waiting and watching and wishing ...

There's an uncomfortable truth that settles in when we are in Ethiopia working with the kids at our CarePoints.  Kids that have come to know and rely on a full tummy every day, water that won't make them sick, teachers and care-givers that love them and guide them, and medical care when they need it.  They laugh and play with energy and abandon because they have hope for their future.

The uncomfortable truth is revealed when you look around the edges of the CarePoint and see thin, dirty kids waiting and watching and wishing.  

Occasionally a child braves the walk across the dusty ground while we are there and plaintively asks for food.  We respond immediately all the while knowing that it is a temporary fix.

Other times I have watched mothers or old stooped grandfathers hide themselves in the bushes and push their kids toward us.  My heart breaks every time because it is then that I realize how many more kids we could be helping.

Without enrollment at Kind Hearts, these kids suffer chronic malnutrition and chronic illness.  If they survive, most will barely eke out a living working as a daily laborer (hard manual labor for pennies a day) when they can find work, and that cycle of poverty will continue.  Their days are filled with chores and many kids are already working for pennies by hauling water or carrying firewood for families who can afford to have a child do it for them.

Our four small classrooms at Kind Hearts are overflowing with the 150 kids currently enrolled in the program.  But with the construction of a new school building with 4 more classrooms, we could serve 150 more kids!! 

150 more kids that will no longer hover at the fringes, watching their friends, neighbors or siblings eat a full lunch, drink a tall glass of clean, pure water and then skip into the classrooms for their daily lessons that will set them on the path of self-sufficiency - for themselves and their future families!

There are hundreds more orphaned and destitute kids in the area that is served by Kind Hearts and we have families wanting to sponsor - we just don't have the space to serve, care for, feed, clothe and educate 150 more kids ... yet.

With your help (if we can raise the funds in July), we can have a new school building built and ready to enroll more kids at the new school year in September.  More kids who will be provided with nutritious meals every day, clean water, clothing, medical care, education and Christian discipleship.

Temesgen is excited to have his little brother Habtamu enrolled with him at Kind Hearts.

We have kids in the program right now who still have siblings at home who we could enroll in the program.  I have watched kids hold onto a banana or half a chunk of break to take home for a hungry sibling.  Time is short to meet our goal of enrolling more kids in September!

Please consider and pray about funding this very important project at Kind Hearts.  Click here to make a secure donation to the Kind Hearts school building.  Your funds will go directly and only to this project  http://donate.hopechest.org/goto/karen