kids' gymnastics performance in India

Students at the Good Shepherd Community School in India show their skills as gymnasts.

Pakistan Flood Relief Update

It is being called the worst disaster in human history.  Not in lives lost, but in people affected, over 14 million so far have been displaced, hungry, or homeless.  OM Pakistan is working to meet the most immediate needs of getting food to those with no resources.

In the first few days of floods in Pakistan, OM teams delivered food to nearly 1,000 families, and their work continues. One recent development is the beginning of Ramadan, which includes the observance of daily fasting. During Ramadan it is illegal to distribute food between dawn and dusk, so any relief work must be done at night. Please pray that those needing food would be able to get to it safely.

We thank you for your help getting food to Pakistani families. You can buy a food packet for $25.

OMusa.org

ShipShots: worth seeing a smile

Logos Hope crew members make friends at a boys' home.

greetings from Haiti

OM USA staff member Ray Cooper is in Haiti awaiting the 40-ft container of supplies shipped from OM and scheduled for delivery Monday. He writes:

Greetings from Haiti. These past three days have been filled with kids, kids, more kids and truck rides.  Our team has grown in size. Adding to the three of us are 4 locals who join us each day. All four of them work with youth at their church or orphanages and are eager to gain new ideas and stratagies about childcare.  It's been a blessing to have them join our team. 

The team is praising God for taking care of every need, including transportation and even extra time at the end of each day to debrief and plan for the next.   Please pray for this team as they plan on visiting five more orphanages.  Pray for safe travel and good connections with the kids and the staff.  Pray strength for those serving as translators as they stay very busy in this role.

A week of God moments in Haiti

Written by Lane Powell, OM USA Communications

“I knew there were going to be ‘God moments’ through the week when the tap-tap [taxi truck] ran out of gas right in front of the orphanage.” That was the beginning of the visit to Haiti by Henry Couser, a member of OM’s staff in the USA. He had traveled nearly two hours from the airport in the tap-tap, and the fuel lasted until they got to the orphanage gate.

Henry arrived in Carrefour, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, in the first days after the January 12 earthquake. His goal was to visit the three orphanages OM had helped in the past, in partnership with a US church, and assess their needs. He based himself at the first one, where the tap-tap ran out of gas, and found that instead of 200 children, the orphanage was housing 350 and was also giving shelter and food to approximately 1,000 people from the community. And they were coming to the end of their food supply. No outside help had arrived yet. Their buildings were still standing, but, like everyone else in the region, they were sleeping outside due to concerns about aftershocks and damage to the structures. By finding some shops that had not been destroyed, Henry was able to purchase food for the immediate need.

Two days later, Henry was joined by a six-member, trained emergency response team sent by OM’s USA office and led by former OM missionary Rusty Garrison. One of their tasks was to check the rubble of a nearby school that had collapsed on 2,000 students. They could find no signs of life. Faced with this and other sites where children had died in piles of rubble, the team wanted to work at removing bodies. “But we knew that our mission was to help the living, and that had to be our priority,” Rusty said.

Each of the three orphanages was visited, and at each the team found a similar situation: buildings standing but showing cracks, children and staff living outside, food and water nearly gone. Through contacts in the communities, the team was able to find food and water to stock each orphanage. They located a relief aid warehouse which had begun receiving food shipments, but the director was overwhelmed at organizing it and establishing a distribution system. He asked only for the team’s labor of unloading trucks and organizing a supply line in exchange for food they could take to the orphanages. “I’ll never forget the cheers that erupted as we drove into the orphanage gates,” says one of the team members, speaking of arriving with food from the warehouse. As they transported injured people to a hospital in the area, they found that the medical staff had run out of food two or three days earlier. The team provided them with food, as well.

During a week in Haiti, the three orphanages were supplied with food and water to last until a shipment could be arranged, injured people were transported to clinics, and a child whose adoption had been finalized just before the earthquake was helped out of the country with her adoptive parents. Everywhere there were the stories and stunned faces of people still in shock--not yet grieving, only staring at the rubble. There was the old man who, with his wife of 58 years, was visiting from Canada when the buildings collapsed. Her body was removed from the rubble, and he asked Henry to take a photo of her passport picture “so that the world will not forget Anne Marie.” There was the family who lost 15 members in the collapse of their home. Four bodies were recovered and placed in one coffin, but the other 11 were still in the ruins. The family asked Henry to take of photo of the surviving members. The heartbreaking sadness was knowing that hundreds of thousands of people had similar stories.

But in the midst of such tragedy, after the team’s work, there were three orphanages which had smiling children with full stomachs. They understood that God had brought Henry and the team to help them.

