Forgotten Voices' Mission:

"Demonstrating the love of Jesus Christ by equipping local churches in southern Africa to meet the physical & spiritual needs of children orphaned by AIDS in their communities."

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Stop 6 of 25: Touring Twapia -- Part 2

Literally just down the road from Twapia ECZ, where I took you on Stop 5 of our journey, is the Vineyard World Outreach Church's feeding program in Twapia. This is a project Forgotten Voices has not assisted yet, but we hope to start by the end of this year if we can raise funds: $2,500/year.

While Forgotten Voices typically invests in more holistic projects because we find ourselves helping churches starting at the very beginning, the Vineyard's feeding program is a bit different. The value of the model we use is that we can adapt programming based on the needs, or Gaps, of a particular church. Vineyard's feeding program is a piece of the community response.

We are helping Twapia ECZ send kids to school, a Vineyard church in Ohio is helping Vineyard do a more robust feeding program, and World Vision is also working in the area on HIV/AIDS education. Together, we are joining together to equip local churches in Twapia to meet the physical & spiritual needs of children orphaned by AIDS in the community.

Description: The Vineyard World Outreach Church runs a project in Twapia of 150 vulnerable and orphaned children by feeding them twice in a week and providing for their school requirements. Of these hundred and fifty children, seventy five of them are already being assisted by Vineyard Columbus, Ohio. We hope our $2,500/year piece also helps the local church achieve a sustainable commercial block making project. We also plan to involve Farming God's Way (which was Stop #3 on our Journey) to help this community grow a long-term supply of food and create a more self-sustaining environment. But, we need to also help meet the critical short-term food needs.

Ryan with Lameck, the Vineyard church's pastor helping lead this project

Ryan and Lameck preparing the meal. Another interesting note is that the Vineyard church views this as a missions project and service to the community, as they don't have a church in Twapia, but are extending love to churches in the area, like Twapia ECZ, who have identified this feeding project as a community need.

Some of the many kids assisted by the feeding project. Currently, there are 75. With Forgotten Voices' assistance, this project will grow to reach 150 vulnerable children.

# Impact/Activities: 150 children will be given food twice a week and helped to continue with their education. Block making will render sustainability of the project in the long run. Farming God's Way will also be a partner, but in a different project line item so we can reach a collection of churches, not just this project.

PRAY: Pray for God to deliver resources to Forgotten Voices, so we can equip this church project with the resources they need. Pray for the kids and their families, or caretakers, as they await the start of the project. Pray for wisdom for the community pastors, as they are struggling to keep up with rising demand, as they await funding. Pray for Remmy, our Zambian Program Director, who is seeing these needs daily and leading our response formation with the local churches. Pray for new donors to see this need. Maybe you know someone that would be moved to act in responding to these prayer requests.

NOW: We need $2,500 for the Twapia Vineyard Feeding Project. Please join us in giving to this project. Feel free to make an online donation or send in a check written to Forgotten Voices; PO Box 1368; Mechanicsburg, PA 17055-1368 USA.

NEXT STOP: We'll stay in Zambia. Come back tomorrow to meet another project in the greater Ndola, Zambia area.

-Ryan

1 comment:

Molly Betsy @ Star Cottage said...

Wow Ryan That's awesome. Looks Like the Lord is using you in amazing ways. I am now a follower of your blog. Looking forward to reading updates and praying for you and your team along the way.