needs...

We were driving with Carlos and Pascua the other night when Carlos got a phone call- it was from the chief of one of the communities that Rubatano does Home Based Care in. Over the phone, Carlos learned about a child that just become an orphan. The child’s father had died years ago, and the mother had just died the previous day. The grandmother had taken the child and gone looking for help. She had no money, and no food. Carlos drove to Rubatano’s main center and got some maize, beans and salt for them- the last food parcel that the center had, and we drove to meet the grandmother. When we arrived it was already late- out of the darkness walked an old woman carrying a small child on her back. The grandmother had been traveling all day- trying to get help- desperate for help. She gratefully took the food which would last her for just a few weeks, and left with the child…

A couple of days ago a woman named Maria came to Carlos to ask for help for her neighbor… her neighbor is a girl who is about 13 years old. This girl is an orphan and lives with her two young uncles. Her uncles don’t want her. They are trying to sell her for money. Maria came to Carlos to see if he could help the girl somehow. Carlos and the volunteers are now trying to find a place for this girl to live. Maybe an old granny or a sick patient that she could help in exchange for a place to live. Rubatano will give her some food- an incentive for a family to take her in. Just imagine being this girl. Your parents are dead - the family you do have is trying to sell you…
These stories are not rare here. People come to Carlos and the volunteers almost every day with needs like these. AIDS is rampant here, and turning kids into orphans every day. Rubatano needs help caring for these children.

Currently, volunteers at Rubatano provide orphaned and vulnerable children like these with a monthly food parcel, assistance with education, and visit them at home twice a week. It is amazing to see the care and dedication of these volunteers. Most of the volunteers are very poor themselves- many with holes in their shoes and hungry kids of their own. As of January 2009, Rubatano no longer has money available to cover their operating costs. This is due to their two main government donors completing their commitments. It is now time for the church to step in- for us to help the church in Africa to take care of these little ones.

It is the goal of Rubatano and Hands at Work to provide each orphaned and vulnerable child (OVC) with basic health, education, and food security. This costs about 15USD per child/month. Currently Rubatano cares for almost 650 OVCs in the Gondola area (where I live), and over 400 in a new area called Nhamatonda. As Rubatano is expanding to four other new areas, hundreds more OVCs are being added to this these numbers.

I have been so impressed by what God is doing through Carlos and the volunteers at Rubatano, and I encourage you to be a part of it. If you want to donate to Rubatano, please let me know, and I’ll send you more info about tax deductable donations. My email address is lauraeliason@hotmail.com

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed." Psalm 82:3

another cake...

Here is one of the latest cakes that we’ve made… it’s a unicorn. We made it for our 15 year old friend Matthew- not sure why we picked a unicorn- just seemed like the thing to do…

fruit...

A few weeks ago, four of us girls went away to the beach for the weekend. Here is a picture of us- our friend Jess from the USA is here for a few months, then me, Dara, and Jenny from the Peace Corps (she’s leaving next week and we are very sad!).

Believe it or not, this is how cashew nuts grow! They looked like a joke fruit- like someone has hot-glue-gunned a plastic cashew on top of an apple, but they were real… The cashew nut is inside of a larger, harder shell, and grows on top of an apple-like fruit that has a pink, kind of sweet/kind of bitter flesh… who knew?? This is Jen and Jess with our new discovery.

One of the things we enjoy a lot here is all of the fruit… mangos are the fruit that we’ve been enjoying lately! When we went to the beach there were so many people selling mangos on the side of the road, that we got a bit carried away… here is Jess buying us mangos- she bought eighty (80) mangos for eighty (80) cents! They tasted so good! Jess later developed an allergic reaction from all of the mangos she ate- swollen eyes and sores on her lips- I think she learned a valuable lesson that weekend…

a few pictures...

Pascua, Carlos’ wife, cooks all of her meals outside on a charcoal stove. She’s mastered baking carrot cake on this stove-something one of the last western girls showed her how to cook. This is a picture of me teaching Pascua how to make ‘no bake chocolate cookies’. We had a great time… Carlos loves the cookies and calls them “his heart”.