Thanks for your gifts to long-term Haiti relief.

team in Haiti after flight change

The donated charter jet leaves Georgia for Haiti.

The emergency response team sent to Haiti by OM USA in partnership with New Hope Baptist Church was diverted to the Dominican Republic. The team had been given a confirmed landing time for Haiti, yet the air space was closed and they were sent to the Dominican Republic. So they traveled by land into Haiti and have arrived at the first orphanage, the one written about here yesterday. Everyone there survived the strong aftershock of this morning.

We will keep you updated on the team's progress. Word has gotten to them that a second orphanage on the other side of Port-au-Prince was also spared, as was a third orphanage farther away. What powerful reminders of God's heart for the orphan, referred to throughout Scripture. Please continue to pray that the team will be able to get food and water to the kids, as well as pave the way for subsequent teams.

team en route to Haitian orphanage

Kids before the earthquake, at the orphanage where OM is sending a team.

OM USA is sending out a six-member emergency response team to serve several orphanages in Haiti. Each team member is certified in search and rescue. The group will first search the rubble of a school just outside Port au Prince for possible survivors. As many as 2,000 children may be buried there beneath the rubble. No rescue teams have yet been in the area where they are going.

Water is the greatest need for an orphanage that was miraculously spared. The kids are sleeping outside since it is unknown how safe their building is, but praise God for protecting these children. The town around this orphanage was completely destroyed so the orphanage is providing aid to the neighborhood survivors. Pray for this team as they go, that the Lord will protect them and that they will be able to find anyone still alive. Subscribe to this blog for more updates. And click here to give to OM relief work in Haiti.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress.
James 1:27

Stories of Hope: Children's Area

Podcast host Randy Grebe shares about a mother and daughter he visited with on Logos Hope.

Hope from the Ashes: Kids Club Bangladesh

An OM outreach in Bangladesh is rebuilding after a neighborhood-wide fire this April. Over the last five years, a Kid's Club has become increasingly popular among local residents. All 150 children who attend the club live in the same poor neighborhood and all suffered loss in this recent disaster.

The blaze started during lunch when a local lady was cooking over a wood fire, as is the local custom. A gust of wind blew the flames, igniting the wall of a nearby shack. Every building in the area was made of bamboo and wood, so the fire spread quickly. Residents fled for their lives, a few badly hurt, though thankfully no one was killed. More than 200 families lost everything they owned. Even the tin roofs were so warped they could only be used for scrap. Some of these families follow God, and many other families’ children attend the kids’ clubs.

The local OM team is working with two other organizations to form a coordinated response. They have started by offering clothes and money to a number of families for food and essentials, and plan to help some of the families set up home again. Please pray for all the families in this neighborhood as they continue to recover from the fire.

13 statistics on child slavery

"Lord, you know the hopes of humble people. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort their hearts by helping them. You will be with the orphans and all who are oppressed, so that mere earthly man will terrify them no longer." Psalm 10:17-18


13 statistics on child slavery (compiled by Action International Ministries)

1. 3000 enslaved Albanian children are used for begging, cleaning windows and cars without wages in Italy and Greece

2. an estimated 496,000 children are in slavery in Bangladesh

3. over 10-20 million people are subjected to debt bondage largely in India, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru and the Philippines

4. of 20 bonded laborers in Pakistan, 7.5 million are children

5. of 35 million soccer balls stitched in Pakistan, children produce 1/4. most of them are bonded servants

6. nearly 500,000 minors work in virtual slavery conditions in Senegal

7. UNICEF estimates that nearly 30,000 children in Haiti (85% girls) serve as unpaid, domestic labor among the affluent

8. nearly 10,000 children aged 6-14 are enslaved in Sri Lankan brothels

9. as many as 300,000 children in India work as bonded labor, just in the carpet industry alone

10. 15 million children around the world are bonded laborers, the majority of whom are Indian Dalits, whose bondage is passed down from generation to generation

11. 90% of 100,000 women in prostitution in Mombai are indentured slaves

12. many Indian boys, some as young as 4 years old, are riders in camel races in West Asia and the Gulf States. girls and women end up either as domestic or sex workers.

13. it takes up to 15 years for girls in India held in prostitution to purchase their freedom

be the change!

pray!
As Christians, we are always saying "God answers prayer." Do we really believe it? Gather with a group of friends once a week to pray for children and adults around the world caught in slavery, prostitution and traffiking. God can change the world through our prayers!

speak up!
Anti-slavery international is the world's oldest international human rights organization working exclusively against slavery at local, national and international levels. For updates and information on how you can help, go to www.antislavery.org.

You can also sign a petition calling for an end to modern day slavery and learn about other action options at:
www.theamazingchange.com
www.stopthetraffik.org