Friendswood United Methodist Church
Sharing the life-changing power of Christ everywhere, and every day.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Joseph Now Has Hope at a Bright Future

Today was a another great day where we got to see the love of God in action. After chapel we visited the Zoe Ministries Office and learned more about this amazing organization. They help identify orphans and children who are considered heads of households and organize them into groups called families. Zoe offers these children hope at achieving their dreams by training  and empowering them to develop ways to support themselves and their younger siblings. This is an amazing program and it has many success stories. Three of our team members traveled out into the community today and visited with children who have gone through the Zoe program and are now running successful businesses. These children have grown into responsible adults who are productive citizens of their communities and oversee the care of those in their house hold.

MaKenna in her grocer's booth where she sells potatoes, grains, and charcoal to support her siblings.

Agnes earns money in her beauty shop to support her younger brothers and sisters.


The Zoe social workers, our driver, and team members enjoy a soda outside of Rose Kawy's shop. That's Rose in the doorway.


This afternoon we had the opportunity to go and play with some of the hospital patients and even some of the nursing staff. The highlight of this time for me was playing with beach balls with some of the adult male patients. The patients here have nothing to do to help pass the time. Those who are able go outside and visit with other patients. When our group was entering the pediatric wing with balls and craft supplies in order to play with the children some of the male patients tried to follow us. They were still outside waiting when we left the children. I recognized some of them from the day I did hospital rounds with the chaplain. As I passed them we smiled and waved at each other and I just couldn't keep going. Michael and I stayed back while the others in our group went to interact with children in another location. What fun we had! Those men were thrilled to be able to play with the beach balls. Some were hesitant at first but eventually everyone was standing up and participating. I noticed how they were conscious of each other's injuries and limitations as they hit the balls around. I was thrilled to see Joseph come out and join in the fun. Below is the story of Joseph that was written by Jim Monroe. Joseph came to the hospital 3 days ago. His recovery is going amazingly well.

Joseph had a toothache.  Joseph is an orphan.  When you are an orphan with a toothache and no money and no one to help you, what do you do?  You tough it out.  Which Joseph did until the tooth became infected.  Then abscessed.  Then developed into a major orbital abscess that affected his eye and threatened his brain.  When he had an abscess in his optical orbit the size of a small grapefruit Joseph went to a farmer and pleaded for a job.  After a week of hard labor this fifteen year old boy had earned 500 ksh, enough to see a doctor at the hospital.  He presented himself and was immediately taken to see Dr. Inoti, who recognized that the infection and abscess were now life-threatening.  But there was no money to treat him.  What to do?  We freed up 40,000 ksh (about $425) from the Service Fund and Dr. Inoti performed the delicate surgery.  He says it was one of the worst infections he has ever worked on.  Joseph is now recovering in the hospital with a good prognosis and will be discharged in a week or so with a referral to ZOE Ministries, our outreach program for AIDS Orphans of his age group.  He now has a future, thanks to the Service Fund.

Coloring paper-plate elephants with the hospital children and their mothers.

Playing beachballs and parachutes with the hospital patients.

Providing recreation for the male patients in the hospital.


The donations given to the Service Fund for Maua Methodist Hospital truly change lives. I will be glad to give everyone more information about how you can donate to this fund and help other children like Joseph.

Tonight our team is packing up in preparation of leaving Maua in the morning. We will be driving about 8 hours to go to the Kingdom Builder's Orphanage. We do not have any idea if we will have wifi access while we are there.  I will try to blog again when I am able.

Blessings!

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