Paul Myhill's Blog

Beating the Traffickers in Moldova

PROJECT PROFILE:

Moldova is one of the largest hubs for human trafficking in Europe. Many traffickers target orphans (both boys and girls) that are "aging out" of government-run orphanages. Our partners in Moldova have shared stories where corrupt orphanage officials are even informing traffickers when desirable children are being released from their institutions. Under such a scenario, the traffickers wait curbside in vans as the naïve and vulnerable youth enter a world they are totally unfamiliar with. Other children are simply picked up off of the streets, missed by nobody.

Jesus Saviour Church, led by Pastor Vasile Surdu, is trying to get there first, reaching out to these children during a highly vulnerable time and taking them into transition homes when necessary. In conjunction with World Orphans partner, New Hope International, summer camps are held for street children. World Orphans short-term teams have participated in these camps to help the church build trust and relationships with kids who have often been abused and exploited.

For children who require family-style residential care because of highly risky situations, Jesus Saviour Church places them into their transition home situated on the church property. The home was funded by World Orphans and is one of many transition homes that World Orphans is establishing, through partner indigenous churches, for the vulnerable children of Moldova.

World Orphans still needs to provide Jesus Saviour Church with $1,485 per month for the care of the children and upkeep of the transition home.

Summer Outreach Camps to reach the street children in Moldova cost World Orphans approximately $15,000. We still need this funding for 2010 camps.

MOLDOVA COUNTRY PROFILE:

Number of Single Orphans* (one parent lost): 77,000

Number of Double Orphans* (both parents lost): 3,600

*not including abandoned, sold or trafficked children

Population: 4,320,748

Average Income: $460 per person

NETWORK PARTNER:

 

CONTRIBUTIONS:

To give to this project please view our giving options (link below) and write "MOL-543 Home" or "MOL-Camps" in the online memo field or on the memo line of your check:

Giving Options

Resurrecting an Old Project in Nicaragua

PROJECT PROFILE:

Poverty is widespread in Nicaragua. In a country that has massive unemployment and with almost 50% of the population living under the poverty line, many families are struggling to survive, leaving their children extremely vulnerable to gangs, traffickers and drug dealers. Many children are simply abandoned - left to fend for themselves on dangerous streets and city dumps.

Understanding the link between these abandoned children and the persistent poverty cycle, Verbo, a denomination of 14 churches, reaches out to these children by providing feeding programs, schools and homes. Verbo is also building a model farm and agricultural training program for at-risk youth to provide valuable vocational training, Christian discipleship and safe housing. This farm will not only provide the youth with job and life skills, but will be an important source of income for the project itself and the homes the Verbo Church operates. For the farm project, Verbo is currently renovating an existing building that World Orphans constructed almost 15 years ago. The cost for the renovation is approximately $30,000.

NICARAGUA COUNTRY PROFILE:

Number of Single Orphans* (one parent lost): 113,000

Number of Double Orphans* (both parents lost): 3,900

*not including abandoned, sold or trafficked children

Population: 5,891,199

Average Income: $410 per person

NETWORK PARTNER:

CONTRIBUTIONS:

To give to this project please view our giving options (link below) and write "NIC-Nueva Guinea" in the online memo field or on the memo line of your check:

Giving Options

Increasing Care Capacity in Uganda

PROJECT PROFILE:

HIV/AIDS is rampant throughout the developing world and Uganda is no stranger to its devastating effects. Over 600,000 children have lost both parents in this East African nation. Many young adults - the primary wage earners and caretakers of the children - have also lost their lives, leaving a severely diminished capacity to rescue and care for the littlest victims. Many families are stretched thin and simply don't have the financial resources to take in even one more child.

