Stop the Traffic!

I just want to take a moment to address another great need in West Africa. It is not one that we are hearing much about these days. Getting buried under all the ebola news is an ongoing problem-- In Benin children are being sold into slavery... by their parents. Desperate mothers and fathers, at the end of their rope with no money or way to provide for their children, are doing the unthinkable. Convinced that they are doing the only thing they can to save their family, they are selling their children to into slavery for mere pennies.

Orphan Relief and Rescue has an anti-trafficking team that is out in these villages, educating and advocating for these vulnerable children. Officially they are not orphans, but they need to be rescued. Our team there has identified 160 children who are at risk for being trafficked right now. We have been able to raise enough money to save some, but 114 of these children are still at risk today. If we can not find the money to help them, next week they may be gone forever.

Only $360 can save a child from slavery for a year. This will keep them with their family, well fed and in school. For only about a dollar a day you can literally save a life.

Please consider helping.

The orphan crisis in West Africa is growing.

Below is Orphan Relief and Rescue's response to the growing orphan crisis in West Africa. Please join in praying with us for wisdom in how to combat this need and serve the vulnerable. Thank you.

Orphans of the Ebola crisis: Why our job in Liberia is growing

Yes, we are still in Liberia, even with the Ebola crisis. Children still need to be fed and taken care of, and we are not about to ever abandon them. We have over 120 children that we are feeding on a daily basis, and there are an additional 100 kids from our graduated orphanage homes that, though self-sufficient, are still part of our regular check-up schedule so we can ensure they also have what they need to be protected. Our mission continues to remain strong, even in the face of crisis.

Our Liberian staff are doing an amazing job making sure all the children on our programs continue to get the care they need to be healthy. We are so grateful for that. We call them daily, and not one of them is feeling alone through this. Our Liberian employees and children all know they are a part of the ORR family and because of them being taken care of, they are able to help their neighbors and those around them as well. We have been keeping everyone stocked with food, diapers, formula, bleach, sanitizing materials, medicine and many other necessary items to ensure everyone has what they need to be safe and protected.

There are many needy kids that have or will become orphaned due to Ebola, and because of this, we know the magnitude of our job in Liberia is only going to grow. We are now in conversation with key people to prepare for the big influx of children who are and will soon be coming into the system due to losing parents. Having a partnership already established with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare with our Transitional Safe Home, we are the organization the government is already looking to for coming up with answers on how to help these children. This is no easy feat, as a place of quarantine has to be established before kids can safely be put into our Transitional Safe Home or another foster situation. We are putting plans together to safely and lovingly care for those who have just lost parents and who are coming into the social welfare system.

More than ever, we need you to stand with us in these efforts to fight for these precious kids lives through this unbelievable hardship of loss in Liberia and the other nations affected. Extra donations towards these efforts are appreciated. Please consider giving today.

Written by Rebecca Pratt

www.orphanreliefandrescue.org

Day #2 - Pray to End Ebola

As of today, the official death count is 3100 people who have died from Ebola.
In actuality the number is probably much higher.

DAY 2. Pray that God would intervene to end the Ebola crisis. Also, pray for courageous health workers who risk their lives to care for Ebola victims. #praytoendebola

Here's an example of one  courageous health worker. I know Dr Zarway from my time in Liberia. She treated several friends of mine, even delivered a good friend's baby. In this article she explains-- "I'm a doctor, so we can't run away."

Hope

The news coming out of West Africa continues to be devastating. The number of deaths and projected deaths from ebola is climbing exponentially. The global response is increasing slightly, but the needs still outweigh the help that is being offered. 

Somehow though, through all the bad reports and discouraging information, I have noticed a shift inside myself-- a glimmer of hope has infiltrated my soul. Where it used to feel hopeless and too heavy to bear, it now feels ever-so-slightly lighter.

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful"

Hebrews 10:23

I read an article about a woman who cared for her entire ebola-stricken family by herself. She fashioned her own protective garments and loved several of her family members back to health. It is stories like these-- human beings overcoming the odds, survival and love-- that boost my hope and help me to believe there is an end to all of this ugliness. 

Dr Rick is ebola free and back home with his family!!

In the midst of the danger and craziness, my friend Marthalyn gave birth to a healthy baby boy. After being turned away from the hospital, Small Andrew was born in the middle of night on Ma Mary's porch. It was a scary night for all, but thank God it ended joyously! (I don't have a picture of baby Andrew yet, the above picture is of Small Ashley, born a year and a half ago.)

Please join with countless around the world to pray an end to this vicious epidemic.

Day 1. Pray that God would intervene to end the Ebola crisis. Also, pray that victims of the Ebola virus who are sick and dying will have access to the treatment they need. #praytoendebola

Shining as lights...

Today I find myself sitting in the El Paso airport, sipping an overpriced, yet delicious coffee, and skimming the WHO's Ebola Response Roadmap as I wait for my flight home. 

Ebola has caused so much change. 

I should not linger too long on the changes in my own life. Instead of preparing to return to Liberia in a few weeks, I now feel commissioned with a new call to spread the word about the current situation there. To spread the word of the enormous and ever-growing needs. To spread stories of entire families that are dying and babies that are dying because their pregnant mothers can not find a hospital to have a c-section and friends of mine who are now refugees in their own country because their neighbors have ebola and children who are being orphaned and an entire region that is in a downward spiral, out of control. And all of it should be preventable. That's the worst part. It didn't have to get like this. 

Lives are changing in Liberia. The country was, as Liberians say, "coming up." Things were getting better, at least on the surface, for the country as it rebuilt after years of civil war. Children were graduating from high school and starting college-- now schools are closed indefinitely. Men were finding jobs, they were at least finding a way to make a little money each day and provide for their families-- now community quarantines are in order and the price of food has quadrupled. Women were starting to have dreams for their children's futures, for their own-- now everything has come to a standstill. 

