Through Orange Colored Glasses

What do you do when you hit water? What if you were in the middle of a drought where it hadn’t rained in five years? And then miraculously—you got water!

This was the case of some people who lived in the middle of Turkana in the Horn of Africa. It seemed they had no hope. And then CRF brought water to them. What would you do if you were them?

Perhaps you have water and aren’t in a drought. But maybe you are going through a spiritual or emotional famine. And so many times in the darkest hour and at the most helpless moment, you get relief. Someone helps you. God graces you. What do you do?

I now know the proper response when you hit water, and wanted to share it with you. And it is the proper response anytime God gives you water whether physical or spiritual. What do you do? Watch this video.

UPDATE: Since the original posting of this blog one year ago, hundreds of people have given to make sure others have access to clean water.  CRF has been able to drill multiple wells in the Horn of Africa.  And our wells have given access to clean, plentiful water to thousands of famine refugees.

A little over a month ago, I stood in Turkana, Kenya at the dedication of one of these wells… I saw the product of our donors’ sacrifice and I saw joy on every face.  Thank you for giving.  Your support is changing lives and transforming communities.

Here’s a video from Turkana.

Turkana from CRF on Vimeo.

Today is World Water Day. The need for water is still great.  Could you help us bring water to more thirsty people?
You can give for the “Horn of Africa Drought” here.

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As I was riding up a chair lift to ski Mt. Baker in the beautiful Cascade Mountains, my good friend, Curtis Jones, told me that he had some news that he just had to share with someone. He told me that he and his wife Judy were expecting their first child. Progressing up the mountain, we shared the joy of the news and what dreams would come because of this child. Little did I know that I would be telling him the same news in just a few months. And little did I know that I would meet up with his daughter decades later in Honduras.

Curtis and I moved together from Lubbock, Texas to Seattle, Washington to start a campus ministry. He would tell people frequently that the two of us were identical twins since we were both named “Jones.” It was a great joke leaving people greatly puzzled since Curtis was about seven inches taller than me. Curtis died a few years ago but lives in so many of us who do ministry. There was just no one better than Curtis—although his daughter, Meredith, may be pretty close. I guess the moving for ministry just got in the genes of our two families. We moved about 2000 miles to help reach college students for God. But those first two children really outdid us. Patrick, my first, has moved to Jakarta, Indonesia to teach in a Christian school. And Meredith moved to Honduras to work with Mission Lazarus.

We left Tegucigalpa to go to Choluteca. It’s about a 3½-hour drive. The mountains were bigger than any I had seen before in Honduras. They were incredibly tall with windy roads and big valleys. It reminded me of going through the mountains of northern Haiti or maybe even New Mexico. And with a short ride outside of these spectacular mountains, you find yourself going up another hill that leads you past a little lake to some lodges that houses Mission Lazarus. And that is where we saw Meredith standing.

Meredith is a nurse at Mission Lazarus. She helps with the children who are there in the children’s home, the poor in the community and medical brigades in areas where health needs are huge. Mission Lazarus is a holistic ministry that does all kinds of efforts to help with immediate needs and promote sustainability. They help with businesses and agricultural efforts to empower the local people to help themselves. They even raise coffee and cattle. They plant churches. And as I have mentioned, they help with medical needs. How does this relate to CRF? We partner with Mission Lazarus to help children in this area.

In 1998 Hurricane Mitch devastated the area around Choluteca. CRF entered this region to bring relief. We built houses and started meeting the needs of hurting children. Years later we still are there partnering with Mission Lazarus to help meet the physical, educational and spiritual needs of the poorer children in this area. Currently, CRF is helping at 11 different sites in this area.

Yesterday, I got to go with Carlos and a team from Mission Lazarus to witness these areas of relief. Sammie is our CRF leader in this area working to help all of the CRF children. He is a great guy with a heart for children and Jesus. We went all over the mountains to visit four of our 11 works there. All of them had children waiting to greet us (and hug us). We witnessed several moving programs put on by the children. The last place we went was a place called Limon. Ishmael was the minister there who works with Sammie to take care of the children. Actually, some of our other CRF works from other areas joined us in Limon to give their appreciation too. So the last words from the last work I visited came from Ishmael. He couldn’t have been more appreciative. He said, “We didn’t know what to do, and out of nowhere—CRF showed up. It was a miracle.”

