Hello all,
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving this year. Below, there are some important updates that I hope you will all find the time to read as they specifically pertain to each and every sponsorship child.
This last summer, Resurrection Orphans and Widows service, our sister agency in Ethiopia, underwent an governmental review which happens every three years. During this review the organization being reviewed is basically gone through with a fine tooth comb. The good news is the ROWS passed the review; however, the bad news is there has to be some changes made to the way the sponsorships are run.
First off, ROWS has two agencies that they work with in the United States, OCL and All Our Children (AOC). When AOC was started, they advised ROWS they could not find sponsors for $30/month, so they elected to find sponsors for $20/month and give the kids less food each month. They basically have been getting 1/3 less food than the OCL kids. The Ethiopia government did not like this discrepancy and would like all the kids sponsored by ROWS to receive the same amount of sponsorship supplies, so rather than asking AOC sponsors to pay more, we will be giving less food each month to our sponsor kids. Due to this change, starting in the next month or two, your sponsorship fees will only be $20/month. For those of you who pay annually and have funds sitting with us, your extra funds will just be rolled over into the next year. Now, here is the catch, if you are still inclined to give $30/month, the extra $10 will be allocated to the Widows Empowerment Program (WEP) in which widows receive occupational training and will be started in a new career in order to provide for their families. These widows will initially be selected from our sponsor families. The goal in this is to teach families to provide for themselves so they don’t have to be dependent on support from others. So often these beautiful women are trapped by circumstance; they just need someone to believe in them and give them the life changing boost they need. If you DO NOT want to be a part of sponsoring the Widows Empowerment Program as well as your child sponsorship then respond to this email and let me know. Otherwise, sponsorship will continue at $30/mo., but only $20 of that will go to your child and the other $10/month will go towards helping widows. As I said before, if you paid in advance those funds will be rolled over to the next year, however, after renewal, if sponsorship is continued at $30/month, $20 will go to your child’s care and $10 will go to the WEP.
Secondly, since the beginning of OCL one of our main objectives has been to spread Christ’s love and provide children and families access to His word through weekly bibles studies. We have always believed that change has to come from within and the best way to inspire this change is to feed to soul. We want to feed the body and the soul. We still hold fast to this principle. However, the Ethiopian government is now banning our weekly bible studies. The governmental reviewing agent was gracious enough to warn ROWS of this during the review and told them if these meeting were to be continued, they would be closed down. We are still trying to work out the details on how to spread the word of God to these precious ones while showing them Christ’s love. One thought is that our evangelist might go house to house every few months and meet with families, but this is still just a thought and not yet a set plan. Please pray about this with us as this was a large part of our being called to start OCL.
Lastly, we are still in the process of making up for the missed sponsorships of May and June which were missed due to the above mentioned governmental review. We had intended to provide extra food and book bags in September, but due to a shortage of book bags from the supplier and continued legalities of the review, this did not happen. So, our new plan is to provide a set of clothing (shirt and pants) for May and a set of sheets for June. With Christmas right the corner, the clothes will be given as a Christmas gift, but the funds will come from May’s funds. In past years we have asked for additional funds from you all for Christmas gifts for the kids, but this year, that won’t be needed.
I realize this is a lot of information, so if any of you have ANY questions, please feel free to let me know and I will do my very best to clarify. We completely appreciate you all partnering with us in this journey to change lives. Your faithfulness has been such a blessing not only to the families in Ethiopia but to us as well as well, as we have seen the wonders of change through your selfless gifts.
God bless you all!