“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” Mother Teresa
Africa
When it’s Hard to Stay Warm
When we think of Africa, we may think of hot deserts with dry and dusty lands, but how many of us actually realize that there are places that experience cold winters, with snow and temperatures that drop below freezing? This isn’t the picture we normally get when thinking of Africa, but this is the reality in many parts of Lesotho and South Africa. The winter months, May-September, are tough in this region.
What do you do when you live in a place that is freezing cold, and it’s hard to stay warm? You can’t turn on the heat. There is none. You can’t put on a warm jacket or blanket when you don’t have any. And you can’t slip under the warmth of a comforter at night when the only thing you have to sleep on is the cold cement floor. 
We want to give. We want to give so that these children won’t have to suffer in the cold. Next month our goal is to distribute hundreds of winter packs (hats, gloves, scarves, and blankets) to children in Lesotho and South Africa. We hope you will help us bring warmth to a country that so desperately needs it…
Make a secure online donation for African winter packs
Forgotten
Speak Up!
Girls Having Fun!
He Stole My Heart
It was during our initial trip to Lesotho in 2007 that God broke my heart and I’ve never been the same. Our last stop on our last day was a visit to a school. We brought shoes and clothing for 10 children but, when we arrived, there were 100’s of children that surrounded us waiting, watching and hoping that they would receive something. Violet brought her preschool. We had nothing to give these little ones. Two from our team scrounged through the van and emerged with small bars of soap and a box of crackers. One by one the four year olds held out their hands to receive a bar of soap and one cracker.
I was interacting with some of the older children and was unaware of what was happening with the preschoolers. I went over to this little boy and held out my hand for him to “give me 5.” What happened next is forever etched in my memory. He looked down at one clenched fist, then to the other and back again to the first hand, opened it up and handed me his bar of soap. Then I realized he thought that I was asking him to give me what he had received. The look of pain on his face broke my heart. I quickly reassured him that they were his to keep and closed his tiny fingers around the bar of soap. A cracker and a bar of soap, two things incidental and insignificant to me, were precious to him.
When I returned home I could not erase his face from my mind. People asked me, “How was your trip? Was it life changing?” At first I couldn’t put my feelings into words. It was heart breaking. “Was it life changing?” Now I can say, “Yes.” Nothing outside of my relationship with Jesus has touched my life like the people of Africa.
My love for the children of South Africa and Lesotho has grown. So has my eagerness to speak on their behalf and to do what I can to provide hope in desperate circumstances. My belief is that only God can provide true hope in that hopelessness. But, as we seek to bring Jesus to them, we also need to share the love of God in tangible ways by helping to meet their physical needs.
I’ve never seen that little boy again. But, I’m grateful that God had my life cross his for a brief moment and for how He has changed my heart and my life through the brief encounter. My hope that you will follow us at: www.AnchorYourLife.com or through Facebook. This is an exciting adventure and I’m so glad that I can share it with you!
Help us help African children through Anchor Your Life.
Poverty
|
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (NIV) James 1:27
Nearly 60% of the people in Lesotho live at poverty level…many families live on less than $1 a day.
“Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult.” -Samuel Johnson
There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land. (NIV) Deuteronomy 15:11 Help African children through a secure online donation |
Loving the Least of the Least
It’s tough to look a child in the eyes and see one who has been unloved and uncared for. It was during my first experience in Lesotho in 2007 that I looked into the eyes of these children and made the commitment that I would keep coming back to care for and love the least of the least in Lesotho and South Africa.
I’m still honoring that commitment, and with that commitment comes the desire to do more to provide for the needs of these children. That’s why over the next month we want to provide hundreds of winter packs (hats, scarves, gloves, and blankets) for families in South Africa as they enter into the freezing cold months of May-September. Help us complete this project by giving a donation of $25 which will help cover the costs to purchase, assemble, and distribute each winter pack. Together we can make a difference!