Mercy Ships: 2011 Field Service Announced in Sierra Leone

Testimony of a Former Sponsored Child

Hello! Happy 2010!

Having doubts of the impact of child sponsorhip? Take a few minutes and check this video out. It is a former sponsored child through Compassion International giving her testimony. Wow!

To see the video, click the title of this post or click here: Video

UN Cyber School Bus

This page has information that is especially suitable for kids to understand. Of course, it is not only for kids.  Here are some of the features available.

1. Against All Odds: "This interactive online game was created by UNHCR to increase students' awareness and knowledge about refugee situations by putting players in the position of a refugee."
2. Stop Disasters: "Learn how to respond to different disasters in this new simulation video game from UN/ISDR."
3. Food Force: "Play this popular video game on world hunger. Six different missions. For 8-13 year olds."
4. Flag Tag: Do you know the flags of the countries of the world?
5. PANWAPA: "...a new online world designed by Sesame Workshop to help young children develop skills needed to become global citizens."
6. Country-at-a-Glance

Poverty Small Group Curriculum

What Is Poverty?

Can you explain what poverty is? You have heard the word hundreds of times, no doubt. But do you know what it is? Take the time to read through this study, whether with a group or on your own. I will venture to say that you will most definitely learn something.

To give you a "sneak peak" of the sneak peak, I've included a quote from the first lesson:

Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, staff members at the Chalmers Center for Economic Development, have conducted an informal exercise in dozens of North American, middle-to-upper-class churches. “What is poverty?” they ask the church members. Fikkert and Corbett report that, without fail, congregants begin to list a lack of material goods like food, money, clean water, housing, and medicine as the symptoms of poverty. On the other hand, when over 60,000 people living in material poverty were asked how they would define poverty, the results were surprising: “While poor people mention having a
lack of material things, they tend to describe their condition in far more psychological and social terms. Poor people typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness,
humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness,” say Fikkert and Corbett.

Video: Lost Freetown

This is an interesting video I found on YouTube recently. It focuses on just some of the environmental problems in Freetown (capital of Sierra Leone) and how they affect the people living in Freetown right now and how they will continue to affect the lives of millions even more in future years. Forestry, climate change, water quality, health, sanitation, poverty....all related. I really appreciate that they interview Sierra Leoneans versus ONLY westerners.

I highly recommend watching it--it is about half hour long. Video: Lost Freetown

The tagline from the JourneyMan Youtube site for the video includes: "Sierra Leone is booming. In capital Freetown the population is rising and new homes spring up daily. But, like the 1950s sewage pipes, the city is creaking under the weight. How long before Freetown cracks?"

Joe singing at Liberty Baptist Church

Joe singing with Ruth & Naomi at one of the churches in Marshalltown, IA.

(Sorry for the shaky camera work and so many heads in the way!)

Goodsearch for Jonathan House!

First of all, sorry to anyone who received an update from the blog. There was code error (apparently?). Oooops.

Anyways...Goodsearch has been introduced before, but we can all use reminders, can't we?

For every (valid) search someone makes on behalf of a charity registered on Goodsearch, that search will earn about $0.01. According to the website, through the fiscal years of 2006, 2007 and 2008, each search actually earned 1.3 cents. But...1 cent still adds up! For instance, if 100 people each searched on Goodsearch twice a day, the estimated revenue would total about $730! If shopping online is something you're interested in, you can also "Goodshop" for Jonathan House with many different stores offering a portion of the sale to Jonathan House!

To date, since registration, Jonathan House supporters have earned $160.88 (JH started on Goodsearch in January 2007)! That's $160.88 that our kids and friends in Sierra Leone didn't have before.

In 2007, JH earned $77.39 with 5817 searches. The biggest month was the first--January--with 705 searches earning $9.45. Impressive!

Last year, in 2008, JH earned only $28.68 with 2336 searches. Our best month was February with 306 searches earning $3.93. Our weakest month was December with 95 searches earning $.95!

So far in 2009, JH has earned $8.61 with 861 searches and $4.00 through Shopping. Our best month so far this year was March with 225 searches earning $2.25. Our weakest month so far was June with only 43 searches! In July we've only searched 20 times, earning an entire 20 cents!

So here's your challenge....search! Of course, make it valid. Wondering about something? Search for it. Here's a link on Goodsearch with badges, banners, logos and a few other ways to communicate to others and spread the word. Do you have a blog? Facebook? Myspace? A website? Just some ideas....

