ADRA : Adventist Development & Relief Agency International

An initial emergency response is underway targeting areas affected by the deadly earthquake, which hit 57 miles from Chengdu, the capital city of the Sichuan province, destroying up to 3.5 million homes. ADRA volunteers are in Dou Jiang Yan, one of the most accessible areas in the affected region, to conduct emergency assessment. Based on initial findings, the most urgent needs of survivors are water, food, blankets, shelter, and first aid medical service.

The current situation on the ground continues to be tense and uncertain due to ongoing aftershocks and heavy rains.

The quake, considered the worst since 1976 when more than 240,000 people died, hit at 2:28 p.m. local time (6:28 a.m. GMT) and was felt as far as Beijing and Bangkok, Thailand. Updates will be released as response efforts expand.

To send your contribution to ADRA’s emergency response effort, please contact ADRA at 1.800.424.ADRA (2372) or give online.

ADRA is present in 125 countries, providing community development and emergency management without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race, or ethnicity.

Paulo Lopes has a confession to make: "The more challenging the position, the more I like it." And he has had his share of challenges—blessings too—since accepting his first job with ADRA fifteen years ago.

Listen to an Audio Interview with Paulo Lopes

A challenging initiation

Paulo received a baptism of fire on his very first day on the job in 1992, when he joined ADRA Angola as its finance director. With a civil war churning and foreigners fleeing, the country was an extremely difficult place to live. "I remember my very first night in Luanda, the capital city, like it was yesterday," he says. "Seven kilometers away from where I was staying, a huge blast woke me up in the middle of the night. The blast was so strong that the house trembled as it would during an earthquake. Later on, I learned an ammunition storehouse had exploded."

Six months later, his wife, Edra, joined him in Angola, holding their infant son Lucas in her arms. They arrived in an almost empty plane; most everyone else, it seemed, was determined to avoid the country all together. At the airport, security was rigorous and brutal. Walking towards Edra tangled up with baby and suitcases, Paulo made a step past a location guarded by the Angolan army. "If you make one more step, I'll kill you!" warned a heavily armed soldier. Paulo knew by the soldier's tone that it was not an idle threat, and served as a reminder of the harsh reality into which his family had arrived.

Food was scarce. Electricity had been cut months before, and water from the tap was non-existent. The family had to buy muddy water from local vendors, then boil and filter it before use. Often, they had no milk for the baby.

With armed patrols at every street corner and frequent night bombings, life was stressful. Only one week after the family's arrival, the airport was shut down and the civil war erupted, making travel out of the country impossible. Six thousand people were killed in one single week.

After nine months of serious discussions, United Nations representatives allowed Paulo—representing ADRA— and UNICEF staff to fly to the town of Huambo, a civil war hotspot in the center of the country, to assess needs, evaluate logistic challenges, and meet with the rebel forces. As a result of weeklong negotiations, Paulo and the others established a trust with the rebels and organized the first food distributions. ADRA's food distributions, coordinated with the United Nations' World Food Programme, continued for a full year. Each week, seven planes brought desperately needed food to the region, feeding hungry Angolans.

"I knew God was using me to help in this crisis, despite the dangers and difficulties," remembers Paulo. "Those were my best years with ADRA."

From nursing to numbers

Growing up in Brazil, young Paulo's ambition was to be a nurse. However, he soon found out that he didn't much like sciences. Instead, he focused his studies on accounting and theology, and made plans to become a pastor. Though he liked theology, he realized that he preferred budgeting and analytic accounting. In college, the decision to study business came naturally, as did the decision to begin dating Edra, whom he had met in high school. The couple married immediately after graduation and Paulo was hired as the college's cashier. Later, he held high-level accounting positions in different areas of Brazil.

After those first two difficult years in Angola, the family moved to the ADRA office in the neighboring country of Mozambique, where ADRA managed large post-civil war projects that included food distribution operations funded by USAID. The program was complex and challenging and again, Paulo’s special gift for finances was put to good use as assistant finance director for ADRA Mozambique. It was during their six and a half years of service in Mozambique that baby Marcos joined the family.

From Mozambique Paulo moved to finance positions for the Adventist Church in Armenia and Irkutsk, Russia. What a challenge it was to adapt to the harsh climate with long freezing gloomy winters after nine years of work in Africa! Learning the Russian language presented another challenge. So far, the family had served in countries where Portuguese, their native language, was spoken. Now in Siberia, they had to learn Russian to communicate. As expected, the children learned it easily at school and adapted quickly to their new environment and culture. Paulo and Edra struggled a bit more.

After two years in Siberia, they moved to Zaoski near Moscow, where Paulo worked as finance manager for the Adventist Publishing House.

Pray and trust

By the time the Lopes family left Russia a few years later, they were fluent in Russian. Paulo, however, admits that during the years he worked at the publishing house, he truly missed working with ADRA. "I visited ADRA's Web site almost every day!" he says. Consequently, the family asked God to open up a position at ADRA.

As they waited for an answer, they planned to return to Brazil, their home country. Tickets were booked. Cardboard boxes multiplied. They grew anxious to see their families again, their thoughts already centered on Brazil.

However, just one short month before leaving, Paulo received an unexpected phone call from Heriberto Mueller, at the time director for the ADRA Asia Regional Office. The Indian Ocean tsunami had struck India and several other countries a few months before, in December 2004. With significant tsunami emergency and recovery programs developing, ADRA India was eagerly looking for a good finance director; Paulo's name was at the top of a list of potential candidates. When Heriberto asked if he would be interested, Paulo was speechless from shock. God's answer was so evident and so perfectly on time! But, the family still had to agree. . . .

The decision to accept the job in India took the family less than ten minutes. God's answer to their prayers was simply too clear to ignore.

A Passage to India

In July 2005, six months after the tsunami, Paulo started his new position as ADRA India's finance director. Though it demanded much time, energy, and travel, Paulo relished his work organizing and managing the finances of the tsunami-related projects. After a first phase of relief and rehabilitation projects (mainly housing reconstruction and water and sanitation projects), the programs naturally evolved into a post-tsunami recovery phase with more income-generating and agricultural projects.

In March 2007, Paulo was promoted to country director, a role that allows him to direct not only ADRA India's tsunami recovery program, but the office's projects throughout the country. He notes especially the recurring polio eradication projects in northern India. "India is a huge country with huge needs, especially in the health issues such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and maternal/child health," he shares. The office also responds to seasonal emergencies, such as the recent severe flooding in the eastern portion of India.

While Paulo keeps busy directing ADRA, Edra continues to be very much involved in the church and also enjoys her teaching job at a local kindergarten. She's finally had her chance to learn English, and the boys, Lucas and Marcos, are now perfectly fluent in both English and Hindi. Though they have spent their childhoods in far-flung countries, the boys maintain a thoroughly Brazilian love for soccer. However, this has not prevented them from also becoming expert players of cricket—the national sport in India.

Married to his work?

Edra is very supportive of Paulo's passion for and dedication to the work of ADRA: "In all the countries we lived in we were always able to find help when needed. Sometimes a neighbor, other times a church member or a local friend. We always had our angels taking care of us."

And then Edra smiles and winks as she says, "Paulo really has two wives, both with very similar names: Edra and ADRA!"

Out of central Tajkistan's rocky, war-hardened soil, ADRA is constructing greenhouses and helping families in the Rasht region grow hope in an area still recovering from Tajikistan's brutal five-year civil war.

Since the end of Tajikistan's civil war in 1997, the region has suffered a full collapse of its economy, leaving many people struggling financially. In a region already characterized as "less developed," the civil war destroyed the region's financial infrastructure. Many of the survivors lost their homes and livelihoods in a conflict that reportedly killed at least 50,000 people and forced another 1.2 million to flee from their homes. Thousands of families were left to mourn fathers and brothers who never returned home. And when the war ended, those who remained wondered how they would survive.

The greenhouses built by ADRA Tajikistan provide an answer to that question, allowing families to grow dill, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and other vegetables during the cold mountain winters.

"The home-grown vegetables enrich the families' diets, provide an income, and increase their overall wellbeing," said Victor Muhanov, project assistant for ADRA Tajikistan. "Also, children can watch the process of carrying out greenhouse agriculture and learn valuable skills and abilities that will be passed down from generation to generation."

The greenhouse project, showcased in ADRA's 2007 edition of The Original Really Useful Gift Catalog, began in June of 2007. Each greenhouse costs $1,500 dollars to build, and can be constructed in two days. So far, ADRA has been able to provide greenhouses for six families.

Sanchagul, a rather shy woman with soft brown eyes and dark, kerchief-covered hair, is the wife and mother of one of those families. Fifteen years ago Sanchagul, her husband, Mirzo, and children were a typical Tajik family. Then war broke out, filling each day with insecurity, terror, and confusion. And when a missile fired by a military helicopter destroyed their home and belongings, they were forced to join other war-displaced families in a settlement known as Pitomnik. Mirzo was able to build them a small, four-room house, and Sanchagul has done her best to make the simple house a home, with traditional rugs to warm the floors and family portraits to line the walls.

The couple and their 25-year-old son, Mirzorahim, bear deep scars from the war. Mirzo struggles with crippling states of depression caused by the trauma and horrors of the war that make it hard for him to work and provide for his family. Before the war, Mirzo enjoyed a successful career as an accountant and business manager for the Rasht region government. Now he works as a laborer working to reconstruct the local roads. But with his depression, he often is unable to work, and the family often does not have enough to eat.

Mirzorahim was a normal, healthy, 10-year-old boy when the fighting began, exposing him to the hard realities and deadly violence of conflict. Since then, he periodically battles epileptic-like seizures doctors believe were triggered by war-caused trauma. His three younger sisters, Khangoma, and twins Fotima and Zuhro, attend school in a nearby settlement, though without proper shoes the walk is often difficult, especially in the snowy winter weather.

With both her husband and her son ill, the responsibility of providing for the family has fallen squarely on Sangachul's shoulders. Like all mothers, Sanchagul wants to make sure that her family is provided for, that her children are safe and their lives easy, and that they grow healthy and happy. But without help, each day becomes a struggle to survive.

Sanchagul received a greenhouse from ADRA this past November, and is just about ready to harvest the first crop of vegetables. Mirzo and Mirzorahim enjoy working in the greenhouse, cultivating vegetables that will supplement the family's meals and be sold for much-needed supplies, such as new shoes for the girls.

Grateful for the assistance from ADRA, Sanchagul knows the hope she holds for her family's future in this rocky, war-torn land will now grow as strong and healthy as the vegetables in their new greenhouse.

ADRA's relationship with the people of the Rasht region began back in 2002, with a project that distributed wheat, sugar and oil among the people in need there. ADRA has continued working in the Rasht region, reconstructing schools, providing community development assistance, and distributing gifts to children from vulnerable families.

 Stepping through the front doors, we get our first clue that something big happens here. Lining the walls, from floor to ceiling, are crude wooden shelves. Each shelf is heavily packed with the reason we are here … crackers, small cakes, cookies, and bread.

If you walk through a small door in the back of this room, your eyes won't believe what you see. Hidden by this small storefront is a huge bakery, where production is happening at a rapid pace. On the left, a man sticks a long paddle into a deep wooden oven and effortlessly picks up a pan of baked goods lying deep in the oven, twirls it on the end of the paddle, then lays it back down again to finish baking. On the right, someone else is mixing huge batches of dough, and another person presses the cookies into shape with ingenious makeshift equipment. Huge bags of flour and other ingredients are stacked along the wall. What once was a small, struggling business is now a thriving enterprise.

This is the home of Maritza Molina, a baker and mother of five, and a member of an ADRA-supported community bank, which was named "Together We Triumph" by its group members. She began working with ADRA 10 loan cycles ago. She started with a loan of 3,000 lempira ($180) and has worked her way up to receiving a loan of L15,000 ($800). Before the loan, she lived in a small wood house and rented the bakery property, which she staffed with four employees. With the loan, she's been able to build a larger brick home and hire six employees, and she now owns the bakery property. She also used to have to buy her baking materials on credit, but with her loan, she can now buy her ingredient inventory with cash and get a better price. Her clients have increased by five distributors, who take the product and sell it to clients. In production, she used to use six 100-pound bags of flour per day. Now she uses up to twice that amount. As for sales, she used to sell L1,500 ($80) per day; now she sells nearly L3,000 ($180) a day and is able to give a commission to her distributors. She still has goals to grow her business and get more equipment, such as a mixer, and replace her wooden oven with an electric one.

Her entire family is involved in the business. She works with her spouse, also a baker, and her son and daughter help after school. "I thank God for the opportunity to be in this bank, and I thank ADRA for investing in me, for the loan to improve my business, and for teaching me money management, how to run my business better, and the importance of good customer service," says Maritza. "The extra profits have also helped with our health and education expenses."

Maritza is part of ADRA Honduras' credit program for micro and small enterprises. The program promotes the socioeconomic development of mainly low-income women who do not have access to conventional forms of credit in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and who are presently involved in microenterprises. Loans are made available via more than 100 community banks of solidarity groups consisting of approximately 30 women each. The loans are used by women for such activities as wholesaling, retailing, small manufacturing, tailoring, auto mechanics, agricultural activities, and others. Amounts of approximately $100 to $600 are loaned in incremental steps for four months at a time. More than one loan will be allowed as long as the previous loan was successfully managed and the interest and capital duly returned. Repayments are made biweekly with a flat interest rate of three percent per month. The solidarity groups are expected to save 10 percent of their individual loan amount. ADRA-employed credit agents monitor the loans, each facilitating 10 to 12 groups of up to about 300 members total.

At the time of our visit, ADRA was targeting three neighborhoods of Tegucigalpa: Flor del Campo, San Francisco, and Nueva Suyapa. During a four-year period, the program directly benefited 2,830 women, 150 men, plus the owners of 20 existing small businesses.

The middle and lower income sector of Tegucigalpa numbers about 700,000 in 316 townships. Water for the townships is in short supply, and few have sewerage systems. Electricity is also rationed, and unpaved, eroded streets are standard. Other factors aggravating the problem are illiteracy, single motherhood, limited or nonexistent manual and professional skills, frequent illnesses, and exploitation by harsh merchants and clever entrepreneurs. All have combined to provoke a vicious cycle of destitution as well as food insecurity. At the time of our visit, 65 to 68 percent of the economically active population was underutilized or unemployed.

Poor entrepreneurs are unable to access formal forms of capital and must rely on local moneylenders, who charge very high interest rates. With low or no savings and no access to credit or formal lending institutions, entrepreneurs have no capital to invest in business activities.

To enhance the beneficiaries' entrepreneurial skills, ADRA trains them in organizing and managing solidarity groups, opening and managing bank accounts, operating pertinent machinery and equipment, bookkeeping, small business management, and production techniques.

Maritza is just one person who has benefited from this program. I also met Felicidad, who has a small grocery store, and Nora, who has a beauty salon. Lourdes enlarged her tortilla shop, Suyapa sells chickens and snacks, and Miriam is a diesel mechanic with a taxi business that grew from one taxi to 11! Maria sells spices and herbs, and Plasida has a produce stand. Each of these women was selected by ADRA because they have a favorable attitude toward change and organization of the community, as well as a desire to participate in the development process. They were already entrepreneurial women and eagerly joined hands with ADRA to grow and expand their businesses to become profitable enterprises that bring income support to their families, enabling them to purchase ample food, pay school fees and doctors bills, and become self-sufficient.

At each home and business we visited, we saw joy and pride on the faces of women empowered by ADRA. But also in each neighborhood, there remain more women in need of a hand of assistance to attain the dreams they have for their families or their businesses. Your continued support enables more women and their families to reach the business and personal goals they so long to attain. It's just as Maritza's community bank members believe: Together We Triumph!

Support projects in Central America & the Caribbean

She wanted me to meet one of the students. I knew that this must be something special she wanted me to experience. I did not need a second invitation. At 3:30, I pointed the old Land Cruiser into the wall-to-wall traffic and fought my way to the district where the school was located.

Schools #29 and #116 are located next to each other and work with the deaf and the blind, respectively. The four-story gray building with cement-brick walls resembled a prison rather than a school. I walked up those uneven concrete steps to the third floor to the classroom that had been assigned to our project. As I stepped into the classroom, all 20 students touched their foreheads, then put their fists to their chests and pointed their open palms toward me in greeting from their silent worlds. A smile was evident on each face. Private conversations took place in sign language between the students as we waited for the teachers. Just a week ago, these children lived in isolated worlds; now they had been brought together and given a sign language to communicate with each other.

I made a little speech in English that was translated into Mongolian by Battsetseg and then into Mongolian sign language by one of the teachers. I challenged the students to make the best of the rest of their life’s journey now that they could communicate. We gave each one a certificate, and I shook each precious hand that is now being put to such valuable use in communicating. I took a photo of the group, each student holding their certificate with one hand and pointing their other hand with loose fingers to the ceiling and wobbling it back and forth, which is sign language for clapping and joy. They were so proud of those certificates.

Battsetseg then asked them who the best student had been. The students all pointed to a thin, pale, and emaciated man about 30 years of age. Was this the student she wanted me to meet? Tsendjav’s story unfolded as I spoke to his parents alone afterward. He was one of triplets that his parents were so proud of. While still a baby, he was given an antibiotic for an infection. His parents claimed that it made him deaf. For 30 years these respectable parents—the father is a Mongolian language professor at the University of Mongolia, and the mother is a teacher at an elite school—hid this child from every visitor to avoid the embarrassment of anyone knowing that they had a child with a disability. Every time anyone knocked at the door, they would hold their index finger across their lips, and he would go scampering to the bedroom and remain out of sight and quiet till the visitors had left. Not a single person ever knew that they had another son who was deaf. They loved him, but they did not know how to communicate with him. The only sign he knew was the index finger across the lips.

One week ago, the parents, who had heard about the ADRA sign language course, plucked up enough courage for the first time in 30 years to take Tsendjav out of their apartment. The first day in class, he would not lift his head and made no sign of taking anything in.

But I saw him this afternoon, just five days later. He was at the center of many conversations. This week he learned all 35 letters of the Mongolian alphabet for the first time in his life. He could not even count when he came on Monday. Oh, the joy of his parents as they clutched the precious 600-word sign language dictionary, their key to communication with their son. Soon we hope to have a new 3,000-word dictionary in their hands. Tsendjav came up and shook my hand, gave me a rose, and pulled my head toward his so he could press his cheek against mine as a sign of respect and thankfulness. I had a lump in my throat, and my eyes misted over. This was a child who had been brought out into the light for the first time in his lifetime. How many more are still hidden?

The parents thanked us over and over. The father is going to give us a list of 3,000 of the most actively used words in Mongolian so we can corroborate our list with his. I challenged him to become the first professor of sign language in Mongolia.