Well, I’m going to head back today. It will take a couple of days to get back since there aren’t a lot of flights to Amarillo. But I thank God for the journey. I thank God for my guide, friend, visionary, partner, driver, translator, and faithful brother—Carlos Carbajal. No one can take you through Honduras better than Carlos.

Meredith, your dad is proud of you. I know that I am. All the dreams came true.

Vaya con Dios. Adios.

Today Carlos, Carla and I were headed to Danli. As soon as we told someone where we were going, we were asked to buy some cigars. It seemed like a strange request to me. But I guess Danli is world famous for producing exquisite cigars.

Carlos told me that Danli was one of his very favorite places. I can see why. Honduras is a gorgeous place, and our journey to Danli took us through some of the prettiest parts of it—a region full of majestic  mountains covered with evergreen trees.

Driving into Danli was just breathtaking. It was one of those quaint little towns with a beautiful park in the center of the city backed by a huge white cathedral. It is what you dream that you will see in Central America. It is the stuff of postcards. And the church building where CRF operates was just down the street.

Once again we were greeted with a program. Our Danli work is run by Wilma Ester with much help from her four precious daughters. I have a feeling that she told all the children to wear orange because there was a sea of it. And every child was also given an orange nametag to wear with a name and a big smiley face on it.

As I was giving a challenge to the children about the hope that was before them, I looked and read for the first time what was on the nametag of the little girl in the orange shirt who was seated on the front row. It said “Shahrzad Zarkoob.” Then I saw what Wilma had done. She had not put “Josefa” on her name tag. No she had put her sponsor’s name. So I thought about Shahrzad. I remembered a 19 year old Iranian student who made a dramatic conversion in our campus ministry at the University of Washington and had to get religious asylum to keep from being killed. I remembered Shahrzad becoming an American citizen. I remembered Shahrzad getting her Ph.D. in Physics. I remembered her becoming an executive for NBC at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City. So in the middle of the talk I told little Josefa about her sponsor and the great things that she had done. And I told her that she could do great things too. I had hope for her. She may be in poverty and without many breaks but her sponsor had gone through tough times too and came out doing great things. The little girl hugged me about a million times before we left.

Then the other children lined up. “Tell me about my sponsor,” they cried. And so I looked on the next name-tag, and it said “Dr. David Jackson and Karen.” And I remembered when I met David at the University of Washington decades ago just like I had with Shahrzad. He was the drum major in the band. He was the smartest guy I had ever met. And he dramatically gave his life to the Lord. He became a doctor. He became my doctor. I remember Karen and her coming to Jesus. I recall the way she gave her life to becoming an exceptional teacher. So I told little Gladis that she could be like her sponsors. I told her that she could be a doctor. She could be a teacher. I had hopes for her just like I saw David and Karen do great things.

And I just had to smile and thank God. It was like being in a time warp. What had happened three decades ago was living dynamically in the present. What happened thousands of miles away in a different country had transcended into Central America for God’s glory and to change the lives of children.

If you don’t know what I do, let me tell you a little about it. I speak at churches any place that I can and ask people to sponsor orphans through CRF. I have a table with pictures of children from all over the world. They are real children. They are needy children. And every place I go, the greatest people on earth sign up and start sponsoring a child. I do this now as president of CRF. But I started doing it decades ago as a volunteer. And as these little kids of Honduras lined up asking me to tell them about their sponsors, I couldn’t believe how many of them I knew. One was from a church in Oregon. Another from a campus ministry in Oklahoma. Another from a seminar in Washington. The next one was from a friend in California.