Can we finish off 2009 strong? 5.5 months left!

Search search search away! :-)

What a GREAT Summer!

This has been a great summer for JCC!

• Mission One-by-One had a very productive trip to Jonathan House. They spent some intentional one-on-one time with several of the kids at the home and helping some of the foster care families out with service projects for one week. For the other week, they led a Bible school with children from the Torwama area. Looking forward to hearing more about this trip! Pray as the team members continue to acclimate to being home.
• There was another team that was gone for over a month who have also just returned in the last few days. I haven't heard much about this trip yet. It was made up of several young adults who were going to be working on various projects throughout the Bo area. Pray also as they acclimate to being home and all the "reverse culture shock" stuff and for their time of debrief.
• Christie is doing well in Sierra Leone in the 2nd month of her 15 month stay!
• Joe Freeman--He's on staff at JCC in Sierra Leone--is coming to visit Iowa for a month! His visit is highly anticipated! Pray for his travel and culture shock.
• Baby Alice--I haven't heard much except that she is a 2 year old who came to JCC within the last 2 months (?) but only weighed 10 pounds!!! Pray as she gains weight and develops without complications.
• Pray for Kayla as she will leave for the Philippines next month to start midwifery school. It is a two year program. After that she is planning on serving in Sierra Leone. She just came back on the 2nd team mentioned. Busy month for Kayla!

Well, I will leave it at that for now! I will post later about new hours for the store. If you would like to share a story with us, please email me at the address located to the right of the blog. If you find an interesting and relevant article, feel free to send that to me too!

Thankyou for your support of Jonathan House!

NYT Article: This Mom Didn't Have to Die

Great article! Actually I copied the entire article because it's just.....wow! There is a lot to think about. Also be sure to watch the video attached to the article. It actually shows hospitals in both Makeni and Bo (which is where the orphanage is, by the way).

Pray!! Many of our kids at JCC have parents who died in childbirth--either their own or a sibling's. Sadly, it is way too common in Sierra Leone. Pray for more health practitioners and specialists.

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On this trip through West Africa with my “win-a-trip” contest winner, I was reminded of one of the grimmest risks to human life here. Despite threats from warlords and exotic disease, it’s something even deadlier: motherhood.

One of the most dangerous things an African woman can do is become pregnant. So, along with the winner of my contest for college students, Paul Bowers, I have been visiting the forlorn hospitals here in West Africa. According to the World Health Organization, Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality in the world, and in several African countries, 1 woman in 10 ends up dying in childbirth.

It’s pretty clear that if men were dying at these rates, the United Nations Security Council would be holding urgent consultations, and a country such as this would appoint a minister of paternal mortality. Yet half-a-million women die annually from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth without attracting much interest because the victims are typically among the most voiceless people in the world: impoverished, rural, uneducated and female.

Take Mariama, a 21-year-old pregnant woman with a 3-year-old child living in a village here in southern Sierra Leone. Mariama started bleeding one afternoon before we arrived, but her family had no money and was reluctant to seek medical care. When she was already half-dead, she was finally taken into the government hospital in Bo.

She was off-the-charts anemic, but there was no blood available for a transfusion. In that situation, the woman’s relatives are checked to see if they are of the same type and can give, but Mariama was accompanied only by her mother, who was too fragile to donate blood.

The only obstetrician, serving an area with two million people, was away, so nurses suggested that in the absence of a transfusion, Mariama receive a plasma expander for her blood. But that would have cost $4, and Mariama and her mother had no money at all.

So Mariama continued to hemorrhage right there in the maternity ward. At 1 a.m. the next morning, she died.

“We did our best to save her,” said Regina Horton, a nurse-midwife at the hospital. “But we had no blood.”

I’ve seen women dying like this in many countries — on the first win-a-trip journey in 2006, a student and I watched a mother of three dying in front of us in Cameroon — and it’s not only shattering but also infuriating. It’s no mystery how to save the lives of pregnant women; what’s lacking is the will and resources.

Indeed, Sierra Leone is now making progress with the help of the United Nations Population Fund, which is renovating hospital wards, providing free medicines and trying to ensure that poor women don’t die because they can’t pay $100 for a Caesarian section. The Bush administration cut off all American funds for the U.N. Population Fund, hobbling it, but this year President Obama has moved to restore the money. Other organizations that are focused on this issue include the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, CARE and Averting Maternal Death and Disability.