We are at SMP4 Junior High School, and 545 students are lined up in the school yard listening to speeches from ADRA, a representative of the district education department, and their headmaster, Mr. Zainun Zakaria.

The headmaster delivers a powerful motivational speech to his students, urging them to be strong. They are survivors and should not let the tsunami ruin their lives. They need to look forward and rebuild their future through education. He reminds them of the two bombs that destroyed Japan at the end of World War II. The students should look to the Japanese to see how successfully they rebuilt their country after their disaster. It was through education and determination that Japan rebuilt a strong economy.

He wants his students to get on with life. He believes that through school the children can return to some sort of normality in the midst of personal tragedy. They have this opportunity because of the work ADRA is doing in his school. He expresses his gratefulness for the many NGOs and in particular ADRA. He urges his students to learn from ADRA and the other NGOs that have come from the other side of the world. He tells them that they are important. The world cares about them and their future. In return, they must do well in school and rebuild their lives.

These are strong words for children who have recently survived earthquakes and a tsunami. After the formalities, the children receive their new bags. I catch up with Mr. Zakaria. He shares that he has worked 34 years as the headmaster of this school. He pulls up his trousers to show me the marks, scars, and discoloration on his legs. “Tsunami—tsunami,” he proclaims. I quickly get a translator so I can understand what he wants to tell me.

On December 26, 2004, Mr. Zakaria had attended teacher training at the school and was on his way home. As he got to the bridge in town, the earth shook. He quickly jumped out of his car and lay on the ground, holding his arms around his head. When the large earthquake stopped, he hurried back to his house to make sure his wife and daughter were fine. Confirming that his family was all right, he went to the mosque to gather information and see if someone needed help. Not many people were in the mosque, so he returned home. On the way, he met people screaming about the rising water levels.

He ran to find his daughter and tell her to go to her grandmother, who lived farther down the coast. The daughter, like any teenager, wanted to change her clothes and pack a bag. Both Mr. Zakaria and his wife urged her to leave on her motorbike. Finally, she obeyed her parents and drove off. His wife ran over to the neighbor’s two-story house, bringing a small bag of documents. Mr. Zakaria watched his family leave. The water level was rising; by now it had reached the side of his house.

He got on a motorcycle and tried to drive off, but the bike stalled because the water level was too high. Everything happened so fast. Suddenly he found the water carrying him away. He tried to grab hold of something, anything. He grabbed on to a jeep. The car was tossed around, and he was back in the water. Struggling, he tried to grab hold of a building, but the current was too powerful and he was swept away. After an hour of struggling, he was finally able to grab the roots of a Beringin tree. As he pulled himself up onto the tree, he found that he was not alone. Also clinging to the Beringin tree were a civet with three of her kittens, two mice, and a chicken.

For hours, they clung to the tree, not seeing any other living being. The water was filled with dead people. It was pulling back to the sea at a stronger and faster pace than it had come in. All Mr. Zakaria could do was sit and wait. The sun was scorching hot and burning him, but he thought only of his wife and daughter. Where were they? What was happening to them?

After four hours, he decided to try to reach a patch of dry land that he saw in the distance. He removed his shirt and trousers. He tied his trousers around his waist and his shirt around his head. He knew that his clothes would slow him down. He estimated that it would take about 15 minutes to swim to land, but the current was strong and he was weak. He swam from branch to branch. He found a board and pushed it ahead a bit and then swam to it. While he was trying to swim, he was afraid that another wave would come.

 At some point, he realized that he had lost his clothes. He felt pain in his leg and saw that it was cut in many places. Finally, after an hour and a half, his feet touched dry land. Mr. Zakaria was tired and worn-out, but determined to find out what had happened to his family. He staggered to his relative’s house, which was situated in an area that was unaffected. There he was able to rest for some time and eat some food. His thoughts were with his daughter and his wife. He was particularly concerned for his daughter; had she done as he had told her? If so, he knew that there was little chance that she had survived, as her grandmother’s house was close to the waterfront.

Regaining some strength, he started his search. He walked around the city and saw destruction and dead people. He ended up at the mosque, and there he finally met his daughter and wife. It was around 4:00 p.m.; he had seen them last at 8:30 a.m. For once, he was glad that his daughter had done what she thought was best and had not followed his directions. Had she obeyed him, she would not be alive.

Mr. Zakaria still smiles; he knows that he is lucky and is grateful that his family is safe. All the material positions they have are the daughter’s motorbike and the small bag his wife took. However, this is not important; they have each other.

After hearing his story, I understand that his strong speech to his students was not out of insensitivity to the children’s experience, but out of care and to motivate them to continue life. Seeing the work ADRA is doing to rehabilitate the children’s school and give them back a future, I too smile with Mr. Zakaria and promise that ADRA will not forget him or his school.

Watch the One Man in Siberia Voyageur Journal

 

The cold tarmac at the Vladivostok airport was the end of the line for me. The air was about 17 degrees Fahrenheit, as warm as it was going to get for a mid-winter morning. Twenty dull hours of flying had set my wrist watch no less than fifteen hours ahead of Washington D.C. to a distant time zone in the Russian Far East. Here, if not for strict border crossings, a person might drive to North Korea for lunch or go to China for an all-afternoon shopping spree. I was, for the moment, in a different dimension.

The moment we stepped off the bus that ferried us from the plane, the main terminal door swung open and we entered reverently in a single file. Down the hall a crowd of eager Russians, shapkas on every head, searched our group of new arrivals for a glimpse of their husbands, girlfriends, and business guests. I, too, was looking deep into the crowd for a man who just two days before had promised in a short e-mail to meet me here. He had sent me his telephone number in case one of us failed to show up, but he didn’t see the likelihood of that happening since he had booked himself on a flight that would arrive several hours before mine from a distant city in Siberia. The only thing he noted with some level of concern was,  “I have problems with English language.” And that was it.

It was almost 11:00 a.m. by my watch, and I stood in the middle of the hall wrestling with my bag before I set it down on the shiny floor. For a moment it occurred to me that he would not arrive. After all, there are still many things that can keep two complete strangers 9,343 miles away from each other from converging at the same time on the same spot of earth in a place unfamiliar to both.

On the Trans-Siberian Railroad traveling to visit ADRA projects along the way.

That impossibility, however, came only as a passing thought.

I watched a family, anxious to see a relative arrive, stretch out their arms as he approached their side of the airport hall. As for me, I imagined the meeting with my local contact being something like this:

“Am I glad to be here! I wasn’t sure if we’d meet, but I’m certainly happy that you made it. So, good flight from Novosibirsk? Are you ready to get on with the trip? By the way, when do we catch the train tonight?”

Which is why, a minute or two later, when I found myself standing in front of a man wearing a suit and tie and an elegant black shapka who spoke to me only in Russian, but to whom my identity was fully known, I was only half convinced that this was Nikolay Grebenyuk, director of ADRA East Russia, the person with whom I had corresponded for a month and who had replied to all my inquiries in a series of messages in well-written English. How could this be? I was flummoxed. Then I said:

“Nikolay?”

A wide smile spread across his face, the kind that says unequivocally, yes, it’s me.

He had immediately recognized the stitched ADRA logo on my windbreaker jacket when I walked into the terminal. He pulled out a paper folder with the same logo printed on it, as a gesture to ensure mutual recognition.

“How did you manage to write in English?” I asked.

He fumbled with some words, and said, “Computer program.”

Pointing to the exit, he asked (I could only guess), how my flight from Moscow had been, and was I ready to get on with the trip? He patted me on the back. As we walked out into the brisk morning air, I sensed that perhaps he was also glad to know that neither of us had flown all this way just to be stood up by the other.

At two o’clock that same night we were seated comfortably in a spacious and mostly empty sleeper railroad car on our way to Irkutsk, a city three days away that lies near Lake Baikal’s southern extremity not far from the border with Mongolia. Although we had enjoyed the convenience of a local translator during the day, our communication was now restricted to loose Russian and English words, wild hand signals, and doodles on a small paper pad.

I crawled into my sleeping bag. Nikolay, who still seemed to be working out some words in his head, stood up and said, “Chai?” The word would have gone past me had I not visited northern Pakistan a year earlier where drinking tea is a part of every social event and is offered to any guest who enters a home, much like a calumet among American Indian tribes, to extend friendship and peace.  He quickly dashed through the narrow corridor and got two tall glasses from a train attendant, then filled them almost to the brim with hot water from a boiler at the end of the railroad car.

“Good chai,” I said. Nikolay responded in Russian and seemed pleased by my appreciation of the local tea.

“My country drink chai. All people,” I said.

A puzzled look settled on his face. The confusion, perhaps, had something to do with my assertion that everyone in my country, like Russia, was a tea drinker. Or that he wasn’t sure what country was my country.

“America?” he said pointing to me.

“No, no. No America,” I said putting my index finger to my chest. “Chile.”

I drew an imaginary map in the stale air of our compartment, and after a brief pause, he said: “I Ukraina.”

“Not Russki?” I said in the best bit of Russian I could summon.

Until now it had not occurred to me that Nikolay could be anything other than an authentic born and bred Russian. Perhaps, if I’d known the language well I could have detected a slight foreign twist in his voice, but then again, he had lived outside the Ukraine for so long that he surely had by now left out of his pronunciation any clues of having been born elsewhere.

In his work for ADRA, Nikolay Grebenyuk oversees all of Siberia, an area equivalent to nearly nine times the size of Alaska.

His mother and father, who raised him Russian Orthodox from birth (he would later become Seventh-day Adventist), still lived, he said, in his childhood home in Kumejki, a small rural village 110 miles southwest of Kiev, where they had a large field of bright sunflowers, which they tended to year after year. They loved the Ukraine and would not live anywhere else, even if that meant seeing their son, who had lived in Siberia for the better part of two decades, only from time to time. Fortunately, his older brother lived just down the road from them, and that gave Nikolay a measure of comfort.

Family was sacred to him; one doesn’t need words to sense the love of a man for his wife and children. Opening his notebook computer, he clicked on several photographs which popped onto the screen: holding a big fish with his 12-year-old son, Pavel; daughter Katya, 16, posing near the door of her grandparents’ home in Kumejki; and Lena, his wife of seventeen years, sitting on a beach during a recent summer trip. I was sure, then, that being on this train with me meant that Nikolay was losing time with them; it was the nature of the work. We’d all been there: far-removed, longing.

Presently, as we sped through the darkness across the vast Russian countryside, we were taking sips of hot tea. It was late in the night, but there seemed to be a sense of interest in each of us to know where the other had come from—and perhaps where he was going.

The train traveled the entire night along the Chinese border all the way to Khabarovsk, then turned west at the northern end of the city and crossed the Amur River. Nikolay was delighted to see the river flowing undisturbed under a hefty layer of ice possibly as much a three feet thick, he said. To sink a fishing line into the river a man would need to drill by hand for the better part of the morning, a sweaty task even in the deep freeze of winter. But no amount of ice, nothing really, was going to get between a man and his fish.

This was apparent the next day when it came time for lunch. Long before boarding the train (when exactly is anyone’s guess), Nikolay got his hands on a trout that only two or three day ago, I imagined, had been swimming up a river in Kamchatka, an extensive peninsula opposite to Alaska across the Bering Sea whose fresh fish products are considered the best in the region. Now, the trout lay smoked inside a plastic bag. Using a small kitchen knife, he cut the flesh into thick slices; the outside was clearly well smoked, but bringing a piece of the fish to my mouth, I tasted the raw gelatinous body.

“Good,” Nikolay said, “Very, very good.”

One bite was enough. In Russian he offered to give me half of the fish. Taking the knife, he pointed to the slices that were mine. I declined, offering my upbringing as a poor excuse for not being accustomed to eating fish. He said no problem, and having eaten his share of the trout, he put the rest back in the bag and placed it by the window where the deep cold from outside would keep the meat fresh until the following day, in case I changed my mind.

By now it was customary after every meal for us to read from a book or stare out the window or simply sit back and choose a conversation topic to pursue. We had somehow managed to discover words in Russian and English that we both vaguely recognized, and soon we were having lengthy exchanges.

One such discussion started hours after we left Khabarovsk as the train worked its way across a vast, uninhabited plain colonized by birch trees and little else. We were in the Siberian taiga proper, Nikolay said, a biome that extends all the way to Norway and, skipping the Bering Sea, into Alaska and much of inland Canada. A man takes a measure of pride in saying he has been in it—in winter especially. It is, after all, a place of infinite beauty, but which can test even the most rugged of men. In years past Nikolay had ventured into the open taiga for days at a time, not necessarily alone, but always in the spirit of adventure.

“My friend professional hunter,” he said.

It was with his buddy Sasha and two or three other friends from Irkutsk that he would walk into the wild on weekends to camp, rest, and sometimes hunt. He was showing me some photographs of one such trip when he said he owned three carbines. It was with one of these that he went into the forest one day and killed a bear. At present, however, he kept his carbines stored at home, because he hadn’t found much use for them in recent years since he moved west from Irkutsk to the bigger city of Novosibirsk.

Life in Irkutsk had been memorable: hunting trips to the Siberian taiga, visits to Lake Baikal, friends, romance. But Nikolay had not moved there postulating that he would achieve those things, but rather that those things would come to him in time, as one must often do upon arrival in a strange, foreign land. This was 1986 and he was enjoying the relative freedom of having finished four years of training at a military academy in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) at the confluence of the Volga and the Oka rivers 250 miles east of Moscow. The Soviet Army, naturally, would expect a return on its investment. Before the blanket of winter dropped on Siberia, Nikolay arrived in Irkutsk to report for duty and begin, he said, a career as an acquisitions and logistics officer. The job meant supplying the base—from the grunts to high commanders—with everything from socks to the lard used in the kitchen. He was organized and watchful of every detail and over the years he rose steadily, as did his love for Irkutsk and his new wife and later his two children, to become major—by now in the Russian Army. 

A few days later, in late afternoon, he would take me to the main entrance of the army base to show me his former home. A Sukhoi jet fighter was propped handsomely on the snow near the gate. A young guard was standing out of the cold inside a yellow building. Nikolay didn’t say a word. He just smiled. But I knew that he had thirteen years of memories tucked away behind those tall black metal gates.

Siberia, if you didn’t know it already, is enormous. It extends eastward from the Ural Mountains not far from Moscow and southward to neighboring Kazakhstan, and runs along the borders of Mongolia and China all the way to the other side of Asia where the land dead-ends at the Pacific Ocean eight time zones later. If you take a cutout of the map of Alaska and set it down over Siberia, it will easily fit no less than eight times and leave plenty of wiggle room to add California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Connecticut, and two Districts of Columbia.

To approach the size of Siberia in a different manner, one comes to the conclusion, after some simple mathematics, that Nikolay must oversee—and try to crisscross—as many square miles as the vast majority of ADRA country offices in, say, Africa (twenty-six out of a total of thirty-four)—Mauritania, Mali, Cape Verde, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Sao Tome, Angola, Namibia, Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Malawi, Lesotho, South Africa, and Zimbabwe—alone.

One man.

He tackles distances by plane and car and, as we were doing now, also by train. Getting around remains a very big undertaking.

Nikolay, however, had not let a single moment of frustration slip out of him since we’d met. If he ever felt overwhelmed by anything—by the size of the territory he was meant to bring relief to, by the needs of the people, by the time away from home—it was never apparent to me in any way. Perhaps, Siberia had had the opposite effect on him. Or he had dealt with it long ago. The reality, nevertheless, is that eight years after leaving the army to work for ADRA he remained driven, optimistic, confident, and, best of all, cheerful to the marrow. 

In the process, he had managed to stay deeply human, too.

“Every time I go to a project I dedicate myself to the people,” he said later through a translator. “I try to do my best to help them and make their lives a little better.”

I saw this side of him even more clearly in Irkutsk, where we arrived in the middle of the night after seemingly time traveling 2,569 miles over the frozen Siberian taiga sipping hot, sweet tea.

The next day at noon we gathered in Novolenino, a residential district of the city, inside a spacious, sunny room at the Regional State Organization Orphanage #2. Here, sometime ago, ADRA had brought food to supplement the pantry of the orphanage and improve the diet that the children needed to grow up healthy. Lunchtime was well underway and two dozen little children, one to four years of age, sat around tiny square tables eating hot soup and bread. A few, too little to master a spoon full of soup, got help from the staff. When lunch was over, the children ran inside the room chasing each other around until they slowly grew tired.

An ADRA volunteer helps a little boy eat lunch at a center for HIV-positive children in Irkutsk, Siberia, Russia.

Many of the children staying in this orphanage wing, called Aistenok (it means “stork-baby” in Russian), are living with HIV. Some arrived at the orphanage soon after birth, abandoned, in some instances, near a bus stop, in the snow, or in the alleys between houses, well before they would know the love of a mother or understand the cruelty of the world outside these walls. Fortunately, on this day none seemed aware of the latter yet.

The happiness in Nikolay’s face was palpable. He held a little girl in his arms and whispered a few short words to her. She was shy. Quiet. He said something else, tickled her chin and she broke out in a wide smile.

Many children who have been abandoned live in infant houses until they can be adopted or transferred to homes for older children.

“This is what drives me to do my best,” he said. “The children.”

We stood quietly watching the staff put every child in bed for a nap. Not every child was willing to go to sleep. Minutes later, however, the room grew peaceful. Silence.  We heard only the gentle, rhythmic breathing.

I was certain that the faces of these children, of so many others, too, would stay with him beyond this day. He had said to me, “Each time I return home after several weeks, I feel pain for the people. I am touched by the sorrow I see in many places in Siberia. But then I tell myself that I’m working for them.”

Nikolay standing on the ice of Lake Baikal.

We drove to Lake Baikal the next day over newly fallen snow. The icy surface of the lake was a clear window into the depths of the water. So clear, we could see the bubbles trapped inside the ice. Nikolay walked to an open market not far from the edge of the lake. When he returned, holding something wrapped in a newspaper under his arm, he said,

“Baikal fish.”

I sensed right away that Nikolay Grebenyuk wasn’t going to let my upbringing get in the way of a good fish.

We spent the next hour eating fish with our bare hands.

“You like?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said.

Eating omuel, a popular fish from Lake Baikal.

Members of the Dhanawe women’s group tend to their kitchen garden

The small plane carrying me to Hudur town starts its descent into the once lush green cropland surrounding the capital of the Bakol region in south Somalia. Instead of thriving fields of millet and vegetables, though, I see scraggly, water-starved vegetation poking up through patches of sand. Scattered water wells and a few boreholes dot the ground below. The plane lands, and I step onto the Hudur airstrip. “Welcome to dry Bakol,” my colleague John Ndezwa says in welcome.

