebei College Tegeres, with a dream to become an Orthopedic Doctor.
Since the Ugandan government ordered a lockdown in early April of 2020, millions of people were affected by the closure of non-essential businesses and closure of public and private transportation. For Uganda's casual laborers, this has been especially devastating, since they literally live "hand to mouth" without any back up, savings, or assistance. The lockdown also closed all the schools, public and private, a place where all of our sponsored children were fed twice a day. While Uganda offered to provide food, they had to limit those provisions to people living in urban areas. This, along with children being at home full time, left our rural sponsored families at risk for hunger, especially those who do not own land for farming.
Janet did the only thing she knew to do and went to visit her friend, Joyce, to see if she had any food to share. As soon as she arrived, and before she could ask for help, Joyce told her that they all went to bed hungry the night before since they had also run out of food. The two women decided they needed to spend the time fasting and praying instead. As they were praying, they received a phone call from Kapchorwa's Hope Africa office telling them to come and collect maize, beans and soap for their families!
These women were just two of all of our sponsored children's parents who were rejoicing over the miracle of food! We were able to provide 15 kilos of maize, 5 kilos of beans and soap along with instructions on hand-washing and sanitation for every child in the program by using sponsorship donations. The community of Kapchorwa and the local government has been broadcasting about all Hope Africa is doing for the children and glorifying God for His provision!
Not long after, we decided to raise additional funds to provide food as the lockdown continued into 2020. Within six hours, we raised more than twice as much as we had requested. This enabled us to save funds for 2021, if another lockdown was implemented. Indeed it was in June 2021, so we praised God for his provision!
Thank you, sponsors, for all you are doing to care for and love our children. They ask about you, pray for you, and are sincerely concerned for each one of you.