Thursday, February 28, 2008

Grace Church Touches Orphans in Africa



Due to our Birthday Gift for Jesus campaign back in December, Grace Church is making a significant impact in the lives of hundreds of orphans in the Central African Republic. As a church, we were able to fund the dedication ceremony of the Orphan Welcome Center. We received this note of gratitude from Barb Wooler, USA-based PHC Director:

Dear friends at Lititz, On January 19, 2008, Lititz Grace Church blessed many of your Central African family members. On that day Project Hope & Charite (PHC) dedicated our orphan Welcome Center, and a generous gift from the Lititz family made that Dedication ceremony possible. While many were blessed by the celebration and the festivities that followed, none returned home more grateful, I think, than the PHC family, who was so pleased to have hosted a party worthy of this ministry that has come to mean so much to them. Your gift provided uniforms for 500 orphans and 20 PHC staff, 300 chairs, food for everyone in attendance, transportation and many other things necessary when hosting VIPs from the Central African government, from the community, and from the National Grace Brethren church. You made us look good! And though you were not in attendance, you were remembered in speeches given during the ceremony. So on behalf of the many orphans, widows and PHC staff that you blessed on January 19th, THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts!”

We also we received an e-mail from Ginger Hock, Grace Brethren International Missions missionary to the Central African Republic. She made a "surprise" visit to the LaDoumie school which is one of the schools made possible by the support of our ministry. This school is actually the one which came from the giving of Lititz Christian School. Ginger makes mention of pictures in her e-mail. One of these pictures is posted. Many others will be shown in a presentation in the church lobby on an upcoming Sunday morning. Here is what Ginger wrote:

I made a "surprise" trip up country last week and had a chance to visit three of our schools. I am so impressed with the young man, Timothee, who is teaching at LaDoumie. All the schools were doing a great job and I was pleased to see them all working away. Here is a photo of Karen Courter telling the kids a Bible story and also one of the class with teacher Timothee. Notice how the children are sitting with their arms folded as Karen is teaching? This is a sign of respect and they were so cute, especially the little boy on the front row in the orange shirt. Timothee had several of the students read for me and they seem to be learning at a very good rate. THANKS!

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