John, the project coordinator for ADRA’s Emergency Water and Livelihood Support Program (EWLSP), tells me that chronic drought conditions in southern Somalia have devastated the Bakol region and have greatly affected the ability of the agro-pastoralist communities to produce food. “Many wells are dry and those that are functioning yield water that is 50 percent below normal capacity. The locals’ dependence on water for their survival and livelihoods has threatened their ability to recover,” John explains. He adds that increased movement of livestock and people in the region has put existing water and food sources under persistent pressure, thus straining resources and creating competition and the potential for conflict at already crowded water points.

EWLSP is ADRA’s latest project in Somalia, promoting the establishment of ten kitchen gardens by women’s groups who are trained to manage the gardens. With 34,000 beneficiaries throughout Somalia to its credit, the EWLSP has brought hope to local women determined to increase their household income and diet diversity.

I set out with John and the rest of the ADRA team to explore the Bakol countryside and see how the EWLSP project is helping people in the dry, vast lands of south Somalia. We travel east from Hudur town and after a few kilometers we arrive in Dhanawe village.

A group of about 30 women—members of the Dhanawe Women’s Group—have braved the scorching sun to meet the ADRA team. With assistance from ADRA’s EWLSP project, the women have set up a kitchen garden and they are eager to tell us how the garden has changed their lives. Fifty-year-old Amino Muqtar Gudow, one of the most active members of Dhanawe women’s group, is especially anxious to share her story. “I am very grateful for this project because I now see hope of harvesting my vegetables, selling them in the market, and making enough money to fix my teeth,” says Amino, who though self-conscious about her imperfect smile, grins widely as the other women tease her good naturedly. “I have to look good to find a husband and this is a perfect opportunity for me to improve on my beauty,” she adds.

Amino Muqtar Gudow

From Dhanawe, the ADRA team travels to visit three other villages participating in the garden project: Farak, Garasweyne, and Tawakal. The gardens provide ample evidence that EWLSP is fulfilling its objective to strengthen and diversify livelihoods of households and communities in Bakol. More than 100 women have been trained on seed selection, soil fertility, and irrigation techniques, along with how to prepare land and plant seeds properly. Hundreds more will benefit once the additional six planned kitchen gardens are fully operational.

“ADRA has provided us with good training on how to manage this kitchen garden and has also given us farm tools and implements, including wheelbarrows, shovels, forks, rakes, irrigation drip kits and seeds for planting,” says an elated Habiibo Aden Mumin, the chair of the Garasweyne women’s group. “We are now prepared to turn our shambas [gardens] green.”

In each of the four kitchen gardens I visited, the vegetables planted and nurtured by the women are doing well. Mano Sheikh Hussen, one of ADRA’s EWLSP community trainers, ensures the women know how to make the best use of their homegrown bounty. “The women are trained on how to cook these vegetables and taught the importance of such a diet to the family,” notes Mano, adding that the women also learn some basic principles on how to market their produce.

In Bakol, where ADRA has implemented water projects for the last six years, it was easy to see the kitchen garden project has helped to bring about another “green” revolution. With the women inspired by their garden’s success and the increased diversity in their families’ diets, hope has replaced despair.

Vegetables in Dhanawe kitchen garden

“I am very optimistic that once I sell the vegetables and make money to fix my teeth, I will be able to get myself a husband. Men do not like me because of my teeth, but I am now optimistic that things will be better,” concludes a joyful Amino, as she reaches for a jembe [garden hoe] and begins tending her garden.

As I hop onto the plane bound for my home base of Nairobi, the words of Amino still linger in my mind, and I smile as I think how her life is changing because of ADRA’s kitchen garden project.

Jason Nyantino is the public relations officer for ADRA Somalia.

The enormous force of the Tsunami left nothing of Qulule village but this deserted strip of sand.

Qulule village took a direct hit from the Asian Tsunami on December 26, 2004. After the water receded, the devastated villagers struggled to come to terms with the calamity and fought for a breath of fresh air amidst the stench of death and destruction. They had no choice but to leave everything to God. As I walked through what remained of the village, I stepped gingerly through the remnants of domestic life littering the beach—endless piles of kerosene lanterns, furniture, and kettles—my footprints trailing through the dark, circular, ashy patches marking where the villagers once cooked their meals.

Prodded along by my curiosity, I explored further, digging deeper into the scattered remains of Qulule. I climbed to the headland, observing that the village had once stood only 20 meters from the high tide line in the mouth of a beautiful gorge. Thus situated, when the tsunami struck, Qulule had been literally erased away, its forty-odd temporary dwellings swept into the sea. Only a solitary cement-block structure, sheltered under a rock ledge, remained standing.

The enormous force of the Tsunami left nothing of Qulule village but this deserted strip of sand.

As the Qulule villagers shared their tsunami experiences, I listened intently, pained by their tales of survival and loss. Their oceanfront homes washed away, they had no choice but to move under rock ledges and caves. The inviting landscape they so loved was now foreign and hostile, the white sandy beach uninviting. But where else could they live? Perhaps the headland—on the cliffs high above the beach—but up there the only access to fresh water was in the deep gorge a lengthy and treacherous hike away. Besides, a villager could normally carry only a 5-liter can of water at a time. For this reason, along with the threat of flash floods through the gorge, the villagers preferred to stay near the water source at the beach. Yes, the headland was a challenging option. The villagers assured me, however, that they would move to higher ground if the gorge water could be accessed more easily. I knew ADRA was well equipped to make this happen, and as I left the village I assured my friends we would return to build a waterworks in the gorge.

In October 2005, anxious to see how my friends had fared over the last year, I returned to Qulule with an ADRA project team in tow. I was surprised and pleased to see a new village perching on the cliff top! The villagers had kept their promise of settling there, even though the waterworks had not yet been constructed.

The ADRA team eagerly set about surveying the land and discussing the technical requirements and logistics of building the much-anticipated waterworks. After all, Qulule had been waiting almost a year for this, and the villagers were growing skeptical they would ever have easy access to the gorge’s spring water. As the villagers observed the work under way, doubt gave way to the hope and promise of renewed life. By February 2006, designs had been finalized and work had begun. The project is progressing steadily, and the waterworks should be completed and functioning by the end of May 2006.

I witnessed firsthand the faith, courage, and resiliency of Qulule’s people. Left with nothing in the wake of the tsunami’s destruction, they relied on God to “swat away the flies.” Now, in anticipation of the new, convenient, and safe water source, Qulule is once again vibrant and growing.

Qulule is just one of the water-hungry Somali villages ADRA has helped by constructing waterworks. ADRA is actively implementing or supervising numerous other waterworks projects in the region.

Looking down from the relative comfort of my airplane seat as I pass over the vast, arid country of southern Somalia, I notice that the water holes are downright dry. Blame it on Gu and Deyr—the seasonal rains that have been largely avoiding the Horn of Africa for the better part of a decade.

In general, one would remark, the region is in trouble. Slowly keeling over. The two consecutive failed rainy seasons are giving the residents of the districts of Huddur, Elberde, Rabdure, Tieglow, and Wajid, in the Bakool region, a reason to consider the worst. The last dry spell arrived in 2005 between April and June, when the Gu rain was supposed to soak the grazing areas and give farmers enough moisture for their fi elds. But when the water didn’t come again in October, and the fodder and the water holes became critically low, livestock carcasses began turning up all over the place. That’s troubling news when your way of life depends on the health— and size—of the herd.

In the Bakool region alone, more than 1.4 million people are beginning to feel the effects of the drought. Water prices are already jumping. But the water itself is increasingly going to fewer people—that is, to people who can afford, and are ready to pay, 35 to 40 Somali shillings for each 52-gallon drum, nearly US $3. In a country where the yearly income for an average person is $600—when there are no droughts, of course— that kind of spending will cut a hole in your pocket. If the situation worsens, the United Nations fears that there will be more than just dead animals. The magnitude of the situation then would be like shutting the faucet off in, say, Colorado Springs, Minneapolis, Honolulu, and Tulsa at the same time—indefi nitely.

Elberde district is the most affected by the lack of rain, and the problem is stretched to an almost unbearable level by the ongoing clan confl icts. Only two hand-dug wells and one borehole—from a total of 18 wells—are functioning. The rest have simply dried up.

Many herders up and down the Somali-Ethiopian border are not waiting for the water to come to them. Instead, they are pushing their flocks, and their families, to the south across an area the size of New Jersey toward more fertile areas in Garas Weyne, Morogavi, Dhil Siji, Xuddur, El-Lahelay, and various Tieglow villages where they are likely to fi nd a river. The move, in humanitarian lingo, has turned them into IDPs— internally displaced persons. This means that thousands of people are now strangers in their own country. And that, most likely, means that someone else will decide whose bucket dips into the water fi rst.

Although ADRA rehabilitated several wells and boreholes in the area, the infl ux of 12,000 IDPs and their camel and goat herds has reduced water levels by half. That’s worrisome, if not alarming, when you consider that the next rain— the Gu seasonal rain—is not due for another two months. However, no one should have to wait around that long for water.

But some do. In Falanfay, a small village near the Bakool regional capital, Xuddur, people waited four years to see the water in their well. Nevertheless, after all that time, Ibrahim Golbow is thankful. He is 98 years old, a former shoemaker and a village elder. He has a good reason to be happy about the water. That’s because over the years he has become the father of 20 children— 14 boys and six girls. And he wants to see them live a long life, as he has. He says, “ADRA is the sun of our village. It has brought us water, which had been a problem for ages. I see hope on the way, and this is a good thing, you know.” Finding water when you need it most is in some ways an exercise in patience and stubbornness.

Take the plan of ADRA, for example. It’s a struggle against the harsh Somali landscape: picking a collapsed borehole, removing the silt from the inside, digging deeper into the earth, and restoring water yields to normal levels—all of this before moving on to the other 69 holes. One by one.

While other relief agencies are trucking in the water from the Juba River, a steady drink that meanders across the most droughtprone region in Africa, ADRA’s plan—funded by the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA)—is entirely set up to give towns and villages in the Bakool region—Garas Weyne, Elberde, El Dhun, Xuddur—a permanent way to get their water. Already, the UN Water, Environment and Sanitation (WES) committee is on the ground, so work can start immediately.

Soon, ADRA will carry out a geophysical survey and drill a borehole in Abal, a town east of Xuddur. Also, because that kind of assistance most likely won’t be enough, ADRA hopes to partner with Médecins Sans Frontières- Belgium to pump and pipe water from the El Dhun borehole to Xuddur, then build latrines in some of the most overcrowded villages, chlorinate water sources, and produce kitchen gardens at some of the rehabilitated wells to increase food production and give people better choices of food.

For now, however, the attention is on the holes. No one is celebrating yet.

Perhaps, if the people of Bakool fi nd the water before the water fi nds them, they will have time later, one hopes, for everything else.

Well, yes. But ADRA has a God given opportunity to advocate at the highest levels on behalf of our beneficiaries, the various constituencies that we represent. How can we reject this task when it serves to complement the work that we do to implement projects?

NGOs such as ADRA typically do some level of advocacy to leverage their influence over decision-makers and policy-makers to create policy, change policy, or continue policy that ultimately aims to alleviate poverty. The new orthodoxy of development advocacy recognizes that the daily work of helping people to identify and meet their needs must be carried out in conjunction with policy changes at community, national, and international levels. Advocacy must be local as well as international.

In the past decade, there has been an increase in the level of participation and influence that NGOs have at the UN. Although NGOs have participated to some extent in deliberations at the UN since that body’s inception in 1945, it was not until the end of the Cold War and a series of global conferences throughout the 1990s that NGOs sought to engage directly in intergovernmental deliberations and, through advocacy and mobilization of constituencies, influence their outcomes. Simultaneously, indigenous NGOs demanded a seat at the table, and traditional international NGOs had to adapt to better serve constituencies in developing countries. Today, an unprecedented number and variety of civil society and business-related organizations participate in the work of the UN system.

ADRA’s involvement with the UN began in 1997 when it was granted what is known as “general consultative status.” NGOs are granted the privilege of participating in a wide variety of UN sponsored meetings and activities. In return, they are expected to contribute in some way to furthering the development aims of the Economic and Social Council and the UN at large. In the field, ADRA coordinates and at times partners directly with various UN agencies in developing countries, to provide services such as food aid, relief, medicine, and schoolbooks. For example, in Sudan, Ghana, and Zambia, ADRA is part of a national country coordinating mechanism that receives funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. ADRA also receives funding from UNICEF and the UNHCR to implement programs in a variety of developing countries, such as Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Indirectly, ADRA’s community-based programs support country-specific goals of UN agencies at the field level.

In addition, ADRA participates in the UN’s international conferences, special events, consultation processes, and workshops related to development and relief. At these meetings, ADRA joins UN issues caucuses to ensure that its constituents in developing countries are represented before the UN in statements and position papers. ADRA networks with representatives from the countries that make up the membership of the UN, and advocates for policy change on certain issues.

I am always happy to share with others what ADRA is doing in partnership with the international community. It complements what we do every day in our humanitarian work, whatever position we may hold across the ADRA network. In addition to my voice at New York and Geneva, I need your voice at the UN missions in your country.

A group of Australian optometrists had volunteered their time and come to Mongolia in July 2005.  They visited 22 schools in a two-week period, examining the eyes of over 4,000 children and adults.  Although they brought suitcases full of glasses, it was not possible to have the correct eyeglasses for all. 

Today I visited a school to give sixteen students their glasses.   The excitement was evident on the happy faces.  They all seemed to echo the sentiments of someone who said, “We were sure that the Australians living so far away would not remember their promise.  We are so happy.”   

They could hardly contain their immense joy at being able to see properly once again.  I went home filled with that wonderful feeling that comes with helping someone.   Today these students also helped me see properly once again.

Radek Spinka, ADRA Pakistan’s logistics officer on special assignment from the ADRA office in Germany, is our primary truck shepherd.

Today he will manage millions of rupees, analyzing thousands of details, making hundreds of decisions, and dialing up scores of phone calls, to put 23 trucks weighing 147 tons, on the road to Bagh.

Early on Radek runs into a potential glitch. A truck is missing. He is urgently trying to find a truck that has disappeared after it left the steel sheet factory near Peshawar. So far it has taken 30 hours to make a 7-hour trip.

Meanwhile, sprawled all over the lawns of our Rawalpindi office are 500 winterized tents that will be delivered by 10 trucks today. Additionally, he’ll send 39 huge custom-built wood-burning heaters via 1 truck. These were converted into two-burner cooking stoves designed for sixty 1,000-pound school tents, 35 of which were delivered and erected by our ADRA team in the past three days.

Rounding off the fleet are the 3 trucks filled with steel sheets, hammers, nails, saws, and shovels which left Rawalpindi at 3:00 a.m., 5:l5 a.m., and 6:40 a.m. this morning. They should be arriving at Deerkot, Bagh in a few minutes. Plus 6 trucks filled with 2,700 quilts that will be loaded this evening. Add to that 2 trucks filled with steel sheets from Mardan and you can see the logistical conundrum Radek must solve.

Radek seems to be continuously on the phone. This time he’s talking with Ismah, his counterpart in Kashmir. She is a 22-year-old, young lady, with a degree in commerce who speaks English fluently. Recently promoted, she manages to keep about 50 ADRA employees busy off-loading trucks, putting up tents, helping people erect shelters, and coordinating the trucks’s arrival times with Radek’s help.

It works like this. There are three NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in Pakistan who do nothing but provide free trucks, jeeps, mules, and helicopters to those NGOs like ADRA who are registered with the United Nations consortium.

When we have NFIs (non food items) to deliver to Kashmir, Radek calls up one of those three “transportation” NGOs, giving them 24 hours advance notice.

He gives them all the information, and they hire the trucks. Then Radek goes the extra mile, getting names of truck drivers, license plate numbers, and mobile phone numbers if possible, so he can help Ismah trace them if and when the get lost.

So far, Radek hasn’t lost one of the 118 trucks carrying 812 tons of lifesaving items you have donated with love for the Kashmiri survivors.

Guess what? Radek just informed me that Ismah called and said that the 1 lost truck has been found, and unloaded.

The shepherd of trucks has done his job today.

Click here to read our first update from Kashmir.

Click here to learn how to participate in our efforts.

This was made possible by everyday people who have selflessy given resources to help keep Kashmiris alive this winter. 
People from:  Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Czech Republic, United States, Norway, Slovakia, Australia, Austria, United Kingdom, Korea, Finland, Portugal, Belgium/Luxembourg, Canada, Denmark, and Japan.

ADRA International has sent $144,000 for shelters, quilts, and stoves, with much more in the pipeline from donations still being received. ADRA’s offices in Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany have sent nearly $200,000 for shelters, quilts, and stoves.
ADRA Turkey gave a donation worth $180,000.  That was the cost for three C-130 cargo planes to deliver 60,000 pounds worth of tents to Pakistan.
 
When several European ADRA donor countries donated the huge tents, promises were made by a certain airline that the tents would be sent free of charge to Pakistan.  It didn’t happen.

So Alex, ADRA’s country director for Turkey, was asked to find an alternative. He immediately trucked the tents from Europe to Turkey arranging free passage on a huge Russian cargo plane. But the tents arrived too late and did not make the flight.
 
A couple of hours later, during a United Nations Joint Logistics Center meeting in Islamabad, our ADRA Pakistan team learned that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was making their last flight out of Turkey within 36 hours.  Alex personally traveled hundreds of kilometers with the truck drivers, driving non-stop through snowy passes at night, and he got those tents loaded onto three C140 cargo planes in time for NATO’s final free flight. 
 
Tonight those tents are in Bagh.  This week, they will be distributed via trucks and helicopters to villages. About 50 people will sleep in them by night, and about 75 children will study in them by day.
 
Last Friday, I visited a 700-student high school in Bagh where two tents are already in use.  Pakistani students always wear uniforms.  But many of these children were wearing the only change of clothes they have—the ones they were wearing on October 8.
  
More than 100 students from this school died in that 92-second earthquake. Every student in that school has lost at least one close family member.

ADRA is on the frontlines of this disaster. We’re working hard as the snows move in, and we’re committed to helping as many people as possible. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.

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After building enough trust and rapport, we initiate a conversation with her and encourage her to speak about her experience of the tragedy of December 26, 2004. The very word “tsunami” makes her sigh, and she is in tears, as she lost her daughter and granddaughter on that day.

Arjunadevi, in her late 50s, has been in Thazhznganda village ever since she married an inhabitant of that village. They had two sons and one girl. The girl was the last in line; hence, she was pampered by everyone, and in turn, she was affectionate and kind to everyone in the family. The eldest son is involved in fishing; the youngest is an engineering student.

Her daughter had been highly educated, and even had been working as a teacher. This was unusual, as girls of this village don’t go for higher studies, and no one at all goes for work outside the village. Arjunadevi had the pride that her daughter was the only female in the whole village who had been highly educated.