A bill introduced in Congress in March — the Newborn, Child, and Mother Survival Act — would establish American leadership in this area. But it has attracted pathetically little attention.
If the lives of women like Mariama were a priority, there would be many simple ways to keep them alive. For example, they could routinely be given anti-malarials and deworming medicine during pregnancy to flush out parasites. They should also receive daily iron tablets to overcome anemia, and a bed net. All this would cost just a few dollars and would leave pregnant women far less likely to die of hemorrhages.

Caesarian sections are necessary for perhaps 1 in 10 births worldwide, but village women put their trust in traditional birth attendants (partly because the attendants also perform genital cutting on girls, creating a bond). Doctors and nurses often are harsh and contemptuous toward uneducated women so that patients stay away until it is too late. If doctors and nurses had as good a bedside manner as the birth attendants, hospitals would be better used and lives saved.
Still, one sees the — limited — progress in Mabinti Kamara, who is 25 and went into labor in her village. When an arm came out, it was apparent that the fetus was sideways, so the birth attendant pushed hard on Mabinti’s abdomen to complete the process.

On Mabinti’s fourth day of labor, she was finally taken to a hospital in the city of Makeni, where a surgeon found that she had a ruptured uterus. The surgeon removed the dead fetus and repaired the uterus. Mabinti then lay on her bed in pain, disconsolate at losing her child. Still, the maternity ward was filled with women like her. Just a few years ago, they all would have died. They are reminders that women can be saved in childbirth — but only if their lives become a priority.

JH Update, April 2nd (2009)

Please continue to pray for Roger and his team as they spend the next two weeks in Sierra Leone. They arrived safely with all but 2 of the suitcases! (This seems to be a growing trend....)

Praise the Lord for successful and positive meetings that Roger was able to have in Freetown. Pray for wisdom for Roger as he makes decisions and deals with the staff and children.

Pray for Shannon and Kelly as they minister to the kids. They are doing health assessments on all of the children. Pray that God would help them to recognize any problems that the children are having.

Pray for all of our school children! We have many students in class 6 and class 8. All of these children will be taking exams at the end of the school year which determine their future educational plans!

Please pray for Christie! She is preparing for a 15 month tour of duty at the orphanage starting in the middle of May! Praise the Lord for her courage! Please pray that all the details will fall as God would have them fall as she prepares for this mission!

THANK YOU AGAIN TO EVERYONE FOR YOUR PRAYERS FOR THIS MINISTRY! WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY EACH PERSON WHO HAS SUPPORTED THE CHILDREN OF SIERRA LEONE!

Article: "Slum Cooker"

Definitely take a look at this!

Article: In US Poll, Most Fail a Quiz on Global Causes of Child Deaths

This article speaks to a poll from two years ago, but it is still very true today, I'm sure.

NYTimes Article: "After A Devastating Birth Injury, Hope"

Ideally, fistulas should be prevented, but prevention — which requires education, more hospitals, doctors and midwives, and better transportation — lags far behind treatment. Worldwide, there are still 100,000 new cases a year, and most experts think it will take decades to eliminate fistulas in Africa, even though they were wiped out in developed countries a century ago. Their continuing presence is a sign that medical care for pregnant women is desperately inadequate.

“Fistula is the thing to follow,” Dr. Wilkinson said. “If you find patients with fistula, you’ll also find that mothers and babies are dying right and left.”

While this article highlights a hospital in Tanzania, the problem of fistulas are a big big problem in Africa and Asia (as the article states). Mercy Ships has a clinic especially for fixing fistulas in Freetown, Sierra Leone. So....this is pretty relevant. :-/

Teams

Prayer theme of the post....

The teams who will be going over this spring and this summer! Pray as they prepare, raise support, and then travel over and minister and serve in their various capacities, and then their return (and debriefing process). Pray for the people they encounter in their preparation, travel and time in-country. Pray for their language and cultural learning. Pray.....as you feel led...

Here are the different people going and the timeframe they will be going. If you are among the teams, please feel free to share how you're preparing and what you are looking forward to, etc.

1. Roger & some nurses: April ; Medical outreach (and a lot of other stuff...)
2. Christie: She will be heading back to Jonathan House in May for 15(?) months!
3. Youth Team/Center Street Baptist Church: June

Water (Part 1)

Today's topic: Water.

"Why?", you ask.

