Friday, January 8, 2010

Looking back on 2009 - Looking ahead to 2010

Here we are at the start of 2010 and it seems appropriate to look back on 2009, not to bring any praise on ourselves but to marvel at the incredible provision of God. The brief synopsis of the activities of His Hands for Africa for 2009 looks like this -

Total number of team trips to Africa - 1

Total number of team members on that trip - 3

Total number of children "processed" on that trip - 207

Total number of children sponsored for the 2008-2009 school year - 92

Total number of sponsors - 46

On that team trip to Africa we were able to deliver over 100 blankets donated by people in our area of Maine. These blankets were given to women and children in refugee camps in Uganda and the DR Congo. What a blessing it was for us to be able to bring these to them and to see them being put to good use.

On that same trip we learned about a program being run by Pastor Bamoleke's wife, Siriaka, which provides a pig for an African woman in crisis. We were able to share this information with our sponsors who have responded to this opportunity to help in a tremendous way - enabling us to be able to send over $2,000 to Africa to help provide pigs for this program.

We were also able to send Siriaka over $500 from the sale of the African Paper Bead jewelry she had sent us. We still have more jewelry for sale if anyone is interested.

We are so thankful to God for allowing us to be His servants and for His incredible blessing on this ministry. None of these things would have been possible without His guidance and direction and without Him bringing in the increase. "Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory because of Your love and faithfulness." Psalm 115:1