Arjunadevi adds, “My daughter, Arun Jelitha, aged 27, worked as a teacher; she always had the thirst to study more and more. We spent quite a sum of money for her education. She was a model to this village. On seeing her, many other girls too started going for higher studies. She was so kind toward everyone in the family, even close to her sister-in-law. She took care of her brother’s children so well and bought for them what they liked. She had brought two of her friends to her home during the holidays that December.”

Arjunadevi always gently insists on having a glimpse of her daughter’s photograph, now enlarged and decorated with flowers and lights. She takes us into the house and silently takes a deep look at it, even as we watch her and the image. Confirming that we have had a good look at the graceful person that her daughter was, she starts bringing out the gory story of her daughter’s demise.

“On that fateful day, before anyone could realize that a tidal wave was approaching us, all of us were caught in the tsunami wave,” she explains. “My daughter was just screaming to save her friends who had come for their holidays. She wanted to ensure that, because they were outsiders and guests, no harm should happen to them in the village.

“My daughter-in-law was holding my granddaughter and trying to escape, and I remember only that, because I was struggling in the water. After the wave retreated, we found that our daughter and granddaughter (the one who was in my daughter-in-law’s hands) were missing and later found to be dead. I just could not believe that my daughter was no more. She wanted to study, and we spent a lot for her studies, and now what do I see of it? Though she was 27, she wasn’t married yet; maybe if she had been married, she would have been somewhere else and she would not have died. Only because she was here she has died. As I sit alone at home, I just recall each and every movement of her and the moments she spent with us. I am not able to forget her even for a single second.”

Arjunadevi is a wreck now. Having lost her grown-up daughter in the killer tsunami waves, she has suddenly found her life emptied of all meaning. The world has become a meaningless place all of a sudden.

Her husband has hardly taken responsibility, even during the days before the tsunami consumed her daughter’s life. Now he is even more devastated.

Her house is located not far away from the shores and easily bore the brunt of the tsunami.

Arjunadevi still recalls the fond connection she had with her daughter, remembering her daughter by spelling out each and every activity in which she was engaged when alive.

They had an intense bond with each other, and Arun Jelitha grew up enjoying the intense love of her mother.

Now she is alone, as her truant husband hardly returns home and her sons spend few hours at home. She cooks for herself and for her sons—only one single meal a day. But her desolate and wrecked nature hardly excites her sons to come home. Her relatives come and spend some days with her, but they cannot help beyond that.

The panic level seems to go up every now and then these days, thanks to false warnings from people around her. After the news about the earthquake in Andaman, people were more scared, but such signs did not affect Arjunadevi, as she is no longer scared of death. Indeed, she says that if death would unite her with Arun Jelitha, she would embrace it willingly.

Nowaways, Arjunadevi sleeps little; she hangs around the seashore, wishing to meet her daughter in the form of her spirit. Her belief in the afterlife and ghosts has given her renewed strength as she hopes to meet her daughter one day on the shores of the sea that gobbled her up.

It is very significant that she does not even refer to her daughter without attaching due respect to her. She says that she did that even when Arun Jelitha was alive. They were more like equals than mother and daughter. She remembers her good deeds in the finest detail: how she woke up, how she spoke, how she performed her household chores. She remembers her gait and vividly can reconstruct the details of her returning home as she would appear on the faraway road visible from Arjunadevi’s house.

From what Arjunadevi says, Arun Jelitha was a responsible and loving girl. The entire family and the life of Arjunadevi were anchored around the existence of Arun Jelitha, as she is the one who remarkably completed her Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Education degrees. She became a teacher in a school in the nearby town (Cuddalore) and worked from home after a short stint with hostel life, which her mother discouraged because she could not bear to live separately from her daughter. Life was fine till the tsunami struck the village.

Ever since losing Arun Jelitha, Arjunadevi contemplates suicide and needs to be counseled against it. She says that after her daughter’s demise, there is no point in living her life.

When she found life meaningless in the company of her irresponsible husband, who gets drunk often and returns home after two or three days of inexplicable absence, she found meaning only in raising her daughter and showering intense love on her. This made more sense to her than doing the same with her sons, who grew up working away from home and going fishing.

In this context of meaninglessness, it was her daughter who gave a tremendous sense of meaning and purpose to her life. That’s why she wants to live with Arun Jelitha in her imaginary life, conversing with her to fight her emptiness and relating to her as if she exists in flesh and blood now.

She has not demonstrated any sign of psychological abnormality as she carries out her everyday routine, such as bathing, eating (though very little), cooking, etc. But she needs a lot of support and encouragement.

ADRA’s psychosocial officer is working with her in regular intervals, but that is not enough. We could train or encourage some village volunteers to work with her to bring her back to a certain sense of normalcy, as such volunteers could make daily contact with her.

We spent 20 minutes looking around at the previous site of his small elementary school and his now nonexistent house. We chatted pleasantly, and he introduced me to his many friends, his previous students, and their parents.

He had been sitting on his back porch when the tsunami rolled in. The dirty water was as high as the palm trees, and he was caught up in it while running away. He tumbled around in the water for a long time.

It was time to leave, and I found a small gift for him in my bag. We shook hands as I said good-bye. He grabbed me and hugged me very tight and then pressed my cheek against his very hard cheek and then the other cheek. As I stood back, I could see that he was crying and could not speak very well. We parted, and afterward I realized that I had given him an opportunity to share his story and, in so doing, deal with some of his grief. I have spoken to many people here with a similar response. Often a deep friendship develops from simply listening to their story and caring for their needs.

First I see a baby, and then a beautiful young woman with haunting eyes. “Tsunami,” he whispers, his voice choking as he tries to avoid crying in front of me. I ask our translator if he will translate for me as Mahfoud shares his story with us.

Mahfoud explains that he had his own business and employed several people. He bought land and was moving into a big house next to his brothers. It was close to the beach in the north part of Meulaboh, Indonesia. It was an area busy with life, cafés, and restaurants lining the boardwalk. To have a house in the middle of this was a sign of success.

I ask if it’s possible for us to visit this place, and he agrees to take us there. We drive to the northern part of town and come to an area where it looks as if post-tsunami cleanup has already occurred. There is hardly any rubble or debris, or any sign that this was a thriving area close to the boardwalk. “There hasn’t been any cleanup here,” Mahfoud tells me.

I look around. Surely there can’t have been that many people living here; there is nothing except grazing water buffalo.

I look at Mahfoud, and he leads me to a concrete slab. “This is my house under here, but it’s the floor of my brother’s house,” he says. This sounds a bit cryptic, so I ask him to explain how this is his brother’s floor. He points to another concrete slab and says that his brother’s house was over there, and it was a three-story house. We are standing on the third floor. The first and second floors are lying side by side like dominos.

He takes me back to the 26th of December 2004. It was a cloudy morning, and Mahfoud was hesitant to leave. He needed to go to the Simpat market to sell clothes at one of his many shops. The market was an hour away from his home. He discussed with his wife, Nana Meilina, if he should go. They had been married for more than four years and had an almost two-year-old son, Fakrol Raji. Nana Meilina urged him to go. They had just invested a large sum in new clothes to sell. He looked at her and knew that she was right. They needed the money. He must go to the Simpat market.

He stopped by his shop in Meulaboh to check on things before leaving town. An hour later, he arrived at the Simpat market and felt the large earthquake. Mahfoud quickly got on a motorbike with his friend and headed back toward home. They were close to Meulaboh when the first tsunami wave swept them off their bike. They grabbed a piece of wood and managed to float around for what seemed like 30 minutes. He estimated that the water level was five to six feet deep. Just as suddenly as the wave hit him, it began to pull back. Despite the strong surge, he managed to stay on his feet. He kept walking toward his home until the second wave hit him. This time he could not keep his head above water. He could not breathe; he could not see anything in the black water. He could not swim in the strong current. He was up against forces that were much greater than he was. He thought that these were his last seconds. He was gasping for air when suddenly he felt his friend pulling him up by his hair; he grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled.

At this point, I interrupt and ask the translator if Mahfoud is sure that he was really pulled up by his hair. “Yes,” the translator confirms, “and no, his hair was not longer at that time.”

He must see my surprise, and we both look at Mahfoud. He is balding on top, and where there is hair, it is quite short.

Mahfoud continues his story. After his friend pulled him out of the water by his hair, they both managed to reach a four-story house on the side of the road. They waited—they could not do anything else. When the water went down to chest height, he jumped back in. He waded through the water and all it carried with it. He didn’t seem to sense what was around him; he waded toward his home and prayed that he would find his wife and son.

He got to his house and found several bodies stuck in buildings and trees. His house was gone. He found no sign of his wife or son.

Mahfoud pauses; he looks at us and then looks at the tall coconut trees. “The tsunami,” he says, “was above those coconut trees.”

I look back at him and know why the area is swept clean. Nothing could stand a chance in water levels and waves of such height.

He sighs and tells us that he kept looking around in disbelief. The people, along with the cafés and restaurants, were swept inland toward the city. He now knows that only about three percent of this area’s population survived.

As he looked around for his family, he saw the third wave coming, and he ran to a two-story house that was partly standing. When the third wave had withdrawn to the sea, he continued his search. Not much was left now. Then he recognized some clothes. Yes, this used to belong to his wife, and over there was a piece of his son’s shirt. He roamed around finding some of his own clothes, but no sign of his beloved Nana Meilina or Fakrol Raji.

As Mahfoud talks, tears are running down his face, and I in respect look at the ground. Hearing his pain and sorrow, I feel my eyes swell with tears as well. We silently stand where his house used to be. The place where he saw his wife and son for the last time.

Continuing, Mahfoud tells us that he kept hoping as he kept searching. He wandered through the entire city and helped many people he met on the road. He doesn’t remember how many. He kept walking and searching for days and nights.

He went to the internally displaced persons camp. After a couple of days, he was invited to stay with friends. Mahfoud accepted, but found that his kind friend had many people staying with him. Mahfoud located distant cousins and stayed with them for a time. Since he had lost everything, he could not contribute much to the household and did not want to be a burden. Mahfoud began to spend his nights on the floor in the mosque and looked for work by day.

He owed money from the clothes he had purchased to sell at his shops. His assets were gone. He sold his old car, which was parked where the tsunami didn’t reach, and this enabled him to pay off some debt. It would have been easy for him to claim that he had lost everything and was unable to pay. However, he was convinced that he wanted to pay some of his debt. He also desired to hold a Kenduri (a memorial service) for his wife and son. At this point, Mahfoud felt no need to plan for the future, for what future was there for someone who had lost everything?

Eventually, he found work as a driver in a pickup that belonged to a distant relative. Then Mahfoud became one of ADRA’s Meulaboh drivers. For weeks, he went quietly about his work, always ready to help and assist. One day, his heart spilled over, and he shared his loss with one of the Indonesian ADRA workers. When our ADRA staff heard that Mahfoud had been sleeping in the mosque for several weeks, they invited him to share their living quarters.

The always helpful and smiling Mahfoud. When you get to know him, you see that his smile, though genuine, has sadness to it. His eyes reflect pain and grief, yet he gets up every day and does a great job with ADRA. Friendship has sprung up with several of the ADRA workers from Jakarta, and those of us who are not fluent in Bahasa Indonesian wish we could say something of comfort. All I can do is smile and put my hand on my heart to shown my empathy, and ask the translator to express my sympathy and how his experience has brought tears in my eyes.

Mahfoud is grateful for the opportunity to work with ADRA and shows no bitterness that he now is an employee when he used to be the boss. Those of us who work with him pray that one day he will be able to plan for the future.

They won’t be seen even during the village festivals. They are not part of the village, yet they are in the village. In other words, they are in the village, though they are not of the village—they don’t even possess a ration card. Only when you make a special effort will you see them or meet them.

That is exactly what we did. As we waded through the casuarina trees that cluster thickly around the hinterlands of the village, we reached a ground beyond its borders that has been cleared of the trees that otherwise abound. There lay some thatched houses. They are so low that to enter into them, one has to virtually crawl. Some 10 people, the majority of them women and children, were milling around, with a few among them only visible as hazy shadows behind the line of tree trunks.

They are the Telugu-speaking, oppressed caste members whom the mainstream village used for providing services, such as guarding the villagers’ groves or cleaning the village temple premises when the festival approached. In return for the services they rendered, they were paid a paltry sum or in kind in the form of 66 pounds annually of rice and other grains. Other than that, they were not the recipients of any other rights and privileges from the mainstream village. They normally resided in the secluded confines of the groves, at peace with themselves. Their other source of income was fishing, though they normally did that with a hook in the shallow waters of the sea. The women would sell the fish in the Cuddalore town if the catch was good and would buy vegetables and groceries from the money earned by selling the fish.

When the tsunami hit the villages, they survived thanks to their folk wisdom—they always settled on the elevated terrain since that was the safest place given the fact they lived just 66 feet away from the backwaters. While the main village suffered a huge loss, this community lost just a few belongings—or lost all of it, depending on how you look at it; the truth is that they did not have many belongings. The fact that they were utterly poor has victimized them by not inviting the attention of relief providers and rehabilitation workers since they have not ”lost” anything—their ”normalcy” need not be restored, as poverty was their normalcy.

Yet they were seriously affected by the tsunami, for their lives depend on the payment from the mainstream villagers. When the latter lost their principal livelihood, namely fishing, due to the tsunami, the village economy came to a standstill. With fish catching  having dwindled alarmingly and villagers unable to patronize them, the Telugu-speaking community members have been suddenly reduced to the status of beggars, as they themselves state tremblingly. Now they survive on the leftover food given away by the villagers.

Sadly, they were never the beneficiaries of the relief and rehabilitation measures by any of those who cared to come to the villages. They said that even on normal days, they never received any of the development efforts or schemes, and during the post-disaster days, it could only get worse. Hence, health, education, electricity, or any other development good has never touched them.

Infant mortality and maternal morbidity are very high, partly thanks to the superstitious practices. That is what is confirmed by the life of Valli, who has been living in the soukku groves for the past decade or so with her in-laws’ family.

Valli’s first marriage was a disaster, as her mother died young and her father was never a responsible person. Indeed, it was her father who poisoned her mother to death, and even Valli could have died. At the young age of 13 1/2, she was married by her mother’s sister to a man from her village. But he left her after giving her a child. The child too died due to poor health. It was then that she met Selvaraj, whose family migrates to other villages in search of work (guarding work); they decided to live together. Since then, she and Selvaraj have married and have returned to Sothikuppam. Valli has two children—one daughter named Vasantha and a son named Chinnathampi. In fact, these two are the only surviving children of six in the past 12 years. The rest have died of one illness or the other, mostly from diarrhea.

Valli does not even recall that well the reasons they died. All that she can guess is that they died because of the curse of a goddess. However, as an afterthought, she would correct this by saying that they died because of poor health and health care. She says that the health care was so costly and so distant that she could not afford to access it frequently, even when her children were suffering from runny bowels. Indeed, even today, the pregnant women in her habitation area deliver their children in their respective homes supervised by their mother-in-law and assisted by their husband. Valli’s delivery too was attended to by her husband, Selvaraj, and mother-in-law, Laxmi. Angalai, Valli’s neighbor, told her that an institutional delivery was not advisable. If she and her baby were in the hospital, she wondered who would take care of them and who would feed them good food. At least at home they could get good food and receive care from her husband and in-laws, who could afford to attend to their needs. In fact, their idea of a hospital is a place where the staff members give some colorful tablets and are grossly indifferent to them. It is far away from their reach, as they do not have reserve money, leisure, and time to go to the hospital. Over a period of time, they have learned to live without institutional health care. They have evolved their own defense mechanisms and belief systems and also alternative medical practices that are hardly effective.

As a result, Valli’s surviving children, Vasantha and Chinnathampi, look visibly malnourished. When ADRA was organizing its medical camp, it made a special effort to bring Valli and Selvaraj to the camp with their children. The ADRA staff put them across from the village health nurse. The small exposure Valli received that day and the gentle admonition she got from the visiting nurse are reasons that she now underplays the curse of a goddess as the cause of her children’s death and attributes it to poor health care or to an unhygienic water source. Their only source of water is the small fount they dig; though the water is tasty, it could get easily polluted.
 
Ask her now why her children died, and she would say that they died of “loose motion” and she tried her best to save them, which meant taking them to the government hospital. But diarrhea continued despite that, and gradually she gave up on them and left it to her Kula (traditional) goddess to decide their fate.

Now, with some awareness being built in her, she vows to protect her surviving children by ensuring adequate health care. But Valli is not to be blamed for that. Only when there is a comprehensive social change that ensures that there is an overall development in their lives will they access these services. But as it stands now, their future generation too risks repeating the same social and economic disasters that their parents and forefathers were victims of.

We traveled endlessly over long stretches of narrow, red, dirt road that wound its way through the flatlands of West Africa. It seemed like ADRA’s vehicle was the only vehicle on the road that day. I was excited because we were headed to remote villages in the Siguiri region of the Republic of Guinea. There, visitors are rare, and I had been told that ADRA’s visit would be a joyful event.

That’s not surprising; villagers only have one opportunity each week to leave the village when the ADRA truck comes to town! Moreover, an ADRA food security project is providing hope and life to villagers.

One component of that project is economic development. By establishing income-generating activities through small loans to women’s groups, individuals are able to create opportunities for their families. Increased family income can provide adequate, nutritious food, basic medical care, clothing and education.

Each time we drove into a Malinke village, women, children and men quickly emerged from their traditional homes (round huts made of dry mud walls and thatched roofs). They greeted us warmly in Malinke, the local language, shouting, “Inekay. Tanasite [Hello. Good Morning].” When we arrived in Mankity village, it looked like the entire village had been waiting.

Mankity’s women’s group gathered around the ADRA workers. Crowding in closely behind them were husbands, children, and other interested onlookers. Dembele, an ADRA worker from that region, explained to the women how the loans work and the terms of repayment. He also shared experiences and successes of women in other villages.

Manny Keita, a member of the women’s group there, has a success story of her own. Years of hard work etched into Manny’s face, could not hide her sincere desire to do her best to provide for her family six children ages one to nine years of age.

In addition to cooking, gathering wood for the fire, cleaning her hut, and caring for her children, Manny operates a small business. Six months ago, when the women’s group in her village joined ADRA’s program, she saw an opportunity to expand. She travels to the nearest city, 48 miles away, and purchases goods, which she sells for a small profit in the local market.

Nevertheless, before she could expand her capabilities, ADRA had to teach Manny how to read,write and do simple math. Seventy-eight percent of Guinean women are illiterate. Manny knew that she needed skills to run a small business and understand how to repay a loan.

Once she “graduated,” ADRA through the women’s group provided Manny’s first loan of $100. Her immediate challenge, the distance between her village and Siguiri where she buys her goods (48 miles) was overcome. Each trip cost $8, which previously made a deep hole in her income. In addition, she could only buy a few goods.