We have a lot of fun hanging out with Carlos and his family. This is his baby, Jessie. She was born in the same month that my nephew Mason was, so I have a fun time watching her grow and thinking of Mason. Here she is taking a bath on their patio… so cute.

Have I mentioned that there are a lot of bugs here? We’ve learned to cohabitate quite nicely with the spiders - it’s the cockroaches that I have not learned to love yet. When we first moved into the house we saw giant spiders like this on the walls, and were told, “oh, those are ‘crack spiders’ we don’t kill those”. So, Dara and I never really questioned why we don’t kill them, but we’ve gone along with it….

tv show

A couple months ago a film crew was here to film the work that Hands at Work/Rubatano is doing in Mozambique. This Sunday (the 19th) the program will be shown on the "Living Truth" Ministries program. You can look at their website for the time and channels that it will be shown:

http://www.livingtruth.ca/.

It is a great way for everyone to see where I work, and the people that I get to work with. There is a chance I might be on it as well (possibly not though as I had a little spot on the South African Living Truth episode that was shown last week).

I hope everyone will get a chance to watch it!

Vovo

“Vovo” is the Mozambican term for Grandmother. Vovos are holding this country together. AIDS is devastating Mozambique and many other African countries. It is wiping out a generation of mothers and fathers, and aunts and uncles, and is leaving thousands and thousands of orphans. Every day in Africa 6000 kids are orphaned- that is 180,000 every month. Can you imagine? In Zambia, where I was last month, 23% of the children are orphans. It is usually the Grandmothers who take in these children. It is heartbreaking to see these old women, baby on back, walking miles and miles to carry firewood, fetch water, or work in the fields.

A couple months ago our friend Lynn from Hands at Work South Africa came to Mozambique on his way to Zimbabwe. While there, he met an old Vovo who was taking care of 17 kids. Some were her grandkids, and some were orphaned neighbor children. They were all living in one room- renting the other room of their house out to make some income. She was taking care of 17 kids in a country where it is extremely hard just to feed yourself.

The woman in this picture is a Vovo from one of the local communities. I love this picture. It shows the strength that these women have. Strong, stoic, and proud. We need to be helping these women and children.

Zambia...

For the last two weeks I have had the opportunity to help train 6 nurses in the country of Zambia. It was very interesting, and it was an honour to work with these seasoned nurses. The nurses work in remote villages running mobile clinics that take place in classrooms or sometimes even under trees. Mobile clinics provide medical care to people in communities that are that far away from hospitals. Two or three nurses will see up to 300 patients a day- can you imagine? We taught a two week course about HIV and childhood mortality- most childhood death are caused by preventable problems- dehydration, malnutrition, malaria, etc.

Most of our time was in the classroom, but we also got to take part in two mobile clinics. They were overwhelming! So many sick kids, women and babies. I got to spend some time with a midwife, and I learned so much from her (I would love to be a midwife some day). I was amazed by the simplicity of the instruments too- forget an electronic fetoscope! I was listening for the baby’s heart rate through a plastic tube- simple, effective and efficient- primary health care at its best.

One patient that I saw at the mobile clinic really broke my heart. She was a lovely little girl- 10 years old, although she looked much younger. She was too thin, had a rash and peeling skin, a cough and stomach problems. The nurse had her tested for HIV. She came back positive and it appeared that her disease was quite advanced. She was orphaned- her parents most likely dying of AIDS, and was living with her aunt and uncle. One of the nurses in our course, Helen, took special interest in the little girl. Helen will make sure that this little girl will get anti retroviral treatment, and that she will be visited twice a week by home based care. All I could do was pray for her.

It was good to see a home based care project in a different country (also part of Hands at Work). I was able to go out with a few of the volunteers and visit some patients and orphans. These volunteers are so inspiring. They have so little themselves, but they are going out into their own communities showing God’s love. They are dedicated. I am so glad that I have been able to meet them, and walk with them as they march on.