Thankfully, Dove Church in Wakiso is one of many World Orphans partner churches standing in the gap in Uganda. Situated on the edge of an area that suffers from great poverty and an extremely high incidence of HIV/AIDS, Dove church is well positioned to minister to dying families and to provide care solutions for the children who are being left behind. Pastor Davis Habaasa and his wife Grace, who first started the church as a ministry to children, are now reaching out into the community for the sake of the children. Dove presently supports foster families in the community to increase their ability to take in additional children. The church also has a home for twelve orphans on its church property.

Thanks to a great church in Tennessee this project is now fully funded, but we have many more like it in Uganda and East Africa that are still in need of compassionate partners.

UGANDA COUNTRY PROFILE:

Number of Single Orphans* (one parent lost): 3,200,000

Number of Double Orphans* (both parents lost): 620,000

*not including abandoned, sold or trafficked children

Population: 32,369,558

Average Income: $330 per person

NETWORK PARTNER:

CONTRIBUTIONS:

To give to a project like this please view our giving options (link below) and write "UGA" (Uganda) or "EA" (East Africa) in the online memo field or on the memo line of your check:

Giving Options

A Hope and a Future in India

PROJECT PROFILE:

India is home to over one billion people and 26,400,000 children who have lost at least one parent. With widespread poverty and massive HIV/AIDS rates, the situation is seemingly quite dire. But at World Orphans we instead view such problems as opportunities – to change lives and impact nations. Bethel Gospel Church is one of dozens of World Orphans partner churches that is seeking to make a difference in India. A few years ago Bethel decided to step out in faith to use what little resources they had to rescue and care for extremely vulnerable children in Hyderabad. Church multiplication has been part of that strategy. As such, Bethel is planting many cell-based churches in their surrounding community and slums. Each of these churches is being instilled with the value of reaching out to the at-risk children in their immediate vicinities. Bethel's pastor, K. Sudhakar, and his wife are leading these churches to serve in some very meaningful ways, including the response to care for orphaned, abandoned, and at-risk children through their slum child education program, street children feeding program, and homes for orphans who have no other options available to them.

One such home, located on Bethel's church property, presently provides security and care for ten rescued children. World Orphans still needs $6,500 to fully fund the infrastructure costs of this home.

INDIA COUNTRY PROFILE:

Number of Single Orphans* (one parent lost): 26,400,000

Number of Double Orphans* (both parents lost): 1,200,000

*not including abandoned, sold or trafficked children

Population: 1,166,079,217

Average Income: $370

NETWORK PARTNER:

Operation Mobilization

CONTRIBUTIONS:

To give to this project please view our giving options (link below) and write "IND-544" in the online memo field or on the memo line of your check:

Giving Options

Homes for Orphans in Ethiopia

PROJECT PROFILE:

Ethiopia, a land of great beauty and distinction, has an ancient recorded history and a proud Biblical heritage. Yet this nation has been devastated by poverty, famine and HIV/AIDS, causing 5,600,000 children to lose one or both parents.

The Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church (EKHC) is one of the largest denominations in Ethiopia with over 5,000 congregations. The EKHC church in Ambo and its pastor, Tesfaye Gudeta Amenu, have been running a Compassion International project for many years along with providing food and clothing to orphaned children in their community. Because some of these orphans were left with no other options, EKHC and Compassion representatives asked World Orphans to help the Ambo church rescue the children through a family-style residential program.

Two homes, located on church property, are currently being built by World Orphans to provide families, care and love for twenty children. World Orphans still needs funds for the completion of the construction as well as $1,980 per month to help the Ambo church meet the ongoing needs of these sweet children.

ETHIOPIA COUNTRY PROFILE:

Number of Single Orphans* (one parent lost): 5,600,000

Number of Double Orphans* (both parents lost): 630,000

*not including abandoned, sold or trafficked children

Population: 85,237,338

Average Income: $100 per person

NETWORK PARTNER:

CONTRIBUTIONS:

To give to this project please view our giving options (link below) and write "ETH-543" in the online memo field or on the memo line of your check:

Giving Options

Making a Difference on the Mekong

PROJECT PROFILE:

Cambodia is notorious for child prostitution and sex trafficking. Once a great kingdom, Cambodia was devastated by the bloody rule of the Khmer Rouge who killed an estimated 1.5 million of its citizens. Left behind were thousands of orphans. These children became easy prey for traffickers who sold them internationally or kept them imprisoned in the brothels of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, setting in motion a vicious cycle that has been perpetuated to this day. It is estimated that as many as one third of sex workers in Cambodia are children.

Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Vietnamese live on the waterways of Cambodia. Many had fled to Cambodia after the fall of Saigon. Others have been there for generations. Impoverished and ostracized, this Vietnamese population is very vulnerable and their children are especially at risk. Poverty, combined with a thriving child sex industry in Cambodia, has resulted in over seventy percent of Cambodia's Vietnamese girls being sold into slavery.

These are the children that Pastor Thach and his wife serve. This dear couple runs the Rau Muong (water spinach) school perched above the Mekong River near Phnom Penh. The education (and therefore opportunity) received by the children there may be the only thing standing in the way of a life of sexual servitude. Pastor Thach and his wife also provide residential care for four former orphaned and abandoned children who had nowhere else to go except the brothels. World Orphans desires to provide Pastor Thach's church with just $176 per month to help care for these precious children as the initial step towards a greater involvement.

CAMBODIA COUNTRY PROFILE:

Number of Single Orphans* (one parent lost): 660,000

Number of Double Orphans* (both parents lost): 55,000

*not including abandoned, sold or trafficked children

Population: 14,494,293

Average Income: $300 per person

NETWORK PARTNER:

CONTRIBUTIONS:

To give to this project please view our giving options (link below) and write "Lunkon Themi" in the online memo field or on the memo line of your check:

Giving Options

 

 

Preventing Child Prostitution in Thailand

Over the next few days, I'd like to share a few of our current project profiles with you. Here's one that is making a difference in Thailand to prevent children from being stolen into forced prostitution . . .

PROJECT PROFILE:

With rampant poverty, thriving drug trade, and a growing demand for child prostitutes, Thailand struggles with human trafficking. And with 1,300,000 children that have lost at least one parent, many kids are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Although the situation would appear hopeless with so many at-risk children and so few resources, there is indeed hope. Many churches stand ready to help. Prachinburi Church is one such church making a difference. The church and Pastor Chalermchai Chaisombat have been running a Compassion International project for many years along with providing food and clothing to orphaned children in their community. But the need is so great that they have done more – rescuing several children to live in a home next to their church. World Orphans has been asked by the church and local Compassion International representatives to provide help in this area.

The home, located on church property, provides shelter, food, medical care, counseling, and most importantly – the love of a family – for fifteen children. World Orphans' goal is to provide the church with $1,300 per month to help care for these precious children.

THAILAND COUNTRY PROFILE:

Number of Single Orphans* (one parent lost): 1,300,000

Number of Double Orphans* (both parents lost): 58,000

*not including abandoned, sold or trafficked children

Population: 65,905,410

Average Income: $2,740 per person

NETWORK PARTNER:

CONTRIBUTIONS:

To give to this project please view our giving options (link below) and write "Prach" in the online memo field or on the memo line of your check:

Giving Options

Child Soldier (Longing for Death)

The year I was numbered eight years old, they began to teach me to be tough, to hate, to have a heart to kill my enemies. This was easy. My only family was the army and I hated them too. I couldn't run away, though. There was nowhere to hide. A few years before, many of my friends ran away. I thought I heard the guns barking in the distance but I don't know. Only a few returned out of many ten's of fingers of children that fled.

I began to train with weapons when my instructors decided I was near my tenth year. This was good because I spent less times quarrying rock and my back and legs did not ache as much. Because so many of my friends died, there is a void in my heart.

Some of my friends would go to bed with the older soldiers at night. They escaped the sound of the rope in the morning and, afterwards, there was money in their pockets to buy small things. It frightened me, though, because many of them wept in the days that followed. Some became very sick and if we are sick in that place we most likely die. There is no help and no hope for the sick there. The dark spirits are very powerful.