Manny says, “I used soup, peanuts, fish, eggs and corn at my house. But because I didn’t make very much in profit, I couldn’t buy many other goods to sell. ADRA’s loan increased my cash flow, and now I have a small store in the local market.”

Manny is grateful for ADRA’s help, and her thriving business enables her to take better care of her family, and make a contribution to her community. Others in her group have also opened small shops selling soap, lamp oil, dishes, clothing and gas.

The duku tigui, or chief of the village, has expressed his appreciation of ADRA, the US government, and people of America who made helped make this possible. “The ADRA loans have helped improve many of the small businesses in Mankity.”

“Our women see there are possibilities outside their own villages. When they first see how many documents they must complete to get a loan, they are discouraged. But it also teaches them the importance of literacy. This encourages them to send their children to school.”

Most importantly, the duku tigui said ADRA’s project boosts the women’s confidence. “Just seeing ADRA’s vehicle arrive is enough for them. If someone is willing to make the long, rough trip to Mankity to visit them, then they know someone cares about them.”

Not only that, knowing that ADRA believes in their abilities and is willing to trust them with loans, is beyond anything they could ever have imagined!

For Manny and women in villages throughout Siguiri, when an ADRA vehicle arrives, it is a symbol of hope.

Apart from that, ADRA had since 2002 also granted the blind farmers small scheme loans up to the tune of 27.6 million cedis to expand their agricultural activities.
 
Mr. Anthony Manooh, Technical Co-ordinator of Agriculture and Natural Resource Management of ADRA who presented the items expressed satisfaction at the performance of the farmers in soya bean cultivation, cashew planting and dry season gardening.
 
He challenged other physically challenged persons in society to take a leaf from the activities of the Karni blind farmers to engage themselves in productive ventures that would render them independent in society.
 
Mr. Manooh promised to offer them all the assistance they needed to harness their potentials to live comfortable and respectable lives in society.
 
Mr. Sampson Bediako Fordjour, Field Project Officer at Wa promised to supply them with grafted mango seedlings to add to other farming activities they were engaged in.
 
He called for regular meetings among them so as to come out with suggestions that could be useful for their development. ADRA also organised a three-day capacity building workshop for the farmers to equip them with technical skills and enhance modern ways of agriculture to improve on production.
 
The ADRA officials also educated them on the need to use improved seeds and prepare the land in line with modern trends that would increase field.
 
The participants were also taken through savings, record-keeping and the use of organic manure to improve yield and reduce cost of production.
 
© 2005 Copyright Ghana News Agency (GNA)

This article does not necessarily reflect the views of ADRA International

Green hills surrounded us and seemed to swallow up the road ahead. On each side, woman worked the fields either by hand with a small pick, or a plough pulled behind oxen. Little circular mud huts with thatched roofs dotted the landscape. We were on a 13-hour journey from Guinea Conakry to the far province of Siguiri.

It takes a little over 13 hours to arrive in the dusty village of Bambala. As we entered the village, population 686, children, women, and men surrounded us all talking the local dialect or French. The village was typical. Circular mud huts with thatched roofs were crowded up against each other with no apparent rhyme or reason for the way they are located in the village. The day is hot, and the sun showers its hot rays down mercilessly on us. Many of the women are dressed in colorful robes. We are led to the town square, which is a place where there are a couple large shade-providing mango trees. There we find the chief of the village, ministry of health service providers, ADRA health volunteers, ADRA health promoters, and the village men, woman, and lots of children.

For the next hour the community health volunteers proudly shows all they have learned during the past five years with ADRA. Their knowledge of primary health and nutrition is impressive. They show us with pride their “doctor’s emergency kit.” It is limited to basic supplies such as gloves, plastic towels, and sterilization solution. These few items, however, save lives. They showed us a book that had a pictorial report of the health status of the village. We could see by the pictures how many babies died each month and also how many babies were improving. All too soon the ceremony was over. As we left the village, the chiefwho had been very silentwalked over to ADRA’s country director for Guinea, Sharon Pittman. He said, “mama we are very sad, very sad.” He continued, “We are sad because ADRA is leaving us.”

ADRA’s health program in Guinea terminates on September 30, 2005. The chief said, “Before ADRA came to our village so many of our babies and children died. Now that ADRA has come we are healthier, happier, and our children are surviving.” I look into the eyes of the chief and could see such sincerity and love. I look around again at the children and know that many were alive and well because of the knowledge ADRA had given to this village in the heart of Guinea. Pittman said, “Even though ADRA is leaving, the knowledge you have gained will stay with you. Let’s pray also that the new project is approved.” The Chief smiled and said, “We will pray for ADRA every day.”

Later in solemn ceremony with the Governor of the State (Prefecture) it was so impressive to hear the outstanding confirmation of this political leader. He said, “You have come and made a difference in our area. The results of OUR program are outstanding. We look forward to working and cooperating with you on a new five year project. Please send our thanks to Washington as well.”

By Anthony Stahl, bureau chief for program management, ADRA International

" 'I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid…’ ” Leviticus 26:6 (NIV)

A couple months ago, I returned from a trip to East Africa, including southern Sudan. Sudan is the largest country in Africa, but has been in a state of war for approximately thirty years. The results of this long-term conflict have been tremendous.

The infrastructure—including roads, schools, health facilities, and much more—is in shambles. One particularly bad 10-mile stretch of road took us 1.5 hours to travel! To get to ADRA’s projects, we, like ADRA South Sudan staff, had to fly in on a United Nations single-engine plane that lands on dirt strips.

The poor transportation and communication in southern Sudan make this area extremely difficult to work in. On top of this, there is the constant threat of ongoing conflict. At all times you must carry a “quick run” survival kit containing enough water for four days.

Despite these conditions, ADRA is carrying out a tremendous work in southern Sudan. Education projects are supporting schools that have no supplies. A guinea worm eradication project is helping to eliminate this painful, but rectifiable, disease. Women’s groups are learning literacy and numeracy skills and starting their own business to create income for their families.

One school that stands out in my mind is the Affa Displaced Primary School. It’s a school that ADRA is supporting with supplies and teacher training. The children who are students there were forced to flee their homes farther north due to fighting. Many of their stories are very saddening.

The future in this region depends heavily on the peace process that is ongoing. I hope you’ll join me in praying for the safety of ADRA staff working in this dangerous environment, the continued community involvement and support of ADRA’s projects, and especially for peace in southern Sudan.

“And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away.” ~Nehemiah 12:43 (NIV)

After packing the essentials for a four-day visit to the village of Donomade, I met Irene, a field worker for one of ADRA Togo’s women’s empowerment projects who lives in Donomade during the week.

When we arrived that afternoon, ADRA’s AIDS Prevention Program team began by giving questionnaires and doing informal discussion groups with villagers and showing a film about signs of AIDS, transmission, and prevention. “Now we know how to protect ourselves,” said Bosi Rosa after the presentation. “I will start telling my children about AIDS and how they can prevent it.” Dovi, a petite little girl with a stack of schoolbooks resting on her head commented, “What I learned about AIDS makes me sure I want to avoid it.”

When I stepped out of Irene’s hut at 7 a.m. the next morning, a large circle of villagers was gathered around. ADRA’s life-skills classes, covering topics like women and children’s rights, health, sanitation, nutrition, family relationships, family planning, and methods of income generation, begin very early as its often the only time when women are free.

ADRA reaches youth through weekly presentations at primary schools. Out of 32 students, only eight were girls. This is not surprising in Togo, where there are nearly twice as many illiterate females as males. Early pregnancy and marriage are two factors that cause many Togolese girls to drop out of school. “My dream is to be a journalist. I want to stay in school and finish my education,” said 15-year-old Kristine. “Today I learned that I need to avoid early marriage and pregnancy to complete school.”

On the trip back to Lome, Irene and I passed barefoot school children on the narrow footpaths, waving as we drove by. We saw women walking with heavy loads of firewood balanced on their heads and men riding bicycles with towering sacks of corn tied to the back. These are everyday sights in Togo, and it’s easy to pass them by without noticing. Yet within each person, there are needs and a story. My week in Donomade gave me insight into some of those stories, and encouraged me as I saw the rejoicing of the women and children—like Bisi, Dovi, and Kristine—as ADRA brought empowerment to their life and hope to their future.

"You are the light of the world" Matthew 5:14 (NIV)

ADRA has been drilling wells in Somalia since 1992. Water is extremely rare, with water points being 70 to 100 km (43 to 62 miles) apart. People and their livestock have to walk two to three days to get water. The countryside has no lakes or rivers, and rain falls only about twice a year. Otherwise the climate is hot and dry year-round with temperatures averaging 40º C (104º F) in the shade.

Drilling wells is a real challenge. Boreholes have to be around 200 meters (656 feet) deep. To drill that deep we need from 80 to 100 thousand liters (21 to 26 thousand gallons) of water. Tanker trucks bring water from the nearest source located about seven hours one way over heavy sand and sharp rocks.

Sheik Mahmoud Diblawe from the Datable clan visited our office in Mogadishu. He wanted to thank ADRA for helping his people and to assure us of safety under his protection. Our drilling team and equipment were guarded by 50 armed militiamen with six technical cars, each mounted with a heavy machine gun.

I recalled his friendly welcome during our survey trip two years before. As we talked, I had mentioned that I was also a religious man, a Christian sheik—adding that we all pray to the same God. Impressed, he asked if I could dig a well for his village. He added, "Because of the remoteness of our area, no international organization has ever made an effort to come here."

Due to lack of funds, I could promise only to do my best. As we left, he asked for my business card. I wondered about this request since his area has no post office or telephone. "I have kept your business card in my Koran," he said. "Every day when I read it and pray, I include ADRA in my prayers. `If this man is a true sheik,' I told myself, `he will keep his promise. One day he will return.' Now I realize that you are a true sheik, and I thank ADRA for what has been done for my people!"

“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.” ~ Psalm 103: 2, 3 (NIV)

It was a bright, sunny Togolese national holiday morning as I walked out of my apartment to go to the villages for one of our project visits. Kofi, the driver, Mawunyo, the project coordinator, and I were on our way to the village of Donomade. I wanted to know if Donomade had any spectacular meaning. Yes, it had! And that was, “the village is so far that a sick person can never get there.” Upon our arrival in the village we saw a group of women under a big tree involved in a health training session facilitated by Chantal, the ADRA agent for this village. Their faces beamed with joy as they welcomed us, shaking our hands warmly. They quickly realized that I did not speak the local language because I did not know how to respond very well to the local greeting.

Suddenly, a mentally challenged man with a broad, genuine smile interrupted the meeting and started questioning why some people were speaking in English. He seemed curious and wanted to be my friend.

The shock of the day came when, on saying good bye to the community members, the man came close to me, and as he held my hand to say goodbye, he gently lifted it to his cracked lips and kissed the back of my hand. I reassured him that I cared about him, too. As we drove back to the city of Lome, his parting words filled my mind as I was reminded of my new buddy in the village.

I learned lessons from this precious child of God. We each desire to be loved. Thank God that His love is unconditional at all times, and when we need His attention He is always there. More so, He is the great physician who not only heals physical diseases, but the spiritual, too. And in Donomade, “where sick people cannot reach,” there was a mentally challenged child of God. I’m thankful that God can always reach Donomade, regardless of the distance. And as God’s arms and hands, ADRA is reaching out to people, even in villages considered too far. I love being part of the ADRA family!

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (RSV)

Ella, a 13-year-old girl in the village where I work, had just finished primary school and had gotten her certificate (after passing the test). But her mother did not want her to continue her studies. The little girl, who was very unhappy about this, told me about it and pleaded with me to help her convince her mother to let her continue school. I went to their home and spoke to her mother about it; but her mother did not agree and would not be convinced. She responded, “I do not want her to continue her studies. The purpose of a girl is to work in the kitchen, on the farm, and to have babies. Me, I didn’t go to school but I eat and do everything just like those who have been to school.”

The situation was tense but we did not give up. I tried all the different means to bring her to reason. One evening after dinner when the three of us were all in the same room, I started to tell a story, a story about a woman doctor who had saved the people of her village from a terrible disease. The mother listened attentively without saying anything. However, the next day she came to me and asked if I thought that one day her daughter would be able to become a government official. I said “Yes, but only if she continues her studies.” With that dream, her mother was convinced.

One week before school started, all was ready for the girl to start school. Her mother came to visit me and excitedly reminded me, “My girl is going to school.”

ADRA strongly believes in empowering young people to reach their dreams. And education is a necessary tool to breaking the poverty cycle. I’m reminded how rewarding this work is every time little Ella happily thanks me—and ADRA—for our help

“Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands.” Job 4:3 (NIV)

The view from the top of Mt. Muhavura, an inactive volcano in Western Uganda, is overwhelmingly green. It is a jungle of intertwining trees, hillsides covered with swaying banana plants, and a valley blanketed with the delicate hue of tomato vines, cabbages, onions and potatoes. But the tiny pygmy huts that are scattered throughout the region are largely invisible.

Walls of mud and roofs of palm fronds give shelter to one of the most marginalized groups in Uganda. In 1991, the Batwa Pygmies were evicted from their forest home in order to create Mgahinga National park, one of the few remaining habitats of the mountain gorilla.

Without land, the Pygmies have been forced to become squatters. They have no permanent home, no gardens to grow food and for many, they have no hope. Standing next to the huts, the children’s eyes are large with sorrow and hunger. Their bare feet are cracked, their bellies distended from malnutrition. Their clothing is colorless and filled with tears.

But ADRA Uganda has been making a difference by building the Mabuyemeru Primary school. Now Pygmy students have a place to sleep, access to clean water, regular meals, school uniforms and, most importantly, a life-changing education. In a district where the illiteracy rate is 67 percent, the Pygmy children are learning how to read and write. They are also gaining skills like tailoring, weaving, and farm maintenance.

In the past, Pygmies were so discriminated against that their children could not attend local schools. But at Mabuyemeru, Pygmy children stay in the same dormitory as non-Pygmy children. They share clothes, school supplies, and dreams for a better future.

Alice Nyamihanda is fourteen years old and the first in her village to finish primary school. Her shy smile belies a determined spirit. Alice dreams of graduating from secondary school. Right now, she is halfway through.

ADRA is giving Alice and many children like her a priceless gift—a chance for a better tomorrow. “Please tell ADRA to continue their compassion for the destitute,” said the leader of the Kanyabukung Pygmy community. “Please tell ADRA that they give us hope.”

“. . . we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.” Psalm 66:12 (NIV)

It was the worst flooding in Hanoi since 1984. The water crept up the steps leading to the ADRA office. This had happened before, but the water had never come through the doors. As the rain continued, we were alarmed to see it inching under the doorways despite our best efforts. We moved computer equipment and file drawers from the floor to tops of desks and tables.

Later, one of the men brought used bricks and buckets of red clay to build barriers at each of the four doorways. Now it was possible to use buckets to remove water without it immediately returning. The rain slowed, and then stopped. There was concern that, if another storm came very soon, it would be worse. By evening, the office was nearly cleaned up, but outside the water still lapped just below the porch floor.

The light rain predicted for Saturday began on schedule, but it increased about 5 AM. At the office, water poured over the "mud/brick dams" that had been built. Closed doors slowed the flow, but water gurgled up through the floor drains of the bathrooms and leaked through gaps between floor tiles. We emptied lower shelves. Just before the water reached it, the bed in the guest room was raised onto a couple chairs.

With the water rising, about 35 people moved office items to the second floor. The rain continued, off and on, throughout the day. While lighter than during the night, it was enough to keep the water about the same height. By late afternoon, boats had ferried many things to a new location.

We have decided to stay, at least for the moment, in the new location. According to the "authorities," there could be additional flooding this year. We are not prepared to go through this "moving experience" again anytime soon. While still anything but organized, our office is beginning to take shape again.

As we provide aid in the future, we will be able to better understand the feelings of helplessness and loss when flooding strikes.

“So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.” ~ Job 5:16

“The first thing they did was shoot my husband,” she (pictured below) said, looking down at the mat as I gripped my pen a little tighter. Her eyes met mine and I could see they were full of tears. I glanced around the hut, where 20 women sat detailing their lives before and after arriving at this refugee camp in West Darfur, Sudan. As the stories poured out they were similar in their tragedy—full of pain, murder, rape, and pillaging.

My tears started to make it difficult to write. I thought about my closet full of clothes and shoes, the half empty water bottle I threw away, and the comfortable bed I would be sleeping in that night.

The dust blew in my already irritated eyes as I rode in the back of the pickup to the ADRA compound. We were quiet and absorbed in our thoughts, overwhelmed by the enormity of the task—1.2 million displaced people with similar stories and lacking basic necessities like food and water. “How can man be so cruel” I thought? “Where is God?”

“Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, you did it unto me.” The words rang through my head. As our brothers and sisters in Sudan call out to God for help, ADRA responds. It is here in the midst of the largest humanitarian aid crisis in the world—building latrines in the hot sand, digging wells for water, and giving friendly smiles—ADRA is bringing hope to those who are without, bringing aid to the least of these.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (I Corinthians 6: 19 20, NIV)

I arrived at Ajakuac Payam on graduation day for 43 Guinea Worm Eradication Program (GWEP) volunteers and supervisors who completed ADRA’s three-day workshop in Twic County, Bahr El Ghazal. Walking to our vehicle, an elderly man came beside me, chatting away in the Dinka Language. I could not understand a word, so I smiled. He continued chatting away and held my hand. I called one teacher who could speak both English and Arabic who translated, “I am impressed because this young lady knows ‘the pen’ well. Because she knows ‘the pen’ well, I am willing to marry her and pay her parents 50 head of cattle just for her pen and 100 head of cattle for her to be my wife.”

I was greatly impressed! Not because a man in Ajakuac Payam was willing to pay 150 heads of cattle for a bride price; but because I realized that ADRA South Sudan’s hard work to promote girl’s education was paying off.

Community members in Twic County are pastoralist, and value cattle very much. Here, wealth is measured by the number of cattle one has and the number of wives one can afford to marry. Happy is the man who has many daughters, for his kraal will always be full of cattle.

The fact that girls in this community are sold off for a bride price at a very tender age, poses a great challenge in the area of girl’s education. ADRA South Sudan, through community mobilizations, workshops, and meetings has been encouraging the community to send girls to school since 1998. Statistics throughout south Sudan shows that only 26% of the pupils enrolled in school are girls in spite of the fact that female’s make up over 60% of the total population of south Sudan. Retention of girls in school is also a great challenge.

The fact that the old man was willing to pay 50 herds of cattle just for ‘the pen’ (equivalent to USD $10,000 encouraged me that the community is gradually changing and placing a high value on girl’s education.

ADRA believes in the importance and value of girls and women and works to uncover that value in societies where it has been clouded. And just like Christ, ADRA believes every man, woman and child has inherent value. I’m glad ADRA is able to show God’s loving face in societies where some genders or ethnic groups have never had their value affirmed. And just as a valued bride is bought with a great price, it reminds me that God bought us with a great price because He, too, values us so intensely.

