Welcome to our hearts Lushomo!

Lushomo

I will tell you upfront that I've always been leery of "sponsoring" children.  I know a lot of people that have sponsored children but in the back of my mind I've always thought, "Is that child really benefiting from the money and how many thousands of other people are sponsoring that child".  Now I will admit that I've thought this for years and never took the time to do any sort of research.  Also, I've always thought, "I know other countries need our help but there are so many people in the USA that need our help!"  So the struggle has been....

Until, our church decided to partner with World Vision.  They have chosen two villages in Zambia and have made a 10-15 year commitment to them.  It starts with water.  Women and young girls walk several miles a few times a day for water.  They get water from the same place that animals drink from and yes, go to the bathroom in.  Needless to say, 1 in 5 children die before the age of 5.  The average life is 45 years old.  We also have 300 people from our church who are running the Chicago Marathon in October and have teamed with World Vision.  The money raised from the marathon will go directly to water wells.  

There are approximately 30,000 people in one of the villages and approximately 35,000 people in the other.  Of that total, approximately 30,000 are children.  Our church went to World Vision and said, "We would like to have children to sponsor".  The most World Vision had ever given a church was around 450 children to sponsor.  Our church said, "Oh no, we need much more"  These conversations started two years ago between our church and World Vision.  You can imagine the hesitancy on World Visions part.  There is a lot that goes into this.  They go into a village, build trust and through talking to those in the village, they find the families most vulnerable.  The village says which family they feels could use the most help.  World Vision then builds trust with the family (can you imagine someone walking up and just snapping a picture of their child?!)  

I was humbled to be part of the volunteer team at our church this past weekend when this partnership was announced.  We had 2,000 children packets able to be sponsored.  Yes, 2,000!  We have four services at our church.  Two on Saturday and two on Sunday.  After the second service on Saturday, approximately 1,100 children had been sponsored !!  WOW!  Going into the 4th and final service on Sunday, we had approximately 69 packets left.  This didn't stop the generosity, so many people made pledges of sponsoring children!  We will have the final numbers this week and I can't wait to hear what it is!  

I am thrilled to be a part of this venture.  I am blessed to be a small part of building two villages.  I'm blessed to have Lushomo's picture in my kitchen so that I see that cute little face many times each day and I'm reminded.  

I'm reminded that Lushomo lives with her parents and 1 brother and struggles for so many things that I take for granted each and every day.  I can go to the kitchen and get a glass of clean water.  I can hop in my car and go to the store and get whatever I need.  I can contact just about anyone I want via phone or computer.  I can take my children to the doctor when they are sick.  When Lushomo get sick, her mother has to walk 20 miles to the nearest clinic.  20 miles ONE way.  I cannot even imagine.  

A group of people from our church have been to Zambia twice and visited the villages.  This makes it very real and tangible for me.  I know that what I am doing will be helping to build the communities and that the entire communities will benefit from what we do.  

I can tell you that one day, I will make the trip to Zambia and I will get the chance to meet and hopefully hug Lushomo.  I don't know when that will be but you can be guaranteed that there will be a blog and many pictures.

Lushomo just turned 3 years old on February 12th.  I look forward to watching her grow and hopefully building a relationship and meeting her one day.

http://northridgechurch.com/outreach/