Think about how important water is. Water is essential to life on Earth. Living things can not endure very long at all without water.

I was sitting in on a leadership meeting at the church I work at a few weeks ago. Long story short, the church has just raised enough money for EIGHT wells to be built by Gospel for Asia. I was able to relate my own experiences around the world seeing how valuable clean water is which prompted me to think aferwards about just how valuable the substance is. It's valuable for health and sanitation but as a tool for evangelization among non-Christians. Throughout this fundraising venture with the church, I have looked more into the wells and clean water, in general. An a recent article, GFA said that each well will impact hundreds of people! Praise God!!

I will assert that we, in the western world, underestimate the value of clean water--or water in general! When's the last time you:

• Turned on the faucet
• Flushed a toilet
• Cooked (with water)
• Washed your hands
• Washed your car
• Went swimming
• Enjoyed a nice, refreshing cup of ice water
• Enjoyed coffee, cocoa, or cider
• Took a shower/bath
• Washed your clothes
• Washed your dishes (by hand or dishwasher)
• Watered your lawn (think summer, Midwesterners!)
• Put water in your car to prevent overheating (okay, maybe just me...last summer!)
• Washed off a piece of fruit
• Drank from a water fountain
• Ran the shower to help with congestion

You get the idea....I bet you wouldn't use even a fraction of that amount of water if you had to pump water out of a well or fetch it out of a river...and then CARRY IT! Let me tell you, water buckets are HEAVY! I watered plenty of dust in my six months at JCC. And you probably wouldn't care nearly as much about the temperature after all of that... :-) But here, at home, we like our "creature comforts", don't we. Addicted to our hot showers, nice bubble baths, "just-right" cup of coffee....aren't we? This is as much to me as anyone.

This is essentially the first installment of a series about WATER and how we might better be informed of the issues. Water--clean water especially--is critical in Sierra Leone as it is throughout the world! If you read this blog or follow Jonathan House at all, then please take note of this and pray! Pray for clean water in the villages of the church plants, for the poorest, for the "least of these", for the wells at Jonathan House to work without mechanical issues. The driest, hottest month of the year in Sierra Leone is March. And it gets HOT!!! Then the rainy season will start in late April, May. The World Water Day (UN) also takes place in March coincidentally.

Let me leave you with this YouTube video about water. And as always, if you have any contributions, feel free to let me know. Contact information is at the top of the right margin.

BBC: Guinea coup

Pray for Guinea. The president, who had ruled for 24 years, died after a long illness earlier this week. Long story short, the political stability of the country--Sierra Leone's western and northern neighbor--could ultimately be in jeopardy. And even moreso the whole region will be affected. There are refugees from Sierra Leone living in Guinea and probably vice versa too. Pray for those who might be affected.

Read the article at your convenience.

Merry Christmas!

"Powerful Moments" (Memories)

Enjoy these memories that Pam has so kindly shared with us! Pam and her two children visited Jonathan House as part of the Grace Team in 2007. Thankyou Pam! Checkout pictures on the picasa page off the pictures from Grace Team.

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A few of my powerful moments while at JCC last year with my two children ..

They still bring tears to my eyes as i remember them...........

A few of the older girls were doing my hair (Hawa, Jeneba, and Gloria) not an easy task since my hair was quite short. (and not a real pretty picture when completed-comical spikes were the result of their hard word--but most definitely i felt the love :-)

anyways, I saw Roger Hatch playing with a couple kids out in the yard and said to the girls, "Daddy Hatch is such a good and godly man"(tears are flowing now) and one of the girls replied," He stopped our suffering' what stronger testimony could there be but that.

( i love you brother Roger)

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Another moment that i hold very dear and hope to continue to apply to my life is..

One day someone on the team made a comment (without thinking, as we all do) "Im starving' they said.

One of the older kids said to me, "It's a shame to say you are hungry in Africa"

That hit me like a ton of bricks. It's shameful to complain about being hungry in Africa. I thought of the children of Israel and though God was with them and leading them, they grumbled and complained. I thought,"It's shameful as a child of God to say i'm hungry" I thought how guilty i have been about that at times and what i'm saying when i complain is that God isn't doing a very good job taking care of me or I deserve more or better.

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One of the things that impressed me most about the kids (oops here come the tears again!) was when i discovered that all the kids were 'waiting' on doing their own laundry while we were there. There was quite a few of us and by the time we all did our laundry we would take up all the drying areas. The kids never complained at all but quietly sacrificed doing any of their laundry for a couple wks so that we could do ours. (maybe in reality they were instructed to wait or they were counting their blessing that they 'didn't have to' do their laundry? Regardless, I was impressed.

