Jake and Tim went to the village of Nwa with Tom Maher of Teen Missions. We have four orphaned children from that area, we saw such a need out there as there's so many orphans and children in desperate situations. Teen Missions is looking into the possibility of starting a rescue unit there, where they would help feed, cloth and school children in need (and of course preach the Gospel to them too). They had a great trip on some really bad roads (they even had to use the winch to pull up a car that had fallen down a hill). Praise the Lord for the Land Rover!
Truck that had got stuck
So if you have a queazy stomach you might not want to scroll down to the pictures below. On the way back they saw some kids walking down the road and noticed that one had bad looking feet. They stopped to talk with them and saw that they girl's feet were severely infested with chiggers (little parasite worms) and what also looks like fungus and infection. I don't know if you remember but we had two children that came to us like this (not quite as severe); they were from this same area. It is really just from neglect as chiggers are relatively easy to dig out. Anyway, they found out they're orphans living with their blind grandfather and grandmother. They don't know who their father is and their mother has abandoned them. It looks like they are being neglected. We're hoping to go there soon so we can talk with the family and find out if they want to keep them. Their aunt was with them who is actually a nurse! I don't know how she could not have done something about the poor girl's feet. We said we wouldn't be getting anymore orphans till we had our current children fully sponsored but this is a pretty extreme case; these kids have basically been abandoned and not cared for, so sad. Please join us in prayer for these precious children, that we can help them in some way, whether bringing them to the Children's Home or just getting her some medical care. We did leave them some money to go get medical help but who knows whether they'll use it for that.
So here is the older sister with her little sister (maybe six years old). She can not walk and she also has chiggers all on her knees as she crawls everywhere. They said that she is disabled, but we're not sure if this is because of the chiggers or not. That would explain why she has been so neglected as disabled people here are often treated like second class citizens.
From this picture is does look like her foot is a little deformed, not sure though.
This must be so painful, look how swollen her toes are. The kids that we have who had bad chiggers made a full recovery in a couple of months even though some of their nails are a little crimperly (if that is a word). There other younger sister was not with them.
Here is the grandfather's own child, who has a pop belly from malnutrition (not underfed though)... she was walking around with no clothes.
