Sister's of Charity and Mount Carmel Church

Our Church Family back home is reaching out to help the people of Maputo, which is very cool! The Vacation Bible School at Mount Carmel Christian Church collected money to help buy food and other items that are very much needed at The Sisters of Charity Orphanage here in Maputo. Let me tell you: there is nothing greater than to give with your heart and, man, did the kids at VBS do that! Beth and I will be buying the needed items here in Maputo and will later deliver them to the orphanage. We are very excited to be able to present this gift of love from all those that worked so hard to make it happen.

Here's a little about The Sisters of Charity:

This is truly one of those places where the sick and very poor are being helped. It was started by the mission work of Mother Teresa, and is located on the outskirts of Maputo. The city dump is near here and it is one of the poorest parts of Maputo. The Sisters of Charity is not just an orphanage, in fact most of the children have family members, the problem is that the families cannot take care of them. Many are sick, some with HIV/AIDS, and others have even suffered from severe malnutrition. Their main goal is to try and nurse the children back to health with a good diet and drug therapy, but to also show them the love of Jesus in all that they do. Their hope is to reunite the children back with their family when the child is around the ages of seven of eight, or is ready to enter back into a normal life.

They also have an area for adults. There are two main areas, one for the women, and one for the men, totaling at about 30 bed. All of the adults that are there have HIV/AIDS. The Sisters provide them with drug therapy and if/when they become healthy they will go home. Sadly Sister Sucunda has told me stories were the person that leaves healthier is soon back because they haven't stayed on the drugs.

Although there are other organizations that help to support this mission, many do not back up their words with their actions. The Sisters have become very guarded about getting there hopes up when someone new comes and offers any kind of support. I think I am gaining their trust. I've made a few trips out there, taken rice, milk, boxes, and clothes. I think they see that we are real about wanting to help.

Until next time,
Wayne

Hero Rat

How often do you think about landmines? I've heard about the landmine problems in news stories from time to time, maybe on a news program in the States, but here in Mozambique the problem is real. We see people everyday that have been injured by landmine explosions. We recently went to visit an organization that has a unique way of finding and deactivating landmines. The orgainazation is called APOPO and is a program that Belgian and Tanzanian researchers have put togather. They do is train African Giant Pouch Rats to search and find landmines...by smell . The rats are trained to detect the scent of TNT, and when they do, they will scratch the ground. The trainer then flags that area and a removal crew comes in to detnate it safely. The rats are not heavy enought to set the mine off so no need to worry about loosing one that way. Check out there web sight http://www.herorat.org/ there is also a video on line you can watch. It's a Frontline stoy about the rats. If you go to http://www.pbs.org/ and search frontline hero rat you should find it. Check it out.
The rats are huge...about the size of a cat. They have really long noses and even longer tails. We visited the place where they are kept and trained in Inhambane. There were about 20 or so at the station at that time. When they go to train, they go out to a field where there are low lines runnning parallel along the length of the field. There are inactivated mines buried there. The rats are attached to the lines by a collar around their neck, and then they are coaxed to the other end of the field by food. So they toddle along, on a leash basically, and weave back and forth until they catch the TNT scent. All of the demining efforts are funded by foreign organizations that work in multiple countries. While we were talking to some of the trainers...they mentioned that some of the rats are being trained to detect people with TB(by smell!). They have the rats working at ports to detect people coming from other places by boat that may have TB. Until next time, CHEERS.