Zambia (MNN) — A ministry focusing on children in Zambia needs your help. Chief Operating Officer of Every Orphan's Hope is Gary Schneider: "Every Orphan's Hope is on the front lines of God's rescue mission for a generation of children who've been orphaned and left behind by the HIV/AIDS pandemic that's sweeping across the global."
For the last five years, Every Orphan's Hope has been assisting in Zambia. Schneider says, "We're simply servants of the body of Christ and coming along side of the church who's really in the midst of a crisis that the world has never seen before when you look at the number of orphans that have been left behind."
He describes the problem. "In a country of just 11 million people, one in every six adults is currently living with HIV/AIDS. And almost 100,000 people died from that disease alone in 2005. As a result, there are estimates of between 700,000 and 1-million orphans in that nation alone."
The national church wants to help these children, but they don't have the resources. Schneider says they come along side them and offer outreach opportunities like Bible Camps. "We bring in short-term missionaries from the west, and we'll host a week-long Bible camp. That allows the church to reach out into their community and to find those orphans, identify them, and bring them into a loving situation where they hear the Gospel of Christ. They also receive food and clothing, and all of a sudden the church is now relevant in the community to one of the biggest crises the communities face."
Every Orphan's Hope also organizes child sponsorships and constructs orphan homes.
According to Schneider, kids are coming to Christ. "Every year, we reach about 800 to 1,000 children through our Bible camps. When you spend four or five days sitting in the dirt with them and just loving them, feeding them, revealing the love of Christ not only in word but in deed, it's amazing how many children are making first-time professions of their faith in Christ."
If you'd like to help Every Orphan's Hope, they really need you. "It's amazing how many of the children tell us things like, 'We know you can send us money for food, and we would eat that and then it's gone. But when you come, we never forget you, and we never forget Christ.'"
100 people a year travel with Every Orphan's Hope. If you'd like to go on a trip, click here.
