Light of Children Orphan Home

Below is a portion of the latest newsletter from Phil and Amy Carter about the orphanage.

The “Light of Children” Orphan Home
We have made huge progress in the planning and implementation of the orphan home here in Moshi. This is a work that I have partnered in with a local tour company operator here in Moshi. His name is Keshange. He and I go years back to 1999. Keshange founded this orphan home earlier this year and asked me if I wanted to help with this work. He knew of my work in Kenya with orphans and of our love for children in general. So we started to make plans and dreams for the children’s home.

In March of this year we met with local lawyers and drew up the documents for the Tanzanian government and for the lease agreement on the orphan home. Right now the children sleep on the dirt floor in the open air breezeway of a mud dwelling. They are all street kids who have no family to care for them. Some come from abandonment situations but most come from parents who have died of AIDS. In fact, two of these beautiful children are infected themselves and will likely die before they reach 10 years old. The situation for these children is bad, but we are working hard to change this. We have paid rent on a dwelling that was used for a bar in the past. It is an open hall that needs walls built in and renovations before they can live in it. Things like plumbing, running water, electricity, and bedding are needed. The owner of the dwelling has extended us a five year level rent lease in the amount of just $44 per month. He is so excited about the building being taken from the devil and used for God’s children. He has even extended to us the permission to make any renovations and changes to the building that we wish.

The building will be able to house more than 24 children comfortably. Right now we have 13 boys but we see a day when girls may be added. It is very rare to find a girl in the streets here because they are easily taken in by people, but boys are not so lucky. However, we are adding a special bunk room just for girls. We pray we will never need it and it will remain empty because that means there are no girls in the streets. But we want to be ready if the need is there. I have also made arrangement with the best doctor in town to treat our children for free and we have gotten the government to agree to free education also. They have only one condition before the children can go to school, the must be living in a home first. This is our priority now, to get them into the home. But first the renovations must be done to make the home safe and livable. To do this we need help. A team of volunteers from the Oak Harbor Church of Christ in Washington State are coming out in October to help us with this work and with the Haruma Christian Pre-School project. The team will be focused on outreach through their manual labor at the home and school. We are excited for their coming and for the work they will do. The renovations will cost us around $14,000. We have already raised $1000 towards this goal.