We have personally been visiting Bambisana (Bomb-bee-saw-na) for about 6 months. Every time we go, the leaders of the community meet with us and tell us the stories of the orphans. This isn't unlike what we see most days in our everyday work we do, but the difference is the amount of
orphans (due to HIV/AIDS) and the devastation in such a condensed area. There are so many starving people and for some reason a huge amount of kids who are mentally or physically handicapped. So again, through many meetings and discussions with the leadership in the area, we decided the this would be a good place for at least a
soup club (for the time being) until we can get some more people on the ground to build strongeraccountability and better relationships for a
Child Sponsorship Program. In previous convos they had told us that in the immediate area surrounding the church (where the soup club would be ran out of) there was 69 named orphans who would be the benefactors from the soup club. This would allow us to at least get something going and for them to
get one meal a day. These kids don't even have that; this area is that poor. So that was Tuesday night and we brought in the "set-up" and taught them how to make the soup for the 69 kids. We showed up Thursday morning to see it in action with the Mama's we had met and I don't know exactly what transformed in the day in between but when we got there word had spread and 300 kids
showed up. Usually when that happens it is
because people are hungry (naturally) and then
we have to figure out in a politically correct way how to pull out the ones who are not getting at least one meal a day regularly...that is the goal of
the soup clubs. But all these kids "qualified". They were documented orphans. Every single one of them. Over 300 and some of them had walked 9km to get a cup of soup. My heart sank. So then logistically we started thinking about the soup club and what it needed to look like because we needed to get through that day but also the future and so we
tripled the recipe and made instant porridge. Then out of nowhere, a guy that was with us (who is visiting from Texas) said that if we can work out the details and have the accountability in place he will figure out how to fund the soup. So now instead of 1
soup club in Bambisana we have 4 to cover the amount of kids in the 10km radius. Please pray for these kids. Oh, and if you want to get in on this action...when all is said and done it costs $.06 a day per kid for a bowl/cup of soup. Woo hoo.
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