I could remember so many of the faces of the sponsors on the days that they had signed up. But now I was seeing the other side. I was seeing the children that they had saved. I so wished that the sponsors could have seen their faces. The children loved them so much. I wish I had known every story to tell them. (If you have a child, let them know who you are and what you look like. They love you so much, and you are so important to them.) And it was one of those great moments in a lifetime—faces on both sides of sponsorship were being connected in my mind. I love all of you who are sponsors. I’m thanking God for you right now. I wish you could have been there to see how important you are. You are the difference.

And then I got more hugs. I think it is a theme.

From Danli, we drove to our work in La Cienega. It was not a quaint village but out in the middle of the country. It was a difficult drive. We wondered if we would make it. But we did. Our work there is run by Herman. It is another great work that is touching the lives of rural children in poverty. One kid just kept following me around. I asked him his name (I remember how to do that from high school Spanish). He said, “Emmanuel.” I could really run with this, but you can draw the same conclusions I would.

After the program (yes, we do programs)–Herman took us to show one of the children’s homes. She was a teenager named Mimi, although she looked years younger. We saw her little house. It had no electricity or water. We heard her sad story of how her mother had left. And her dad had epilepsy and couldn’t work. Mimi had to take care of the house. I was extremely impressed with how clean it was. As we looked around the house, Carlos asked me if I noticed what was missing. Then I saw it. There was no food. Her family had no food. When she saw that we noticed, tears welled up in her eyes. She didn’t want us to know. She didn’t want to ask for anything. We gave anyway. A smile was across her face as she waved goodbye to us.

It was a long journey for me. And maybe you are wondering if I had one of the delicacies of Danli. Close but no cigar.

Wow, morning comes early in Honduras. Is there a 5 a.m. in North America?

Well, we started our early trip to Catacamas. Being a little concerned about the trip, I asked how long it would take us to get there. Larry Wu responded that it would take three hours. And then he said, “What can go wrong in three hours?”

I asked Larry if he had ever seen “Gilligan’s Island.”

Our crew of Carlos Carbajal, Larry Wu, Esteban Valle, and his friend Christian made it there in a little over three hours without a single shipwreck. We were greeted with applause and thunderous singing as we entered the Villa Verde church and saw hundreds of CRF children filling the pews.

It wasn’t long before Alex started preaching. And it was quite a sermon too. He preached from Isaiah 58. I wondered why he was preaching. And then I got it. Alex was a CRF child sponsored for over 12 years and now is the preacher of this church. It was a powerful sermon until his audience briefly left him as one kid carried in a piñata. We took care of that deal later. I think some of our children there should go for the major leagues the way they swing a bat.

But it is hard to get the grasp of CRF in Catacamas without seeing it through the eyes of Saulo Mondragon. In fact it is hard to even imagine CRF or the city of Catacamas without thinking of the incredible care for children and the love of the lost that the whole Mondragon family has extended for over three decades. But now Saulo is at the wheel and keeping CRF moving in this city. Saulo has extreme enthusiasm for God and CRF. And he can weave a story like nobody else. He tells stories of changed lives and restored hope that takes place through CRF and its orphanage called appropriately—“New Hope.”

At the church building, Saulo brought to me a young mother and her newborn child. This mom couldn’t stop crying for joy because of the assistance she had received from CRF. It was the difference in her life. And she wanted to make sure every one knew about it. And then Saulo introduced me to a special guest, Celeste Melendes. Celeste is very special in our family because Barbie’s mother, Eula Perkins, sponsors Celeste and has for years. Celeste was beautiful, thankful and a joy to be around.

And then it happened again. More hugs. And more hugs. And then more hugs. These children couldn’t quit hugging. I thought that maybe it was Honduras. Or maybe it was CRF. Or maybe it was me. But my sore body (read yesterday’s blog) was a lot sorer after two days of hundreds and hundreds of hugs. But what a way to go!

Oh I forgot that the two heads of the best private secondary school in town showed up at the ceremony. They asked me to sign a paper stating that all of our CRF children could go to their school for a hugely discounted price. I couldn’t see anything wrong with that!

