The many faces of need

Talking to an old friend the other day about the needs we encounter here, and how we present our projects and our approach, I found myself explaining, "The situation's desperate, but not in the way people might expect..."

Many of the children we serve are hungry, absolutely--we distribute over four hundred pounds of rice every week, all of it to kids who wouldn't otherwise have a meal. That's the most important thing, but there are many who now have enough to eat, who have clothes on their backs, and who have at least basic shelter. That's when the problem becomes more complex: they need a means of supporting themselves, a regular income to secure not only food but an education and a future.

Lately, I've been working on ways to kill more birds with each dollar--how to help three orphanages by helping one; how to help the 133 homes in Liberia to help each other. In that vein, we're starting a new kind of micro-enterprise at two orphanages this week--a pilot project. The first home will produce laundry soap by refining native red palm oil--teaching the older children the entire process along the way--and we'll buy the soap at market price for distribution to other orphanages (a high and daily expense for them). From the second home, we'll buy pineapples and plantains from an up-country orphanage and use them to supplement the carb-heavy diet of kids in urban homes.

As for how we present ourselves, we'll continue to show you as vividly as we can with pictures, stories, and videos. We'll continue to portray these situations with integrity and sensitivity, and we'll continue to ask you to bless us so that we can bless more children here, in all kinds of circumstances.