The normal cadence of life and death-- greeting others with a handshake, a finger snap, crowded cars full of promise, caring for loved ones who are sick, gathering around the one who is lost-- everything has changed. The only thing on everyone's tongue is Ebola. Death and despair are everywhere. 

Thankfully, Liberians are survivors. They are fighters. As a nation, they have already survived war and hunger. They've struggled, but they've survived. I have to choose to believe they can survive this fight as well. It is a different fight. The enemy can not be seen. The enemy is not the ill person dying outside the clinic, but the invisible virus within. 

I also have to choose to believe, and claim it for all to hear, God is bigger than Ebola! He is bigger than the despair. He can pick this little country, the entire region, up out of this pit and bring restoration... healing... refreshing... peace. 

I believe God can move in ways that we do not understand. I believe He could speak the word and the Ebola virus would dissolve and be no more. I also believe that He uses us, He wants to use us in the process. He calls us to action, to help the hurting, to give, to pray. He builds us up and makes us stronger-- all of us-- through the process of taking steps of faith and choosing to believe. Choosing to act. Choosing to make changes that may not make sense or seem practical, yet lead to deeper faith, deeper fellowship of community. We need each other. And today, West Africa needs us.

Last Sunday I had the honor of sharing about the current situation in Liberia at my parent's church, Christ Community Church, in Alamogordo, NM. As I was preparing, God reminded me of a passage in Philippians (chap 2)--

"So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."


We have been called to be united, to be of one mind, to look out for other's interests over our own (for Christ's sake)... even to death. I know that I don't live up to that, but I do not feel condemned by these verses, instead I feel encouraged to action (even a small action, like writing this blog).


The passage goes on to say—


"Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world..."

I think an entire book could be written of my grumbles and complaints alone. The current situation in West Africa puts my troubles into perspective, I have much to be thankful for. But, we do indeed live in a crooked and twisted generation. The problems of this world are not limited to West Africa-- Americans are being beheaded in Iraq, Christians are being tortured and imprisoned, countries are at war, diseases rage throughout the world, and there is so much more! Liberia is close to my heart and so it is where a lot of my thoughts and prayers go, but the point I want to make here is, are we shining like lights in the world? Wherever in the world we may be?


If my grumbling and complaining is all that others hear from me, the answer is no. I am scared for West Africa, it is not easy for me to hear the constantly horrific reports coming out of there. It is also hard for me to share it. I like to share good news, don't we all? Unfortunately, the news is not always good, yet I am called to share it the same. The world is a dark place, yet I am called to shine as a light to it. We all are.


Please shine with me today. Spread the word. Share this blog. Grab the hand of a loved one and pray together for those hurting in the world. Miracles can happen. We are part of it. 

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world." -Gandhi

Ebola is still in town.

I feel like I am being bombarded everyday with such a magnitude of overwhelming Ebola news that it is difficult to process it all and then compile it here. Some reports are saying that this has been the worst week of the Ebola outbreak so far. Nearly 2000 people have now died from Ebola, and that does not count people who are dying from other treatable diseases who can not get access to medical care. All the people "in the know" are continuing to say that this Ebola outbreak is out of control. This is a crisis with world-wide implications. Here is a link to an article that explores why.

It was also reported this week, that a long time American Missionary doctor in Liberia has contracted the Ebola virus. I know Dr Rick Sacra from my time in Liberia. For a long time he was the only doctor around that I could take the kids from the orphanages to. He played a big role in caring for several of them, including diagnosing a little girl who had been failing to thrive for years, with an easily treatable infection. I believe Dr Rick's expertise and treatment of this dying girl aided directly in her recovery. Today she is alive and well, and he is fighting for his life. 

Here is an article that talks a little more about Dr Rick. Attached to this article is a video with President Obama's response to this West African crisis and an interview with Dr Besser, who works for NBC and just returned from a tour of Ebola-effected Liberia.

Dr Rick's wife, Debbie, who I also know, made a powerful statement in a press conference yesterday. You can watch that statement here.

Dr Rick with patients he was caring for at ELWA hospital in Liberia.

The Sacra's have a blog. The last entry was August 31st,  just a few days before Dr Rick got sick. In it he describes the work he's been doing in Liberia.

Croftsblog - h1n1, still continues to have all the latest ebola-related updates.

This picture was taken towards the beginning of the outbreak. In the foreground is my friend Eric Buller. Eric and his family have been serving in Liberia for several years and have become good friends of mine. The man in the doorway who is wearing the PPE, is Dr Brantly, who has survived own fight with Ebola infection. 

I will leave you today with another catchy Ebola awareness song called Ebola in Town. There are a few graphic images on the video, but this is the real situation in Liberia right now.

And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, keep praying for Liberia and the rest of West Africa.
A miracle is needed now!

20,000 reasons to keep praying

The latest WHO and CDC reports on the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa are projecting that 20,000 people will be infected before this crisis is under control. That is over six times more people than who have already been infected by the Ebola virus since the beginning of the year. The outbreak has also spread to a 5th West African nation as a case was diagnosed in Senegal this week. Another, unrelated outbreak of Ebola has also started in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I was asked today by a Liberian friend why Ebola is keeping us (expats) away? I didn't know how to answer. He doesn't have the choice to leave and is stuck in this mess... while I spent the day at the mall. My heart is breaking for the people of Liberia. There are survivor stories coming out of the dust, and I do choose to rejoice in those, but the road ahead is long. We must continue to pray for healing in the land of West Africa, for healing in the physical bodies of those who have Ebola and other diseases, for healing in the hearts of those left behind and those who choose to stay and help.

A collage I put together last week.
Jesus, hear the cry-- Heal our land!