When I got to New Hope, Saulo had even more stories for me. He introduced me to Freddie Lopez. Freddie is an executive of one of the largest and most successful corporations in town. But he was there to say that he was a CRF child for over a decade, and he was thankful for it. He said that he wanted me to understand that the greatest benefit of CRF was not the money that came from the sponsor. He appreciated the financial support, but there was something much greater for him than the money. He said what made the difference in his life was that there was someone out there, a sponsor, who believed in him and invested in him. He told me this is what made him have enough confidence to make it in life. Freddie not only is a great businessman but has also earned a Masters degree in economics. Freddie has paid back the support he received from CRF over and over again as he has invested in other children.

Then there were the twins. Saulo was very proud of them. They are very young—not quite toddlers. He was hoping that I would get them sponsors. They were beautiful little boys named Stephen and Antonio. Saulo told me the sad day when their mother came to him begging him to take her children. Of course, Saulo wanted to keep the kids with their mother. But after checking on them, he found them living on a porch behind a house. The twins were eating dirt and worse as their food. She had no way to take care of her children. Today, there is new hope at New Hope. The children are happy and healthy. Surely someone will sponsor two children this cute.

And then there was the beautiful girl, Sindy, whom I met at the church building and later saw again at New Hope. She looked like the happiest and most blessed person on earth. She had just graduated from high school. For all the help she had received, she awarded her diploma to CRF and the church. And now she was the first of our CRF children to be accepted to the prestigious university there. If she can get someone to give her a scholarship, she will go there too. But it wasn’t an easy road getting to this point. Her father abandoned her. Her mom was full of substance abuse. And one day Sindy found herself outside the gate of New Hope hoping to get inside. And with the Mondragons, she found a life—until one day a family member came back to try to take her away. She was told that she needed to be in a cultic group that tattooed “666” on their upper arm. Saulo went to court and saved her. She now is in the custody of CRF. But she has always been in the arms of God. With another break, I think Sindy is going to be a world changer. The possibilities are grand when a child is given some care and a lot of love.

And then I had a dinner of dinners served with watermelon juice. Marisol is Saulo’s wife. And she can cook and a lot of it too. She fixed me a delicacy that is only served in this place. She is a gourmet cook. It was scrumptious. But Larry Wu made me promise to never ask what I just ate. This scares me a little.

Catacamas tried to make me feel important. It’s always nice when people treat you better than you deserve (I think we call that grace). When I arrived at Catacamas, I was met by a television reporter for an interview. It was nice to tell the area what CRF was all about. Then the mayor came to see me with a delegation at New Hope. He thanked me for all the good work that comes from CRF. Then he gave us land to build five houses for the poor on it. Saulo told me to ask for more. So I did. I asked for ten acres more so we could expand our work in helping children. He said, “Yes!” I’m going to get it in writing. Then he said something the reporter had mentioned in his interview. It had to do with two presidents being in town. Then I figured it out. He was talking about me. And he was talking about the other President whom he had just left to come over and thank me. Yes, it actually was the President of Honduras. I’m glad the mayor talked to him first.

Catacamas is an unique CRF work. In Catacamas, CRF has not only changed the lives of children but also the city itself. Saulo drove me around the city and showed me 18 churches his dad and CRF had planted. He talked of short-term mission trips where Americans had come to not only change this city but also to be changed by this city. There is even a section of Catacamas called “CRF City.” But ultimately the work here is known by the entire region as a place of refuge and help. It’s exactly what Alex preached about when he read Isaiah 58:6-8. Alex and Saulo left me with a beautiful certificate of honor. And it had this very passage on it.

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: 
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, 
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— 
when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; 
then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Spotless. I can’t think of anything better in the world at this moment. I probably should be thinking of a spiritual condition, but I’m not. I have been in some pretty dirty houses in Honduras, but that is not my gripe. No, I have red spots all over my body. Barbie thought I had the measles right before I came to Honduras. A few hours before I left for Central America, I had a doctor look at me to make sure I wasn’t going to infect a bunch of children with some strange disease that I picked up in Africa. He gave me permission to go, but these little bumps keep getting bigger and spreading all over me. And they have begun to hurt too. So when I went to our CRF work today in Tegucigalpa, I wasn’t nearly as thrilled as I would normally be that this work had the huggiest children on the planet. They hug you. Then they hug you. And then they hug you again. So I’m a pretty sore traveler at the moment. And I just want to be spotless.