He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. ~Deuteronomy 10:18 (RSV)

Continued from the last devotional…

Synopsis so far: Evelyne Nielsen’s husband, Bent, served as the country director of ADRA Burundi until he was murdered in 1998. With the desire to carry on the work of her husband, Evelyne took over as country director until June 2001 when she moved to continue ADRA’s work in Tunisia.

Now, after more than 25 years in Africa, I am discovering a new culture in a new country: Tunisia. Here, again, I am bringing ADRA’s mission of love and respect for everyone without consideration of race, gender or religion. My brightest experience after nearly five months in Tunisia, is of participating in Aïd el Fetr, a celebration on behalf of elderly people at the end of Ramadan. ADRA Netherlands sent funding for ADRA Tunisia to be a part of bringing joy to elderly people who were isolated and forgotten during the festival. It was thrilling to see elderly men and women in their traditional clothes moving in rhythm to the religious songs—songs sung for the glory of God by a traditional band, a Souleimia. They also received warm clothes to help them fight the cold of winter.

I will never exchange my place for another one. To work in the ADRA network means to be part of the long chain of solidarity all over the world between people of good heart and good will. It means expressing God’s love to people, who are suffering in their soul and in their flesh. That love is expressed through projects where they are involved right from the beginning—for their own development and the development of ADRA itself—and through projects where everyone—the community and ADRA teams—are learning together in friendship and humility.

“…The LORD, who remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry…” ~Psalms 146 6 - 7 (NIV)

Recently, I visited Camp Ded Madi Okollo in Arua, Uganda, and met with a small group of refugees that had lived there for the past five to six months. This was their third camp and most had been refugees for at least 10 years.

The life of a refugee is a challenging one. The food rations which are per person, per month, are 26 lbs. of maize flour, 4 lbs. of beans, and 0.6 liters of cooking oil. There are no supplemental foods for babies. There are two working boreholes for a camp of more than 7,000 people. To get to the borehole water, you have to walk nearly a mile each day. Usually, it’s the women who bare this task.

Imagine all your possessions fitting in a small shelter structure with a “United Nations” tarp over the top and thatch walls at each end. A family of 10 might live in a shelter like this. All your worldly possessions were probably lost in your last move. You are faced with limited rations and water and are located in an area without employment opportunities or schools and with limited medical facilities. The only way to earn a living is by selling your meager rations. These are conditions most of us cannot even fathom.

Compare this with your life. How many cars do you own? How many square feet is your home? How much junk do you have stored in your garage that has not seen the light of day since your last move? Think of the health care that is a short distance away.

How do people become refugees? It is usually associated with violence, and/or freedom of expression. For most of us who live in societies where we are not subject to threats, conflict or acts of violence and who can express ourselves pretty much as we please, these situations are remote. Yet in parts of the world they are common daily experiences.

On June 20th of this month, the world commemorates World Refugee Day. I’m reminded of the small group of men and women I met at Camp Ded Madi Okollo. What should our response be as Christians? It is easy to say we should feed the hungry, clothe the naked and aid the sick, but it is probably a different story to stand up and fight for just treatment of people. It requires activism on our part. I believe that Christ calls us not to be “couch potato” Christians, but activist Christians who get involved in helping support those who are in situations—like refugees from Sudan living in a camp—where our voices might be the only ones supporting them.

Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6 7 (RSV)

From the blue-tiled splendors of Tamerlane’s Samarkand to the holy city of Bukhara, boasting a mosque for each day of the year, Uzbekistan, lays claim to a breathtaking architectural legacy. Bound by sand and snow, these fertile oases attracted the greatest travelers and conquerors in history along the fragile threads of the Silk Road. This is our new home.

As soon as we arrived here, we began working to get ADRA accredited in Uzbekistan. This has taken much patience and persistence. Finally, the United Nations finally granted ADRA bona fide status to cross boarder operations from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. This status helped ADRA obtain its accreditation, and in March 2002 ADRA Uzbekistan became official!

When we think about our challenges here, the most amazing and comforting fact is to see and feel God’s guidance all the way. It is awesome how things happen when we make ourselves available to God. Doors open before us. The right people step into our lives. Again, on God’s schedule, not ours. Sometimes the task before us is difficult or the needed information isn’t shared or isn’t clear, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of frustration. This happens especially when you look to all ‘you’ are doing. That’s the point! The little secret I’ve learned to avoid frustration is to make sure we are doing all we can, but then to look to Jesus and trust it all to Him. As we act in faith, reaching out to the needy ones all around us, the Holy Spirit, the mighty angels, and all the powers of Heaven are there to assist us. We look forward to seeing ADRA make a difference in this country.

ADRA Uzbekistan, currently a small team of four people, is contacting the government, NGOs, public institutions, and communities to assess the needs of the country. On a recent meeting with the Minister of Public Education, ADRA received strong support to implement educational programs such as vocational training for vulnerable children and a tobacco awareness programs at the schools. We are working hard on these possibilities. In addition, we hope to assist many in Northern Afghanistan and soon eight containers of winter clothing for distribution.

There is a work to be done in this country! We know that with God’s guidance, our best efforts, love, and donor’s compassion, we will make it happen! This is just the start of an exciting journey…

“You will be secure, because there is hope.” Job 11:18 (NIV)

At the birth of their fifth child, Byambaa’s husband walked out. With no work skills or education, she had little hope of finding a job to support her family. For a short time her two daughters, Doya and Densmaa, attended ADRA’s tutoring center. This school was the only chance for them to learn to read and write. However, Byambaa didn’t have the money for even simple things like a pen and a notebook. She could barely scrape together a few dollars to pay the rent of her small one-room house and perhaps purchase a small amount of water for drinking, cooking, and washing.

Doya and Densmaa really wanted to go back to school. Returning to life on the streets meant begging for money and digging through trash bins for food or something to sell.

One day, Byambaa walked into the ADRA Mongolia office with an idea for a small business venture. She had done her research and already had customers waiting, but she needed a loan of $20 USD for one month.

This seemed an impossible amount for Byambaa to pay back. What would happen to her motivation if she failed?

We settled on $10 USD, with more time to pay it back, if needed. She accepted the money with a broad smile and profuse thanks. Promising to return it in one month, she left the office clutching her future.

Three weeks later I visited Byambaa’s small one-room home. She sat in front of a small wood stove. Looking up at me, a grin spread from ear to ear. Her home was spotless despite the torn and ragged flooring. Excitement rippled through her. She quickly recounted how she had taken the $10 USD and bought empty glass bottles from restaurants and private homes. She then took them to the factories and sold them back at a higher price, making a little money on each bottle.

Byambaa had made $80 USD. She could now buy food, wood for heating, and clean water. When school starts next year, Doya and Densmaa will be enrolled.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.” Proverbs 31:8 (NIV)

People with leprosy have been outcasts for centuries. Shunned by society, they have huddled together on the edges of communities. They have not been able to enjoy what many of us take for granted—protection from rain and snow, privacy, or health care.

While on a trip to visit projects in Asia, we spent a day at the Khohana Leprosy Community, located near Kathmandu, capital of Nepal. ADRA and other organizations have provided a variety of activities over the years, including a school, technical college, and a home for elderly lepers. Currently, fifteen university students from Japan are constructing two houses in Khohana Leprosy Community. While visiting the construction site, I discovered the meaning of labor when I carried a cane “doko” of bricks on my head and learned how to lay the bricks as part of the walls of the new homes.

Then I met a grandmother named Phema Gyaljin Lama. The building project took on a whole new urgency. She is one of 70 people still living in a multiple level barracks built for lepers in 1857. That’s right—145 years ago. At one time, hundreds of people were crammed into the structure. Picture a whole family forced to live in a space no larger than a closet with a low ceiling. When electricity was introduced to the community, wires were laid along the floors and walls with no protection.

Phema Gyaljin Lama had lived nearly her entire life in this aged building. I looked at the external factors and saw the limitations, but to her it was a home filled with memories. Smiles wreathed her face as she described the house to which she and her grandchildren would be moving. For the first time in her life she would live in a house--one to which I had added bricks just moments before. While the house would be small by many people’s standards, the two bedrooms, kitchen, and outdoor toilet was a dream come true for this grandmother. Luxury for her would be the outdoor water faucet that would be shared between three houses.

As I pondered this grandmother’s joyous anticipation of a new dwelling, my heart broke as I realized that funds are yet to be found for the remaining 25 homes needed to completely empty that ancient, crumbling barracks.

Before dawn one morning, I got up to see the sunrise. As the rays of morning light transformed the inky black night, I was reminded that ADRA’s work is like a ray of light as it encourages hope and change in people who live in the inky black night of poverty and pain.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Colossians 3:23-24(NIV)

Although we know the Earth is round, with no edges, when visiting Mongolia last March I felt I had reached the edge of the world.

Mongolia resembles no other country. North of China, this massive land is twice the size of Texas. Mongolia has 2.7 million inhabitants—one-third live in the capital city, two-thirds are nomads in the mountain area. Never before had I experienced such bitter, dry, cold weather. Even my camera froze one morning. We had to place a small heater under our car engine before it would start.

In the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, I met disabled children ADRA rescued from a hospital where they had been dying in terrible conditions. They are now in a colorful room surrounded with toys and enjoying healthy meals. I visited carpenter Oldokh’s workshop, who proudly displayed the ger door he just finished, thanks to an ADRA project providing micro-credit loans for the ultra poor. A dentist, storekeeper and hairdresser also benefited from such loans. I also met 20 ultra-poor former dropout students whom ADRA is providing school fees, a uniform, and one meal a day.

500 miles further west, nestled in the coldest mountains of western Mongolia, I met Galsandoj Dolgorjav, Governor of Telmen Soum. When walking through his office I noticed framed pictures of a bridge, hospital, schools and a bio-intensive farm—all that ADRA helped to build and run.

These are only a few of the many projects ADRA is implementing in Mongolia with the help of its more than 100 staff members who bravely face the glacial cold each day. At the projects in western Mongolia the working conditions are so harsh, ADRA changes staff team every two weeks. This was quite opposite of another edge of the world—Burkina Faso—where I worked for ADRA for six years. There, the temperature could reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and we had no electricity for fans to cool us down!

We hear a lot about the many projects ADRA implements around the world. But they wouldn’t be possible or successful without the thousands of ADRA volunteers and staff members who work hard, often in harsh condition and risking their lives, to save and improve the life of others. Staff who “… work at it with all [their] heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” Staff who believe “…you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

“Think how you have instructed many, how you have strengthened feeble hands.” Job 4:3 (NIV)

Every morning is much the same for me. I push a button to shut off my alarm. Then I flip a light switch, and click another button on my electric toothbrush. For water, I turn a couple of knobs. Later, I tap a few buttons on the microwave to heat my food.

Life for many people in Africa is far different. Millions face starvation and an AIDS pandemic. Helplessness, pain, hunger, and fear touch young ones who barely understand their world.

Drought has destroyed more than 90% of the food crops in the southern part of Africa. Political turmoil compounds the situation. A small can of cooking oil costs about CDN$75 (US$50). Sugar, flour, and soap are not available. AIDS kills 10,000 people every month, leaving hundreds of thousands of orphans.

While visiting an ADRA project, I met a volunteer that I call “Special Lady.” This woman lives a very simple life in order to help as many as possible. Often her mornings start at 1:00 AM when people arrive hoping to work for food or clothing. Even four-year-olds come for a chance to earn something to eat.

One family’s story is an example of the need that she sees daily. The 74-year-old grandfather suffers from heart disease and is unable to walk. He is the guardian of 18 grandchildren because ten of his eleven children have died from AIDS. The family has no income, and their house is deteriorating. Touched by their situation, “Special Lady” pledged to help.

Laying her burden in God’s hands, she cried, “How can I make such promises, Lord? I have no way of coming through!” Her next visit to the post office yielded an unexpected letter with US$500 for a family in need. With this generous donation, a well was dug and food was provided.

People around the world are making a difference for Africa. People are pushing financial and political buttons. ADRA is a beacon for God’s love in areas where the darkness of pain and hunger prevail. I hope your heart will push a button or two to provide hope, life, and a future. Together, we are making a difference...one life at a time.

“The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow…” Psalms 146:9 (NIV)

On May 6, 2003, a humanitarian convoy loaded with 1,895 hygienic kits reached the city of Tel Afar located in Northern Iraq. The over 350,000 people in the city, had been living in utter poverty and face major problems such as lack of sanitation, water (they only get it every four or five days), and medicines. Additionally, over 80% percent of the people are jobless and most of the shops and businesses are closed.

ADRA is helping the most needy and vulnerable families of this community by distributing hundreds of hygienic kits every day.

I met her the next day, as an ADRA Assessment Team visited the poor families in Tel Afar while organizing the distribution of its humanitarian aid. She was our first encounter. Her name is Mrs. Semse Sayit. She’s a poor widow living with her four children (between ages 10-12) in a tiny house with an improvised roof. Their father died of lung cancer in 1991. So, for more than 12 years, Semse has struggled to raise and feed her three daughters. She received no government support and survived on the aid received from the city council and from holiday gifts from generous neighbors. Her family has absolutely nothing but a poor shelter.

I remember Semse and her daughters because they were the first Iraqi family to receive humanitarian aid from ADRA. She showed up with a daughter at the distribution point yesterday and profusely thanked ADRA for their assistance.

When I think of the many poor families in Tel Afar, and the villages around Iraq who desperately await help, I think of her. Her story of pain and struggle is an urgent plea to the world to help Iraqis in any way they can. But her story is also one that gives me courage as I think of how God eased her pain and struggle through the help ADRA brought to her, her children and many others in that region.

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:16, KJV)

When I went to pick up the children registered for our summer camp, I was surprised to see only one child, Ankhbayar, and his mother waiting for me. I was expecting 15 children. Confused, I visited the homes of the other registered children to find out what was going on. It was there I learned that when the other children found out Ankhbayar had been selected for the camp, they thought the project was only for “problem” children.

I quickly explained the goal of our camp and, by the end of the visits, all the original participants agreed to come to the camp.

On the first day, Ankhbayar was so happy. However, he started arguing and having many problems with his friends and the staff. During the hike on the fourth, fifth, and sixth day of the camp, I talked with him and listened to him carefully. Through tears he admitted, “People think I’m always naughty and make problems all the time. My parents are divorced. My father has a very bad reputation. Everybody looks at me like I am a stranger.”

This was the turning point for Ankhbayar as he was so happy that someone had listened to him. He set a goal to change himself and we saw big improvements in his behavior after this.

At the end of the camp he was quite tearful. He told me his mother would like to meet with me. When we met, I told her about his successful participation at our camp. Ankhbayar looked very proud.

At a one-month follow-up meeting, the deputy director of Ankhbayar’s school said, “I heard many good stories about your camp, especially about Ankhbayar. He is now a better student.”

At that moment I was really proud and impressed with the work I am able to do through ADRA, as our team had taught young people how to live a better way. Just as Christ didn’t turn the children away, ADRA, too, holds out its arms to children to bring healing, compassion and growth to their lives.

"They replied, ‘Let us start rebuilding.’ So they began this good work." Nehemiah 2:18 (NIV)

The dream of a lifetime was realized when I traveled with my husband to visit ADRA projects in Africa. Rwanda is lush and green, with crops growing on every available piece of land—even the small mountains are terraced!

After a long, winding, and scary drive one morning, we arrived at Mugonero Hospital, beautifully situated above Lake Kivu. To the right of the hospital stand guest rooms with a hospital chapel in front and doctors’ residences to the side. The entire campus looks out over an incredible view.

But I learned a hard lesson about outward appearances.

As I walked, I came to a brick and iron fence. The simple sign proclaimed, “Innocent victims of April 1994 Genocide.” Thousands of bodies are buried in a mass grave—mothers, fathers, children, and grandparents had been robbed of their chance to live.

A little while later I walked into the hospital chapel. Five simple wood coffins are the only furniture in the building. Each is filled with partial remains of some of the thousands of people who lost their lives in a mass slaughter in this very church on a Saturday afternoon.

Gutted, the walls and ceilings of the guest rooms still display the scars of bullets and machetes. The rage fueling the genocide scarred the hospital, too. Windows and doors were broken, with most electrical wiring and plumbing ripped out.

As I ached inside and tears flowed out of my eyes, I gave thanks for those who have gone above the call of duty to restore healing in this beautiful, yet grief-laden area. In 1996 a team of volunteers from Canada spent six weeks putting the building back in working order. Patients have been cared for since then. Regular staff training and improvements continue due to the dedicated efforts of Dr. Gerson Araujo and his wife Arleide.

While the memories of war are still very evident, I see love in action.

Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. (Matthew 15: 29-30, NIV)

At the leprosy commune in Khokana, Nepal many eyes are blind, inflamed and infected. Eyelids are devoid of reflex. A special eye team has come with an aircraft specially fitted to perform eye surgery and diagnostic procedures.

The surgeon, a compassionate gentleman from Great Britain, carefully and gently looks into each eye of the patient, as some two hundred wait their turn. Some are told nothing can be done, the damage is beyond repair. For others, simple care and a little bottle of "Liquid Tears" would be enough to lubricate their eyes and maintain vision. If only we could put forward a hand, and do it again, like our Lord.

Anxiously one patient pushes forward and, with obvious despair, shows us his rotting, aching tooth and pleads for relief. But our time has gone and the team must move on.

We reach our vehicle and a mother pulls us to the hut nearby. On a mat is a girl of about 12 years of age near death. The eye team examines her and recommends she be transferred to a hospital immediately.

Although at the end of a long day, we drive to the hospital. Quickly the doctor starts an IV and drug treatment. The diagnosis: Typhoid fever. Leaving the young girl in capable hands we head home.

But what about the man with tooth pain? We can't leave him. We started back to the commune and found him huddled in a corner. He seems bewildered that we remember him and returned so late at night. The tooth is extracted, and pain killing tables take their effect. He can sleep tonight. A welcome smile is good any time, but especially from a man who'd been in agony with a rotting tooth. We rejoice knowing that "The Lord has done it again."

Two days later the medical director of ORBIS rang our ADRA office to say they are willing to send a team of doctors to the commune to help. It is a miracle. "Thank you, Lord, for doing it again."

Our girl at the hospital is showing signs of improvement. Her mother grabs our hands as we leave the bedside and breaks down with emotion. Her face radiates joy and thankfulness. "You have done it again, Lord."

It only takes a willing servant and miracles can be seen. "Do it again, Lord." Many more need to see your healing hand. Let your miracles of mercy never end.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of shadow and death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." Psalm 23:4 (KJV)

We were on our way to Tipo, a distant Cambodian village where security had not always been the best. Issuing all the needed security clearances, the District Leader assured me that the Khmer Rouge had not been in the area for a long time. Nevertheless, I felt uneasy and irritated with our police escort who went ahead, rather than accompany us.