What is death like? Do I wander around like a ghost or can I just forget that I am alive and sleep a very deep sleep? These are the questions I asked myself sometimes, but most days were too difficult for the lips of my thoughts to speak to me.

View part one of this story here
View part two of this story here

To be continued...

Child Soldier (The Rhythm of the Rope)

My first morning I still remember. I woke that day to the rhythm of the rope upon my body. The song of the rope I know well now. It woke us very early every morning, before the great light had risen in the sky. It struck the flesh of all who were not rising from sleep quickly enough. Most of us did not wake unless we had to. Our bodies ached fearfully and in sleep we could forget. The rope that bit our flesh seldom causes us to bleed but there are times, oh yes, there are times.

We would gather to attention in the courtyard. There we stood and drilled. Every day was the same.

The rope was our companion as we marched out to the fields to work. All of us had to labor in the fields. We also worked in rock quarries, we built roads, we carried the burdens of the soldiers, sometimes many days by foot. If we had ridden on a truck to work, we would be like pigs going to market. And who would want to do that? They would be going to market to be slaughtered. Yes, we learned that we were animals. The difference is we speak and other beasts are dumb.

After a stretch of work in the morning, we would get a break. We were given food in dirty, cracked bowls: rice with some vegetable broth. It gurgled painfully into the knot that lived and twisted in my stomach. I think it was an angry spirit that came to steal what little food I got. At night I was given maybe half a bowl of the same food...if I was fortunate. If we tried to take more, the rope slithered across our shoulders.

The rope's only comfort is that it is familiar.

View part one of this story here.

To be continued...

Child Soldier (Abandoned to the Army)

The story that follows is a compilation that was crafted using the real lives and circumstances of children rescued by our partner who visited us last week. The individual story details are merged together in order to protect the identities and lives of the children involved, but the compilation is an accurate representation of real world scenarios involving non-combatant child soldiers in Southeast Asia:

Abandoned to the Army

When I was six my parents gave me to the army. Early in the morning my father pulled me out of sleep. It was still dark. He packed me on his back down the mountain trail from the village. His long black hair tickled my nose all the way. After we came to the main road I had to walk. We walked most of the day. I had no water and my throat was chalky dry because it was the time of no rain. We walked between the rocks in the red powder of the earth as the red sun beat upon my head.

Finally we came to a cluster of houses. At the side of the road was a tin roofed lean-to. Men with guns sat in the shade of the slanted roof and also some stood in the shadow of a great tree that spread its frog-like limb’s over the road. They looked mean and I was scared but my father walked over to them. He left me near the base of the tree and went to talk with some of the men near a truck. I played with a dung beetle in the dirt.

Father turned away from the men and began walking down the road. He never even looked at me. I thought he had forgotten me. I cried out, "Papa," but he did not turn back. I began to run after him but one of the men in green caught me by the arm and cuffed me. "You stay here," he slurred at me. I was shocked. I tried to lunge away but he struck me again.

That evening they threw me on the supplies that awkwardly filled the truck and told me to hold on or die. We drove all night till my arms ached and my skin stung sore from the dust and wind. In the morning we arrived at a town and drove up to a cement and metal fence. This was to be my prison. I did not know what a prison was. I did not even know what an army was. But now I know because I have lived in this place of no escape. I later found out my parents had offered me for nothing, I was not even worth a few coins!

Some of my friends came here because they were orphans. Some of them were conscripted. Others were abandoned. I was one of the most unfortunate –so I thought. My parents disowned me. I don’t know why. Maybe, as I learn more about my world, I will figure it out. I think there was not enough food and my mother’s stomach was taut with a coming child. Another still nursed at her breast. My two brothers, both older than me, worked hard on the farm. They could help father better than I could –I heard them say it.

To be continued...