Adela Mancado does an exceptional job of running the CRF program in Tegucigalpa. But its history is really a history of a bunch of children who have been loved and taken care of by the Mancado family. That may not seem like such a big deal until you realize that they take care of over 300 children.

Before I got to see all the children, a team of us delivered food to 25 houses. This was no easy task. Yes, these houses were at the bottom of a steep cliff. I thought everyone was giving me a hard time when they started down the rock face to get to these people who really didn’t have much at all (much less a good location). Repelling should have been a requirement to deliver these supplies.  I thought my heart was going to give out before my spots killed me. But wow, the recipients were grateful.  Adela wanted me to present the food from CRF. I don’t speak Spanish very well (you might say at all), but you don’t have to say much to communicate when you have food in your hand. They were all needy, but I will never forget the mother who was holding a two-week old baby. Her husband had already abandoned her. How was she going to make it? I don’t know. Food didn’t seem to be enough, but she seemed to give a pretty genuine smile and “gracias.” May the good Lord grace her.

After giving out food for so long in the hot weather, my hosts wanted to reward us with some authentic Honduran food (although some told me that it originated in El Salvador). We ate Pupusas. And they were pretty good, and I have to admit it. My pupusa was like a tortilla filled with pork and cheese. It was a stretch for my boring diet, but I did get to eat breakfast at Dunkin Donuts–and their Bavarian Crème donut is pretty good too.

Of course all the CRF children had a program for us. CRF is good at programs. And it was a good program. It was filled with traditional dance. Some women and girls even performed “La Punta” which is the special dance of Honduras. I was told how fortunate I was to witness it. And then it happened. I should have seen it coming. The women came and grabbed me and dragged me to the front to dance with them. This is the second time this has happened to me in the last few weeks. It happened with the women in Turkana, Africa and now in Honduras. Please don’t tell Barbie. I don’t want her to get upset that women all over the world want to dance with me. She will probably make me take dance lessons when I get home. At the end of the dance, I got to meet Sisi, who was selected from our kids to be the President of Honduras for a day. She is so smart and such a leader that she was the one chosen. And then I got to meet the CRF child of the year, Christopher. He had achieved the greatest merits of all of our children and won this award. I even got a framed picture of him.

Our evening was spent with a “thank you” dinner. CRF graduates came back to give their testimonies of the great help of CRF in their past and how they are doing now. It was kind of like a graduation. It was a rite of passage in a way. And it was all over a Chinese dinner (that’s what they wanted—and it wasn’t bad for Honduras).

Our children were now teachers, professors, ministers, engineers, mothers and many other notable professions. I was told that Daniel graduated number one in a high school of over 5000 students. Many told me that he was the smartest man they had ever met. And their stories moved you to tears. Luis said that when CRF showed up in his life, it was not a rain of blessings but a full storm of blessings. Junior said that CRF was always there when he had nothing else. These children grew up well.

Larry Wu said they should pay for the meal instead of me since they were now so successful. But I paid and was glad to do so. What a blessing!

It was ironic, just as our group was walking out; some gang members were walking in. What juxtaposition! Makes me want to preach.

I was a little upset that not one of the children had become a doctor yet. I could use more help with these spots. But in reality, I get to try a new medicine in two days. Maybe it will work. I’m a bit tired. And we start at 5 in the morning here. I’m praying that I will wake up spotless tomorrow.

It was quite an adventurous day for us in Tegucigalpa. If you have never landed on a plane here—well, there’s just nothing else quite like it. Roller coasters take a distant second place to arrivals in this Honduran airport.

After finally finding my crew (how could we have missed—we were both wearing orange), we stopped at the Baxter Institute and then headed to eat.

