October was a little slower pace than some months but we still had a number of things to cover. We weighed the children, took their heights and calculated their nutritional levels. We completed the annual family history interviews; to update any information that we have on our files. This will give us the most updated data to pass along to the sponsors. The teaching that was shared was on the topic of “The Importance of Going to School” as well as the Bible devotional from Jeremiah 29:11. We extended the deadline for our Christmas Blessing by a couple of weeks because we received a much lower response to this than normal and the forwarding to the new North Carolina address caused about a 6-day delay. The food bags looked different for the families this month. Due to the response of talking to the families last month and recognizing the hardship that the drought has caused this year; we made some significant changes. We are trying to give the families the maximum amount of food possible and covering the most basics items that they need. The food bags contained 50 lbs. of corn, 5 lbs. of rice, 5 lbs. of beans and 2 lbs. of salt plus some bleach for maintaining their water filters and for disinfecting food. A high percentage of our sponsors provide the “extra protein package” which would provide another 6 lbs. of rice, 6 lbs. of beans and 3 packages of a soy product. We will continue in this way until the people have a better opportunity to buy their food or to harvest it. They do have their backyard gardens and so if they have been diligent in caring for it; they should have a nice supply of fresh vegetables. We are in the process of providing 20 latrines to some of our Embrace families. We completed 10 for the month of October and will continue to do more installations in November. Please remember to use the new address for Embrace for your sponsorship, Christmas Blessing or any other funds that you are sending to Embrace.
New address:
Servant Ministries
PO Box 157
New Hill, NC 27562
God bless you as we navigate through this difficult time for our Embrace families!
