ZAMBIA
Providing Educational Assistance and Food for Children

“You sprouted like a weed!” How many times have you embarrassed a boy or girl you love by suddenly realizing how much they've grown? When you haven't seen someone for such a long time, it's easy to make a fuss. And the first thing you notice is how much taller they are!

With your help and God's blessings, so many children sprout like weeds. They're taller in height and stronger in mind. Thank you so much for being there for them. The problem is that not every child sprouts. Too many barely grow. Too many hardly learn.

Our school in Chipata, Zambia, a small, dusty, rural city of about 100,000 souls, is hot and humid with temperatures of up to 90 degrees or more for much of the year. Chipata is also very poor. That's why we started a kindergarten there. The children of Chipata come to us bright and eager to learn. Their parents are so grateful for the opportunity to send their child to school. Their mothers know that the education they never received is the way out of poverty for their child.

Yet while the children of Chipata have a hunger for learning, their bellies have a gnawing for food. It is one thing to get a child to school. Yet it hardly makes a difference if the hunger in a child doesn't let them focus on their schoolwork. The very same food that makes them grow like weeds is the food that lets them learn more and more, and mature into the adults God knows they can be.

Be there so that the child who gets to school, learns at school, without the distraction of hunger gnawing at her belly, and the worry about where his next meal will come from.