But the key word these days in Honduras is fire. It is tragic what has happened. If you watch the news, you certainly heard about the fire in the prison that killed hundreds of prisoners. And then there was another fire in one of the huge marketplaces that has left thousands of people without jobs.  It doesn’t take long to figure out that there is a lot of violence going on here. In fact, we just lost our former meeting place for CRF because it was taken over by gangs. Sad story after sad story emerged because of the gang violence here.

But on the other side of things, something positive kept showing up on this day. As you obviously know if you read this blog that I work with children. The goal of Christian Relief Fund is to help orphans and poor children so they can get a break in a world that throws a lot of junk at them. But what I often forget is that these little kids grow up. And I kept running into them today.

First of all, there is Carlos Carbajal. He is hosting me around Honduras. He has helped direct our works here, so no one could get me a better education about the wonderful care for children here than him. Carlos has recently moved to Miami to preach at a church, which further shows his spiritual leadership. But what I nearly forgot is that Carlos is a CRF kid. In fact, he even called himself “J30”—his old CRF sponsorship number. He was proud to share his story of how he was helped. It is good to have a vision for your future. But it is also good to know where you came from. I love Carlos because he knows where he is going, but he also remembers his past. He is so grateful for his past that he wants to continually help other children to receive similar blessings.

But secondly, Carlos introduced me to Oscar and Wilma Ester. They were both CRF kids too. Oscar is now one of the leaders of the Baxter Institute. And Wilma Ester is now one of the directors of another CRF program in Honduras. I think of all the sponsors who sponsor children because they are needy and cute little kids. But they grow up. And because of what you did, they grow up well. And they are doing great things. And I’m glad they have remembered where they came from. And I’m glad they are so grateful.

And before the day was over, Carlos took me to the poorest place he could find to show me the most needy children over here. They were on a mountain. It took us hours to get there. One place had a mother with her nine children on a cluttered dirt floor house with very little food. And then I saw a room in an even worse house where most of the children had to pile together on a single worn out mattress that was so dirty. And Carla (Carlos’ wife) leaned over and said to me, “Look how happy they are.” And they were. But they still need some help. I wondered if someone would help one of them and if they could one day be just like Carlos. I thought about the extremes of the day seeing the best people on earth and seeing the destruction brought about by gang members. And what makes the difference in these two groups. Could it be who helped them and who didn’t when they were children? I so often see the beginning and middles of child sponsorship. I’m glad I got to see the end of it today.

“Through Orange Colored Glasses” is all about hope. Through the stories and messages I hope you find a joyful anticipation of the future. My friend, Al Lachner, wanted to share a message of hope with all of us. I hope you will check it out.

http://al-lachner.blogspot.com/2012/02/shawshank-redemption-hope.html

I’m on my way to Honduras to help in our CRF works there. I’d love your prayers, and I hope to send you some good messages along the way.

When I first studied philosophy at Texas Tech, I was introduced to a pre-Socratic philosopher name Thales. Many have considered him the first of Western philosophers, and some even call him the “father of science.” But what I remember most about him is “water.” In fact, he said, “Water constituted the principle of all things.” He could have easily been where I have been in Africa recently. Over here, they just say, “Water is life.”

I can’t tell you how many times and how many places I heard this—“Water is life.”

We were involved in drilling water wells in Turkana, Barwessa, and Bungoma. In all three places, they repeated the source of life. Water, in and of itself, is critical. But I never understood the domino effect of water. Let me see if I can explain it.