When we arrived in Tipo, the local clinic workers already had distributed vitamin A. After discussion, the ADRA team decided to distribute vitamin A at nearby Samroung Village, the poorest village in the area. Then the local health worker asked us to check a few people. As the examinations began, I took the opportunity to explain to the villagers that vitamin 'A' helps overcome night blindness, prevents childhood blindness, and protects against diarrhea and respiratory disease.

As I was teaching, I noticed something strange. The people were too silent, listening too intently. That had never happened before. Cambodians keep up a running commentary among themselves whenever any of us teach. This time no one talked about my white skin or my "beautiful" nose. "Lord," I asked silently, "Is there a special reason why these people need to hear my health information?"

When I finished, they stood unmoving and still silent.

Seeing some men in the group smoking, I jumped into one my favorite topics. When I finished that lesson, my team members said, "Cheryl, there's not enough time to go to Samroung Village. Let's just go to a small village on the way back."

At the next village the people swarmed around us, chattering among themselves like every other normal group of Cambodian villagers.

We finished that trip and continued our normal ADRA routines. Some time later, one of the health team workers rushed up. "Cheryl!" she exclaimed. "Remember our trip to Tipo? That same day the Khmer Rouge attacked Samroung Village and killed two people." She paused briefly, "The only reason we didn't go that day was because you taught too long."

Realization came as a whisper, and a sense of awe filled me.

“Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and wateched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on’.” Mark 12:41-44 (NIV)

When we visited a project, a persistent old woman insisted on talking to us. The translator told us she was 92 years old and showed us an orange that she held in her hand. Then she told us about her lifelong dream.

“Since I was 6 years old I wanted to try this fruit. One time I saw a rich man eating it, and I had continued to wonder what it was. When I was 10, I learned this fruit was called an “orange.” I still had not tried it. We had to work hard and could not afford even one orange because it costs as much as a month’s worth of flour. Then WWII came. Of course, we could not think of this fruit at that time. After the war, it was a hard time. We could not get bread and were eating potato skins and certainly no oranges. During Soviet times it was a bad fruita fruit of rich people. I worked all of my life on a farm collective.

“Regretfully my husband and two sons have died, so now I am alone. I was planning to die this winter for I had no way to heat my house, much less to get any food. I could not believe it when I found an orange in food from ADRA.

“Now I can die happy.”

She had waited a week and a half for the ADRA workers to come so she could say “thank you.” Then she cut the orange in four parts and shared it with me, our translator and another person with us. We told her that the orange was hers, but she would not let us refuse it. We had to eat it with her.

After that we bought five kilos of oranges and gave them to her. The next day we heard from the project director that she had divided those oranges with all the pensioners and handicapped that attended the soup kitchen so that each got a little bit of orange.

He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. ~Deuteronomy 10:18 (RSV)

In the summer of 1999, just over a year after we arrived in Kyrgyzstan, we received a shipment of more than 7,000 new winter coats from AmeriCares.

One of the sites we distributed them to was in Talas Oblast, the most western province of Kyrgyzstan. It has a lot of high mountains and is seriously under-served because of the difficulty of traveling there.

During the second day of distribution we were in the city of Talas distributing to pensioners, disabled adults, residents of a psychiatric institution, and those in a local hospital. At the hospital, we began handing out about 130 coats. Mr. Ashuraliev of the non-governmental organization (NGO) “Tilek,” began calling the names of the recipients. Near the end, one very elderly-looking babushka (pronounced BAH’ bash-ka) came for her coat. She began crying loudly as we gave her the coat, and speaking very fast in Russian. When I asked for translation, the translator and Mr. Ashuraliev were very embarrassed. I finally got them to translate her words: “I don’t want an old coat... I need food. I’m hungry! I can’t eat a coat!”

From that moment, I began to think of development in terms of what the people see as their needs and priorities. Yes, the winter weather is very cold there. Yes, they do need coats. But what good is a coat if they have no food? We gave the woman the coat, and I also gave her 200 som (about US$10) and all the local currency I had. That should have provided her with food for at least a month, if she had no other expenses, but I always suspected that she ended up selling the coat for food later.

Later, ADRA opened a “home kitchen” in Talas to provide hot meals at least 5 days per week to the very poor, pensioners, invalids, orphans and street children. That kitchen is still open, but will most likely be closing early in 2002, when the funding runs out. It costs about $120/month to keep a kitchen open, including ADRA’s overhead costs for management and supervision. We pray that God will help us find a way to continue to care for these people.

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction . . .” James 1:27

It is very small. Just twelve feet square, having three rooms and a path to an outdoor toilet. There is no stove to cook on or table on which to prepare food. The only furniture is a hint of a bed—a sheet of corrugated cardboard leaning against the wall.

The lady of the house is Maria. She has three children—Hilda, 16, Louis Henrique, 9 and Cindy Carolina, 4. Maria’s mother, Victoria, lives there, too. She is 69. The years rest heavily on her wrinkled but smiling face.

Not long before my visit, Walter Britton, ADRA Honduras country director, had found them huddled between two shacks. He had no money in the ADRA budget to help, but decided on his own to raise the money required to construct this small house. After leveling the ground on a rather steep hillside, they poured the concrete floor, laid up the block walls, and poured bond posts and beams in the corners and along the wall top. Then attached a simple corrugated metal roof. Finally Maria and her family had a home.

When we arrived at her home, I had already eaten most of my sack lunch but had a packet of m&m’s, a package of cookies, and a sack of individually wrapped chocolates with me. I handed it to the grandmother to share with the little family. Victoria and Louis smiled at the small gesture as though it was a real treasure. That was reward enough for me.

Our group was silent as we drove to the airport on our way to the comfort of our own homes, which suddenly seemed too large, and our ‘needs’ much less.

I remind myself that seven out of 10 people on this planet live in sub-standard housing, most of which would make Maria’s small shelter seem like a mansion. I’m also reminded that, “Love to God is shown by how we treat others,” (1 John 4:20) and that “ If a man…loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”

Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Proverbs 3:27 (NIV)

The standard of living usually decreases when one works as a volunteer in a developing country. Having running water or hot water is not a given when living in one room with the bathroom in the backyard. There might not be any decent cooking facilities. Telephone lines, including cell phones and e-mail, might be far away. Electricity is definitely not available 24 hours a day.

However, consider one of my days. A large number of people are gathered at the temple ground. They have elected eight to a “Village Development Committee.” Now they will identify types of problems and determine solutions. They need rice for planting new crops because flooding wiped out their last crop. The roads are in bad shape, especially during the rainy season. The school needs more teachers. Health problems include respiratory infections and diarrhea. With a central role in this process, ADRA provides facilitators, advisors, and funding.

That afternoon I visit another village. Once a month ADRA distributes food in cooperation with the World Food Program. I give soy/corn powder to pregnant women and children under five years old. Other ADRA workers and village volunteers hand out oil, sugar, and rice to replace crops destroyed in last year’s flood.

At the health center, a group of traditional birth attendants (TBA), trained by ADRA in safe delivery methods, are gathered for their monthly meeting. Most women deliver their babies at home under the care of a TBA. TBAs are highly respected in their communities, and the skill is often passed from mother to daughters.

I am saddened to see the unequal distribution of resources in this world. Developed countries struggle with illnesses and deaths related to lifestyle while developing countries struggle with illnesses and deaths related to lack of clean water, basic health care, and food.

Since my arrival, my days have been filled with new, exciting, and meaningful experiences. Moving across cultures is not always easy. The “rules” are different, and adjustments are many. However, I find that I thrive on meeting new people, learning about a new culture and language, and helping people that are less fortunate than I am.

"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." Psalm 24:1 (NIV)

Several associates and I drove to the remote village of Ak Shirak at an elevation of 10,400 feet in the Tien Shan Mountains of Kyrgyzstan, to do field research on a proposed program to improve the health care for mothers and children in that impoverished area.

Without our four-wheel drive vehicle the trip would have been impossible. We climbed through 32 hairpin turns toward a 13,260-foot pass. From there the road deteriorated. Cut from the mountainside, it was little wider than our vehicle.

Fording each of four streams, we plowed ice with the bumper. We crossed five dry glacial riverbeds. Each time our translator walked ahead to find a way through the two-foot ridges of gravel. Blowing snow made the road edge difficult to see. It took three hours and ten minutes to drive the 56 miles separating the last two villages.

If grass grew on the moon, even sparsely, it would look like the valley of Ak Shirak. The people had no gardens, the weather being too cold and the soil too poor to grow anything but grass. Even grass doesn't do very well! The inhabitants raise sheep and yaks, and eat mainly mutton, coarse bread, yak butter, currants, and other wild berries.

When we arrived, the people welcomed us and shared what they had. That night rolled up in blankets on the floor of an earthen-walled home I didn’t sleep well. The floor was too hard, my feet were too cold, and my digestive system was rebelling.

Disturbing questions penetrated my mind like the cold pushing through the wall. How could they live in such a bleak and barren land? What difference could I make?

Given the harsh environment, I expected the people to be miserable complainers. However, they seemed happy and content, showing their quick smiles and gracious hospitality. They spoke with pride of the 60-student village school.

ADRA is sensitive to each constituency's individual needs. We accept community members as partners and work with them to make that home a healthier, happier place.

"…if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday." ~Isaiah 58:10 (NIV)

It’s easy to relate to darkness. It’s the thing we feared as a child and the feeling that sometimes envelopes us as adults. For the past year and a half, here in the United States, we’ve experienced darkness as a nation. We grieved the loss of friends and neighbors caught unexpectedly in the crossfire of terrorism one dark September morning, and we’ve lived through the darkness of uncertainty and insecurity that followed as we were caught up in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’m sure you’ve faced your personal darkness as well. Nationally and personally we long for the light. Even as we emerge from the winter months into spring, we’re reminded of the joy of longer days of sunshine. The light seems to bring life to the soul.

God knew we’d face times of darkness and gave us a road map with ironic directions to emerge from our darkness into light—spend yourself on behalf of the hungry and others who are oppressed.

If you’re hurting and stumbling through the darkness of a difficult experience in your own life, reaching out to help others and to better the world may seem impossible; but doing so brings the discovery that the healing you need comes in great measure as you help others.

There are many people around you and around the world who need help. For some it’s your time, a caring ear or your patience. For millions in ADRA’s world it’s food, medical aid, empowerment, shelter, and knowledge.

I’ve seen the unveiling of dignity in the eyes of women in Bangladesh empowered by ADRA to better care for their children and provide an income for their families. I’ve seen the sparkle in the eyes of children in Madagascar as they eat the lunch provided by ADRA at their school. Once lethargic, they now eagerly learn. I’ve seen the glow around a father in Nicaragua who’s learned new farming techniques and received seeds from ADRA. It’s the glow of hope for the next harvest, which will provide for his family. I’ve witnessed their emergence to light all because someone cared enough to spend themselves in support of ADRA’s mission.

If you’re searching for light, consider spending yourself on behalf of the hungry and oppressed that ADRA seeks to minister to every day. It’ll light up your life and theirs.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans . . ." (James 1:27, NIV)

Over the eight years that I have worked in Lithuania and the 26 years that I have lived, I have never received such fulfillment and joy as I have these last two Christmases.

During the summer of 2001, I received a letter from ADRA Germany asking about the conditions of the orphanages in Lithuania. I made a few phone calls and visited a number of orphanages. What I found was heart breaking! I found that many of the orphanages in Lithuania don't have enough money to pay workers, to feed and clothe the children, for medicines, or to pay utilities.

I sent back a report to ADRA Germany and they responded and told me that they wanted to send 900 Christmas gifts for the children.

This summer I received another letter from ADRA Germany saying that 2001’s project was such a success, they wanted to do it again. Their goal this year was 1,500 packages. Finally the day before the truck arrived I saw the faxed paperwork and realized that I needed to do some more calling because they didn’t send 1,500 Christmas packages, but 2,460 packages!

I cannot explain the joy and happiness that was on the face of each child when they received their packages. For most of them, these were the only gifts they received. One orphanage director told us, that day she had been praying that God would send someone to help and we showed up.

The above text from the epistle of James is a text that I encourage all who read this to try. God has a thousand ways to reach hearts! These children need a friend and that is what ADRA Lithuania is trying to become.

“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Eph 5:20 (KJV)

The roads in city were well-marked and well-maintained. But we were heading out of the city to a little town called Zapallal, Peru. It was the home of 13-year-old Ronald. The roads quickly turned bumpy and dust billowed behind us as we drove up the steep incline to his home. As we stepped inside and greeted his family, his story unfolded…

For almost two years, Ronald had slept in parks and stole from people to survive. Not a typical life for someone just 10 years old, but quite normal for him and the thousands of other street kids in Lima, Peru who have a poor family life or have become too much of an economic burden for their parents.

Not only was it a hard life, but a lonely one as well, and Ronald missed his family. By chance, he stumbled into the town center one day where ADRA staff were meeting with kids. They had come to extend friendship, let them draw and talk. Ronald soon found the family he had been missing.

ADRA quickly put its arms around him. They found his mother and enrolled mother and child in workshops that help restore family values and teach skills to help families live together peacefully. Then, when Ronald was about to be reintegrated back into his home, ADRA also provided his mother with a loan for a small business to help ease the economic burden of having another child back in the home.

ADRA Peru staff have worked long, hard, and compassionately with Ronald and his family and the love, respect and appreciation the family feels for ADRA is apparent in the warmth of their eyes and embrace.

As the mother, child, and ADRA staff shared Ronald’s story there was much thanksgiving for what ADRA had done in their lives. Ronald’s mother has used the ADRA loan to open a tamale shop and his brother sells paintings to help support this newly-reunited family.

As my visit came to an end, I bought one of his brother’s painting, to support the family, and to remember my visit. I hope to frame it and put it in my office someday so that all the ADRA staff and visitors can read the words, “Thanks for working with my family” penned to ADRA at the bottom of the painting by his brother.

As I sat in their home, listening to their giving of thanks to ADRA, I was reminded that their thanks is meant to be extended to a much larger circle of people than just me. For instance, all the ADRA staff who had worked so hard to plan, coordinate and implement the street kid program in Peru. And you. However you support ADRA—either through prayers or financial gifts—you should knows those words were penned to you as well. And most importantly, God. For the leadership, guidance and blessings he bestows on ADRA’s ministry in Peru and around the globe.

So as this holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated by our nation, I share the story of the painting with penned thanks from Ronald’s family. Thanks for being a reason there is thanks giving in ADRA’s world.

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (NKJV)

Recently I had the amazing opportunity to visit the country of Myanmar (Burma). Myanmar is unique in that the lower part of the country around the capital, Yangon, is wet. The upper part of the county, around Bagan, is desert and referred to as the dry-zone.

Life is tough in the dry-zone of Myanmar. Every day community members walk miles to collect water for that day’s use. They asked ADRA to help them find water and to dig wells near their villages so they can use the time spent getting water on other vital tasks such as gathering firewood for cooking and finding food for their families. ADRA is now partnering with them to bring clean water to their communities.

Others, laboring feverishly over hot open fires to make Jaggary (sugar lumps), asked ADRA to supply them with energy-saving stoves to help them increase their production of jaggary. This provides them with increased income and, in turn, a better way of life.

Day in and day out the people living in the dry-zone region toil and struggle to survive. They labor for pennies a day to try and make ends meet and usually the ends don’t meet.

My visit was a great inspiration to me as I witnessed the impact ADRA is making and has made in many villages. I felt blessed and honored to visit with the people of Myanmar and to learn that ADRA is making a difference in their lives.

Please pray for the people in Myanmar in their daily struggle to survive. Please pray, too, for ADRA and its staff as they continue to work in this country.

“Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;… I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’…And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’” Matthew 25: 34, 36, 40 (RSV)

It was another sunny day in Mongolia, despite being well below freezing. Llewellyn Juby, the ADRA Mongolia country director; Tuul, the Project Manager; and I were on our way to the Maandt Mental Hospital.

As we pulled up to the dilapidated buildings, I felt hesitant. We never knew exactly what or who we’d find at Maandt. A local newspaper had recently reported that over the last two years, of the 150 people who had been sent to Maandt,108 have died.

Our first stop was our kindergarten where twelve children attend—children who had been discarded by society due to extreme poverty, physical deformities, or epilepsy. To supplement the meager diet of the mental hospital, our teachers provided children with multi-vitamins. The walls were brightly papered with students’ work. There were pink animals shaped from play-dough by the window. The teacher, Tserentdolgor, was in the middle of teaching numbers to the younger students, and the assistant was teaching the Cyrillic alphabet to the older students. The horrors of the mental hospital seemed far away.

The teacher showed us individual student’s work, the children sang for us, and then one of the older students read to us. They were very enthusiastic about the teaching materials that Tuul had prepared—resources and toys created out of things that we would throw away in my home of Australia.

Bracing ourselves for what we would find, we went to the mental hospital wards. About fifty people were crowded into a small room. Despite it being winter, windows were broken, and the inmates were barely clothed. As we distributed warm clothes, people desperately called out our names, reaching for the donated clothing.

Our kindergarten project is continuing to work through the administration of the hospital and the Ministry of Health. It seems such a slow and wearying process at times. Yet we are here as development workers, trying to work through institutions and set structures. It is easy to be discouraged, and many of us lose sleep wondering what more we can do.

Fortunately, many positive things have happened in the hospital to improve the conditions and treatment of patients since ADRA starting working there in August. The staff is also becoming very positive about the kindergarten, and starting to realize the potential of the children. Nurses are now taking a personal interest in the children and are requesting training from ADRA staff.

Please continue to pray for ADRA Mongolia and the people we work with. The international motto for ADRA is ‘to change the world…one life at a time.’ Who knew that it would start with mine?

To be continued… Visit this site again to hear the story of Tsogoo, one of Mongolia’s “invisible” children.

"Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body'" Matthew 26:26 (NIV)

The restless, whining youngsters had runny noses, discharge flowing from eyes, sores on little legs, skinny arms, and protruding bellies. Their mother, Marta, was pregnant and nursed a little one. She seemed irritable and frustrated, unable to control the children.

Marta’s husband Jacinto worked far away and was gone for many days at a time. The family lived in a one-room shanty on a piece of land belonging to someone else, in return for guarding the owner’s land. They could eat leftover produce such as cooking bananas, yucca, and some citrus fruit. Clearly their diet was inadequate.

The community in general distrusted outsiders so I gently tried to befriend Marta. I knew better than to offer vitamins or medications. Finally, I began sending beans and vegetables to her via others. After several weeks, a neighbor told me that Marta let the food spoil. I was shocked.