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The kids were hard workers, responsible. respectful, eager to please and very helpful with one another.

Before going to Africa I learned of some of the discipline common to their culture and I struggled in my heart because it seemed so harsh.

The Lord helped to prepare me, empty me before i went over to Africa. Who am I to say 'their way' isn't the 'right way' or the 'best way' or that we aren't the ones who could learn from THEM.

We Americans clearly dont have all the answers. I was told about a conversation between someone on our team and one of the locals who were discussing the difference in parenting. The local man said that we Americans tend to coddle or baby our children too much. I think that man had a very good point. The disrespect in our society is appauling, and we do too often, overall baby our children too much. I at least have tasted some of that truth in my own parenting. I think indeed, I learned more from them then i taught them.

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I MISS the children's singing praises and stories they had put to music. They sang from the wee morning hours off and on til they went to bed at night. They paitiently taught me some and I have been able to teach them to my daycare children here in the states. It warms my heart when these children sing those songs-and brings back sweet sweet memories of my rich experience with my brothers and sisters there.

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I went to Africa wanting to help, wanting to bless, wanting to make a difference. I came home far more blessed than when i had gone. My minute 'sacrifices' were insignificant in light of the depth of riches I received while being there.

Forever grateful,

Pam Newsome

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas from Jonathan House!

I was able to spend Christmas at Jonathan House two years ago (2006) and what a blessing it was! It was wonderful to celebrate our Savior's birth with these precious African children. Many of the women (staff and spouses of staff, etc) spent a few hours cooking for the big Christmas dinner either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. We had fried rice and beef (not very common at all in the Bo area). The kids weren't crazy about the fried rice, marking an ironic meal--the kids NOT liking the rice and the three Americans LIKING the rice (a lot!). That same meal we split up in groups with a different adult or older kid leading each group as we discussed what Christmas was all about.

Another favorite memory of that Christmas was when I was trying to sleep. It didn't start out to be a favorite moment, however. It was late at night...and I could hear drumming. I had only been in Sierra Leone for a few weeks at this point and flashbacks from my first trip several years before when late night drumming wasn't a good thing came to mind. After 20 or 30 minutes or so I heard them playing a silly Christmas song--maybe "Jingle Bells" or something like that. And then there were other Christmas carols. I had to laugh at how funny it was to hear Christmas carols by drummers sitting around the fire out in the West African "bush". And I knew there probably wouldn't be another Christmas like that...

New Year's in Africa stories coming up in a week or so (maybe). Things are a little crazy for me right now. If you'd like to help out with the blog (even sending articles, personal testimonies, etc) this would be a great time to jump in. Email Kim83anthro@gmail.com .

Your JCC Blogger,

Kim

Message from Roger

We come to the end of the year and the season of the celebration of Christ's birth. We have so much to thank Him for....His salvation, His abundance He bestows on us in so many ways, and His constant care for us. We at Jonathan's House are continuously grateful for the kindness that all of you show all year long. That makes this note more difficult. We know you have so often sacrificed and given. Believe me, we never take that for granted. We come to the end of this season however and we find ourselves significantly short on our budget. If we were just hundreds of dollars short we could cut and make it work. But now we are 5 days away from wiring money for the month and we are about $6,000 short from meeting our budget. We have about $1600 which will feed our kids for the month, but it won't do any more than that. We still need to pay the staff, buy toothpaste and such, buy gas for the bus, feed the street and foster kids, buy fire wood, pay our bills, etc. I ask that each one of you join us as we ask Him what we should do or give to meet this month's need. I know He is able to meet the need however He deems fit. He is the God of all miracles. We know that this season and we trust Him as we have so many times before. He has called us to care for those with nothing. This gives Him so many opportunities to show His love to them. Thanks for caring and praying and sharing. I pray that the God of abundance will show Himself strong in your lives this season and the new year.

Sincerely and for all our kids,

Roger Hatch

Free Rice.org

For every question (on a variety of subjects) you answer correctly they donate 20 grains of rice. If you need to improve your vocabulary (um, maybe you need to study for the GRE?), geography, chemistry knowledge (element symbols anyway), etc....this is a great way to do it. They work with a UN program. Very cool. Try it out and feed someone.