We drilled a well in Turkana. The nearest water previously was a day’s journey from where the people were located. So now they have good water to drink that is near them. But that’s not all. Some have called this drought—“the children’s famine” because of the way it has produced so many orphans. And when I looked under a tree near the water, I saw around a hundred little children. Yes, they were orphans from the famine. And people had just dumped them there because they thought the most likely place for someone to take care of them would be near the water. So now we had a little orphanage going because we brought water. And obviously this was the best place for us to bring food. So now the orphans along with others were getting food and water. One woman upon seeing all of the little children decided to start teaching them. She asked us if we would buy her a blackboard. We did. So now in the middle of the desert is a blackboard under a tree with a woman teaching vowels to a bunch of little kids. We now have a school. The chief showed up and noticed all the water, food, children, blackboard, and the general good spirit around the place. He thanked us. He said that Christianity was good. After seeing the love expressed there, he believed that the message of Christ was true. He wanted all of his community to become Christians. Now there is a church. We still don’t have a school or church building yet, but that is not the most important part of a church or school. The chief decided that we had helped so much that he should do something in return. He gave us a bunch of land. Since we now have water, we are irrigating the land. Now there is a farm. Soon there will be food that we didn’t bring.  We invited the people to start farming our land. We will pay them with the food produced on the farm. Now there are jobs. In fact, there is an economy. And a bunch of goats started coming while we were standing there and began drinking the water. Now there is livestock. We have a ranch. One of the elders told me that with this new water, people don’t get typhoid like they did in the past. Now there is health. People decided that this place was a good place to be. They discussed moving to this spot. Soon, there will be a town.

It all started one day when someone was watching the news on television and then asked me, “Is there any way we can get them water?” And then she decided to fund a well. It started quite an effect—didn’t it?

Water is life.

Today was a great day of celebration in Kisumu at the Ring Road Orphan’s Day School. The event was of the magnitude that the major television station and newspaper from Nairobi arrived to cover the event.  Yes, I was on the evening news.

What could cause such commotion and partying? An ablution block. Wouldn’t that do it for you? Perhaps you don’t know what an ablution block is. It is a building containing rows of flushing toilets. And that is what we have at Ring Road now. Maybe you don’t think that is a big deal. But this is only the second primary school among the 76 in the Kisumu region that has flushing toilets. And our ablution block had 15 of them.

It is hard to believe from where this school has come. I remember praying over the ground hoping that one day there would be school buildings on this site in the Nyalenda slum. Now there are multiple school buildings. There is a clinic. There is a church. And there is an ablution block.  I remember praying with Jared Odhiambo that someday there would be some children sponsored there. We didn’t have a single one sponsored. And now there are nearly 500, and many others have already graduated from high schools and colleges. We had a lot of hope for this ministry. Hope means a joyful anticipation of the future. Now we have a hope fulfilled.

“Orange is the Color of Hope.” That is what all of our new tee shirts that we distributed in Kenya say. Actually, we have been giving them away in the U.S. too. I had forgotten that the shirt would be more popular in some areas of Kenya than others. Yes, “Orange” is a political party in Kenya. And it is a political party that is very popular in some areas and not in others. Fortunately, it is popular in Kisumu. And our CRF people in other areas of a different political persuasion were gracious enough to wear them, not give us a hard time, and respect the fact that people like me make cultural mistakes or are generally stupid.

I have more hope than I did the first time I was in Kisumu. It is still the place with the second highest prevalence of AIDS in Kenya. Thomas gave me some statistics that one out of four in this area are HIV positive. But back then we were just hoping. Now we have a center that is helping. I talked to a group on our site of about 75 women who had AIDS. I told them as my friend Audie did too that there is no cure for AIDS but there is a cure for death. I remember speaking to a similar group in a similar place years ago. One of the ladies told me that she knew how to die, but she didn’t know how to live. Now we are not only telling people how to die but also helping people live. Our clinic and Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center are helping people live through all stages of HIV/AIDS. We still need help and are grossly underfunded. But if we and all the other people in medicine, government, business, and non-profits continue the course—I think that we will see a cure in my lifetime. At one time that was too much to hope for—not now. A little more help is needed for a little bit longer.

When you see these hundreds of orphans running around Ring Road, you have to pray that they will be running for many years and have long lives. We have sponsored a girl there nearly all of her life. She is precious. I think all children are precious. I told them all what I always told my children every night—“God loves you and so do I.” As I think of all of you out there who have given these children hope and a second chance—“God loves you and so do I.”