Marta accepted my greetings and my stories, but she would not accept my food. She could not understand that I meant her well, hoping to improve her family's life, that I had nothing "up my sleeve."

Time passed. My husband and I moved when he became Director for ADRA Peru. I often thought of the community we'd left behind and prayed for our former neighbors.

Then ADRA started soup kitchens to feed needy children, including one in Marta's neighborhood. I wondered how many in the community were responding to this service.

On a brief visit to the jungle, I observed Marta and her family. In place of tears and whimpers, I saw smiles. Every eye was bright and clear. Arms, though small, were fuller and not a draining sore on any of them. The youngsters’ abdomens showed they’d been deparasitized.

The difference? Marta was working at the soup kitchen, so she and the children were eating nutritious meals. In addition, ADRA gave them bags of food.

What she would not take from me, she would gladly accept from ADRA.

"For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat." 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (NIV)

In the heart of La Paz, Bolivia, women in bowler hats crowd the streets, wearing up to 12 colorful skirts for warmth and carrying great bundles on their backs, often including a baby. Many school-aged children stand by the road, hawking a variety of trinkets and snacks, helping their parents earn enough money to feed the family.

On a tour of ADRA projects, we visited the Ackokalla Road food-for-work program. Using only picks and shovels, it took 100 men 100,000 hours to construct. Although only 3.6 miles (almost 6 kilometers) long, the road is tremendously important because it connects an isolated area with a market where local farmers sell their produce.

At a mother-child health clinic, almost 40 Aymara Indian women, many with babies, crowd into a tiny one-room house. The women come twice a week to learn cooking, childcare, and entrepreneurial skills.

In another section of La Paz, Dr. Gabrielle Castro uses only the most basic dental equipment and supplies to care for the people who crowd her tiny office. These people, who live on the Altiplano, are unbelievably poor even by Bolivia’s standards. Their small houses rest on the windswept plain or cling to the mountainside. No one has electricity; and people must carry their water, sometimes from great distances. Almost nothing grows on the Altiplano during much of the year. There are few trees, fewer flowers, and little grass.

At the bottom of a mountain we walked across a footbridge ADRA had built across the Undwavi, a big river that boils along the valley floor. Not far away is a school ADRA built. At the mountain’s foot, the climate was totally different than in the city. Seemingly in the middle of a vast uninhabited jungle, we were surprised to see about 60 students. One group of kids played soccer while another practiced their drums and panpipes.

It was good to see them in school, doing what all kids should do, but many here cannot. In Bolivia people assume responsibility for their own hunger early. Thanks to ADRA, at least some have the chance to be children a little longer.

-- Jeannette Johnson as told to Celeste Perrino Walker

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:16, KJV)

We rolled up in a hired car outside the flat roofed Ulaanbaatar Children’s Sanitarium so badly in need of a coat of paint on the outside, but so clean and neat on the inside.

We walked into the room on the left where 37 toddlers played on the floor on a big, clean nine by twelve rug. Bright expectant faces looked up at us. I bent down and picked up a fellow who clung to me and was soon happy as a lark. I then bent down to help a second one with a shoe. Soon two of the other project staff had their arms full of kids, too.

These children are the poorest of the poor. Little misshapen legs told of malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies. These 37 babies had been identified in ADRA’s Community Health Project run in the ger communities of the poorest districts in Ulaanbaatar. They were given a chance to be brought to this Sanitarium each weekday. Daily, each child is given a bath and leg massages. Best of all, they are given three nutritious meals with fortified juice and six biscuits per day containing the necessary vitamins for normal growth. In a warm environment they jostled with each other for the few toys available and the loving attention of the caretakers that were spread so thinly.

As I witnessed the tremendous impact ADRA has had on these young lives, it encouraged me. I rode away from the sanitarium so happy to be part of ADRA. What would the results have been if we had turned our backs on these children? The words of Jesus came to mind, “Suffer the little ones to come to Me, and forbid them not.”

“But the needy will not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish.” Psalm 9:18

As I walked through the market, I couldn’t avoid looking at them. They were everywhere. The lucky ones could stand; the less fortunate dragged themselves down the narrow aisles of the market and through the mud, trash and filth that littered the ground. A few were simply blind, some were crippled and others had lost limbs to one of the many landmines that litter the countryside.

In developing countries, there are few resources available to assist the disabled. To survive, they must beg. I remembered Jesus healing people just like these in His time, but even though my heart stirred with compassion, I wondered, “How could I help them?”

I don’t have the answer to that question yet, but I do know that when we look upon a world that suffers through wars, natural disasters, famines and a host of other ills, it isn’t enough to shake our heads and move on. Our faith moves us to reach out to others with Christ’s love even if it requires sacrifice on our part. When we act on behalf of someone else, our faith becomes an active, living part of our lives. It is then, in those moments when we truly become the reflection of Christ to others.

Heavy, humid air enveloped me as I walked onto the tarmac at Vientienne airport, in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR). En route to Luang Nam Tha province, tucked into the northernmost corner of Lao, and landlocked against China, I climbed the stairs and scrunched down into my seat on a tiny, 12-seater plane.

The aerial view showed terraced rice paddy fields dotted with men, women, and children—knee deep in muddy water, and backs bent in the heavy labor demanded of planting rice. The rainy season had arrived early, leaving the land muddy, but the vegetation green and lush. It is here that generations in Luang Nam Tha have labored valiantly for their survival.

ADRA is present in this “land of friendship” because 40 percent of its nearly six million population live below the poverty line—73 percent receive less than $2 per day in income. Only 37 percent have access to safe drinking water and less than half the population have access to sanitation facilities. Many are hanging on, to economic and physical survival by a thread. Literally.

Ironically, it’s with a thread that ADRA is reversing those statistics. The villagers of Luang Nam Tha are widely known for their production and weaving of natural silk. Through moriculture (mulberry cultivation) and sericulture (the commercial breeding of silkworms) projects, ADRA aims to increase household income, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and provide employment for women while maintaining and reviving local tradition, identity, and pride.

As we slowly edged our truck up a steep, muddy road, I found Onkeo, a 33-yearold mother of four, weeding her mulberry plantation. She courageously tried a new hybrid of mulberry saplings that ADRA introduced. Feeding her worms the new mulberry leaves and using a new “out of pot” technique for pulling thread and a spinning wheel, has helped to make her thread stronger, thicker, and less sticky.

ADRA trained her in new silkworm rearing techniques and mulberry planting, fertilizing, and pruning techniques then gave her a loan for fencing around her plantation and the saplings. ADRA also provided loans for silkworm cabinets that keep insects out of the silkworm rearing baskets. Onkeo’s family income has increased due to the higher quality of thread, enabling her to meet her family’s needs and save money for a paddy-tiller.

Just before leaving, I stopped at the ADRA Training Center where women gather to learn the new silkworm rearing and weaving techniques. A woman was hunched over a loom, busily stamping out an intricate silk scarf. The loom ADRA is training her on is more efficient and offers greater pattern variety than the traditional loom. On hand is an ADRA weaving trainer to ensure that materials produced are high quality, and an ADRA marketing manager who cultivates markets for the women’s silk products.

ADRA is also targeting vital health needs in this province. Through the Luang Nam Tha Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project (LWP), ADRA is constructing latrines and gravity flow water systems, including maintenance training and a maintenance fund.

Targeting the same communities as the LWP, ADRA’s Responsive Education and Action for Community Health (REACH) project is reaching 12 villages with health education and a mobile clinic. Village health volunteers are trained to offer basic medical treatment and conduct health education activities in their villages. An ADRA-supplied medical kit enables villagers to purchase medical supplies quickly from the village health volunteer, creating a revolving drug fund.

These health projects are benefiting more than 3,000 people like Boua Kham, an ADRA village health volunteer. She has a deep passion for her work. Boua’s given birth to seven children, but she lost four to preventable causes. “My children would probably be alive today if I had known what ADRA has taught me,” she said sadly. She is an avid promoter of ADRA’s “3 Cleans!” campaign: eat clean, drink clean, and live clean. Every day, her work is dedicated to preventing other mothers from the loss she has borne.

In Lao, lives once knotted in poverty and illness now weave dreams of a healthy, prosperous and educated future because of ADRA. But more remains to be done. Many others wish to participate in the silkworm rearing and mulberry plantation project and many villages desperately need health assistance. “For many communities ADRA is their only hope,” the ADRA health staff stated. “When we have knowledge that can save a life, and the power to share it, we have a responsibility to share it.”

It’s a responsibility that ADRA and its staff carry courageously. It’s a responsibility we see demonstrated in the compassion and generosity of the faithful donors who make all of this possible.

And with your help today, ADRA will be able to do more to make Boua’s words come true for other mothers. “My children would probably be alive today if I had known what ADRA has taught me…”

Thank you for donating today!

There was one sheikh and Mosque speaker in Baqim, who was against the midwife training ADRA, was conducting. He told the people the training was dangerous for the girls and that it was against their habits, customs and the Islamic religion. He refused to let his family receive services from the trainers and trainees.

After months of midwife training, the trainers were called for a home delivery. They went to the house and delivered the baby, providing all the services the mother needed. The new mother happened to be the sheikh’s niece. Sometime afterwards, the Sheikh attended a meeting in the training center with the government health director.

When the meeting was over, he asked the trainers if he could see the training material. He was given the training posters and curriculum and all other information he requested. The sheikh apologized and agreed that the girls should participate in the ADRA training program.

The sheikh started speaking in the mosque about the advantages of the ADRA Midwife Training Center and how ADRA is helping the district by teaching the girls and helping the people in the areas of reproductive health services.

One of the Community Midwife trainees shared with me how taking the ADRA Midwife Training had impacted and changed her life for the better, she said: Before I attended this training I was very shy, I could not talk to other people. I started the training, but my family and some of my neighbors were against me. After a while I was able to share some health education with a family member who was a very heavy smoker and had had a small baby, which was malnourished. I asked her to breast-feed the baby and stop smoking. I told her about the risks to her baby and herself if she continued smoking. She listened to me and told her sisters and others, they too stopped smoking and started asking me for advice. They also started taking better care of their children. Now my neighbors come to me for medications or counseling, they trust me and encourage me.

I could not believe myself after the training, I felt like I was dreaming. I can’t believe that I can talk with others, and give counseling to them for family planning. The difference between how I was then and how I am now and the confidence I have gained, is because of the training I received.

The ADRA canoe glided through the mangrove forest carrying me to one of many destinations on this journeyNggatokae Island. Intense, natural beauty grows rampant with lush tropical forest and wild orchids blooming everywhere. Walking towards Somboro village, the wind increased, bringing some respite from the hot and humid weather. But also the first drops of rain. I was glad to step inside the home of Illene Kenneth and listen as she spilled out her story. Outside her simple home, the rain poured heavily.

“Name blong me hem Illene Kenneth. Me likem for talem you how ADRA hem chagem life blong me. My name is Illene Kenneth. I want to tell you how ADRA changed my life.

“I live in the village of Somboro on Nggatokae Island in the Solomon Islands. My island is in the largest lagoon in the world, Marovo Lagoon. It is very beautiful here, but we have many hardships.

“Although I live a routine life nowpreparing meals for my four boys, washing clothes, gardening, collecting food, having worship, preparing dinner for the family, and putting the kids to bed it hasn’t always been like this. Not so long ago, I spent two hours each day getting water.

“The only water supply was more than a mile away. And I made four trips every day just to get the basic water we needed. In our culture, drawing water is considered women’s work, so my boys couldn’t help me carry water. I have no girls to help, so the burden was mine alone.

“Those four daily trips were just for the water we needed to drink and cook. With the water so far away, I often didn’t have the energy to get enough water to wash clothes as often as I should. Some days we ran out of water at night. Not wanting to make a trip in the dark, we didn’t clean up after dinner. This drew flies and insects to our home. We weren’t able to bathe every day, even the children.

“My children were often sick with many types of diseases. My boys had diarrhea and all types of boils, rashes, and skin infections. So did most of the children and people in my village. Those things affected us greatly, especially for the mothers because the nearest health clinic is so far away. We tried our best to survive, but it was so difficult.”

Will you help women and children like these whose endless search for water is the difference between life and death?

Illene’s eyes lit up as she continued her story, “When ADRA came, things changed for the better. Not just for me, but for my whole village. Our village impressed ADRA because we have a high school here that is a community initiative. It is not a government high school or a private high school. The community started it and keeps it running. ADRA could see that we are a very motivated village, but needed help. They talked with us about our needs and everyone agreed a new water source was a priority. Together, we decided to install a new water system for our village and high school.

“We all wanted to help, but couldn’t afford the equipment for a water system. ADRA paid for those, but we gave what we could — our labor. We worked together to carry equipment and parts along the five-mile route the water would run and dug trenches for the pipes.

“There are now many water pumps in my village. Now that we have a water supply and are able to wash more frequently, we are much healthier. It is a natural remedy for us just being able to wash and bathe our children. Not long after the water supply came, our boils, rashes, skin diseases, diarrhea, and sickness disappeared. That makes things easier. I am a great believer in clean water.”

Illene’s life had changed because she now has access to water that provides life, literally. ADRA’s development programs in the villages in the remote Solomon Islands are helping villagers create new futures for themselves and their children. Generations to come will remember ADRA’s name as the agency that gave them the promise of a brighter tomorrow.

Will you help ADRA change lives for more women and children?

“Now that I don’t have to spend two hours getting water every day, I have more time to spend working for my family and on other things like garden activities and keeping my home clean,” Illene continues.

“My children have more food because I now have time to plant my garden properly. This means that they also get better nutrition. I am also able to be more involved in the community. Each Tuesday, the women in our village meet together to learn new skills like sewing, traditional weaving, or other practical skills. Previously, we never had time to do this.

“ADRA is my partner and helps develop and improve my community. They worked together with us to improve our lives. It is like a burden has been lifted.” Leaving Somboro, our boat skimmed across Marovo Lagoon past countless other islands. I wondered how many more people lived in these places that also need clean water and improved health. Even though ADRA is changing hundreds of lives in the Solomon Islands through the 10 gravity-fed water systems that have already been installed, much more needs to be done.

Many more children are suffering from lack of clean water. Together, we can change that. With your help, ADRA can continue improving the lives of women like Illene and her family.

How many lives will you change today?

The hard-packed dirt floor, mud walls and dark shadows bore no resemblance to the way I’d imagined a room like this to be. Steady moans came from the young woman lying in the corner and only the traditional supplies of a cloth, razor blade, and wood shavings lay on the shelf nearby. It was hard to imagine that here a new life would be welcomed ... hopefully.

Will you help mothers like these?

Compared with the sterile, doctorand nurse-fi lled delivery rooms in my world, the two scenes couldn’t be more different. With the exception of one significant similarity. It’s embedded in the hearts of new mothers everywhere: the hope that their child will be healthy. The dream that their child’s life will be better than theirs. The desire to see their every aspiration met, their every dream come true and the wish that opportunity will meet their every ambition.

Stepping into that mud-walled world, life’s unfairness became painfully clear when I realized that for these woman—and for you and me—where we’re born heavily determines how or if we will live. The same is true of our children. And although it shouldn’t be, in Malawi and other developing countries, a healthy, opportunity-filled future remains unattainable for most.

You can help change that by partnering with ADRA!

More than 500,000 women die each year of pregnancy-related causes, Every Mother’s Wish 99 percent of them in the developing world. Malawi has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world—1,100 per 100,000 births. In the United States, that number is eight per 100,000. The infant mortality rate in Malawi is 120 deaths per 1,000 live births versus seven deaths per 1,000 live births here in the United States.

And even if an infant survives the birth, more than 10 percent of children born in Malawi will die before their first birthday, and about 19 percent will die before their fifth birthday-many from preventable causes, such as malnutrition and HIV and AIDS, including mother-to-child transmission.

Also severely encumbering a mother’s potential is the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Malawi. Of the 800,000 people living with HIV and AIDS in Malawi, more than half are women, and 40,000 of them are their children. Mothers have also had to leave behind an estimated cumulative number of 390,000 AIDS orphans.

I couldn’t help but see the conditions of their world juxtaposed against mine and felt their undoubted frustration as most of their dreams, and the opportunities every human being deserves, remained out of reach. Fortunately, they don’t stand alone.

Change this by partnering with ADRA’s ministry.

Will you?

Part of ADRA’s mission statement acknowledges the mutual dreams it shares with mothers by asserting that it will, "Facilitate the right and ability of all children to attain their full potential, and assist in assuring the child’s survival to achieve that potential." With that mission, ADRA could not stand idly by in Malawi.

Since 1991, ADRA’s comprehensive programs for men, women, and children in Malawi, funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), have targeted family planning, birth spacing, home-based care, HIV and AIDS and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in 22 of the 29 districts in Malawi. They provide training to community health workers and traditional birth attendants to promote healthy children and safe pregnancies.

For the scene I described earlier to happen to fewer women, ADRA trains health workers to refer high-risk pregnancies to clinics, to use gloves during delivery, and for each woman to provide their own razor blade to prevent the spread of AIDS during the delivery process. The most recent phase of this project, from 2001-2003, benefited 1.2 million people.

In Malawi, the HIV and AIDS epidemic can be overwhelming, but hope lies in that country’s children. ADRA’s Anti-AIDS clubs provide recreational activities, focus-group discussions, and materials about AIDS. ADRA also targets youth out-of-school with brochures, drama, small business skills training, and small loans for entrepreneurs who complete the training.

ADRA’s daily 15-minute radio program and weekly TV show, both titled, Why Are We Dying? address the cultural practices that spread the disease, reaching more people than our projects or staff could personally touch.

Malawians, like the 19 community health volunteers I met at the Chilipa Health Center, are working hard for their own future and their communities. Since 1996, ADRA has been here in the Zomba district where ADRA community health volunteers teach their neighbors about family planning, HIV and AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. They’re proud to announce that their infant mortality rate is dropping.

They also think of women differently now as they’ve learned that a healthy mother means a healthy child and a healthy community. “Our community can develop only if we are healthy,” recognized one health volunteer.

ADRA, in partnership with each community, is fighting valiantly to enable and preserve the health of children and youth as well as strengthen the rights and health of mothers in Malawi. But the task ahead remains heavy.

That’s where your donation makes the most impact.

Will you donate a generous gift today for mothers in Malawi and other developing countries where the promise of life is tenuous, at best?

Your gift will help provide the medical help and training needed to empower women to deliver healthy babies, and to make appropriate lifestyle choices to help prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

At this time of year as we celebrate “Mother’s Day” worldwide, remember the mothers of kindred spirits in Malawi. As you watch each step of your child’s or grandchild’s journey through life, and your dreams fulfilled as your children grow, eat bountifully, head off to school or walk down the aisle in marriage, remember that those dreams are dreams of the women in Malawi, too.

With your help, ADRA can continue fighting for every mother’s wish. How many mothers and children will you help today?