William (in the middle) lives with his 59-year-old
grandmother. His father died of AIDS in 2002 and his mother has HIV and her
condition is deteriorating by the day. William has been put under the
guardianship of his grandmother, who also cares for six other grandchildren.
She is supported by the older grandchildren, who do casual work cultivating
people’s gardens or working at construction sites, and she grows crops around
her house. But she cannot afford to send William to school.
Can you imagine not being able to offer your child an
education? Don’t jump straight to not being able to afford college. What if you
couldn’t afford to send your child to high school? What if your child could
never even go to preschool? As a parent, what would you feel? What hope would
you have for that precious child of yours?
I am not saying that all hope rests in the ability to get an
education. Find rest, O my soul, in God
alone; my hope comes from Him. (Psalm 62:5) Hope for eternal life comes
from God alone and needs no classroom. But hope for a better future while here
on earth—and a better future for a country at large—will begin with education.
Because without that, a people will not be able to move forward. Without that,
a child will grow up into the same cycle of poverty as his parents and
grandparents.
My family has been sponsoring children through World Vision
and Compassion International for fourteen years now. I remember because we
started sponsoring our first girl, Iris, when I was ten. She was from El Salvador
and must have been eight or nine because we chose a child who was between the
ages of Annie and myself. For many years, we sent a monthly check and wrote
letters back and forth. She “outgrew” the program when she turned 16 and we
were given a new, younger child for our family. It is crazy to imagine what
Iris’ life looks like now. In my mind, she is still a young girl, and I have to
remind myself that she is a 23-year-old woman now, living whatever life God had
planned for her from the start.
I have always known that sponsorship is a good thing. It
makes it possible for children to go to school and get an education. That is
good. The education gives them hope of breaking their family’s cycle of poverty
and creating a healthy environment for their own family someday. That is good.
With Christian organizations, sponsorship usually includes weekly or daily
Bible teachings to give kids a hope beyond this life. That is good. Sponsors can send money or gifts so
children can have birthday and Christmas presents, sometimes for the first time
in their lives. All of this is very good.
But it wasn’t until I came to Uganda that I realized
sponsorship can also keep families together.
Does it get much better than that?
Noah’s Ark currently has 160 children living there. Out of
those 160, surprisingly few of them are actual orphans, meaning they have no
living mother or father. The vast majority of these precious kids have been
abandoned by their families. By their
very own families. In so many cases, their families just didn’t have the
means to care for them.
Naomi and Deborah’s mother died and their grandmother
couldn’t care for them without an income. Rebecca’s mother was poisoned and her
father was only 18 years old, an orphan, and owned nothing but the clothes on
his back. He tried taking care of her for two months, but couldn’t manage.
Joshua’s mother died in childbirth and his father was so poor he could only
afford to feed Joshua tea, not milk. Frank’s mom came to Noah’s Ark to get help
for him. She was a widow, her in-laws had taken away her two older children,
and she was too sick and weak to find work. John was abandoned by his mother
and his father couldn’t care for him because he himself was too young and had
no income. Tamar’s mother died in childbirth and though Tamar spent her first
six days in the hospital, she never received treatment because her family, some
of the poorest people living in the slums of Kampala, couldn’t afford it.
So many families that could have been kept together if only
they could have afforded it.
Not every sponsored child is a family saved from separation,
but it is a blessed opportunity for one of God’s precious children to improve
his or her life.
Aside from the children’s home, Noah’s Ark also serves the
poorest people in the surrounding villages by inviting them to come to school
through a sponsorship program. Noah’s Ark has a collection of parents from the
village who can identify the most needy families with children who cannot
afford school. As there is room at New Horizon Nursery and Primary School, they
invite those children to attend school and Noah’s Ark begins searching for a
sponsor from another country to cover the expenses. For some children, the
lunch provided by New Horizon is the only meal they eat that day and what they
learn in the classroom is the only opportunity for an education that ever would
have come their way. Not only that, but every week they hear a message from the
Bible and spend time praising and worshiping God with their classmates and
teachers… and let me tell you, that is
something good.
Will you give hope to one of these village children today?
We are still looking for sponsors for many students at New Horizon. Not many
more can be admitted until the current students’ costs are covered, and there
are so many more kids in the nearby village that would benefit from such an
opportunity.
I assure you, it will be good.
