From the Flege Family - Administrators of Calo Me Lare
Hello family and friends and happy summer! It’s been such a busy and exciting couple of months we haven’t managed to keep up with communicating too well. If we can only get this letter out before July arrives….!
Our homes are now filled to capacity with the 5 new girls who were brought in to Calo Me Lare last month. Ritta, Juliet, Norrine, Sarah, and Anna are all adjusting well, getting settled into their new families, and happily attending school. All are on the older side and are in P1 class. It’s an amazing and humbling experience to witness a child begin to thrive after being rescued from a destitute situation.
Some things that we as Americans would consider so basic – like physical safety, the security of regular meals, some nurturance, stimulation of their minds in school, and encouragement towards a hope-filled future—are in varying degrees foreign to their young lives and come on them like a flood as they enter the CML family. Given the opportunity to experience these things, an undeniable change quickly takes place in the countenance of a child. It’s HOPE. We have the rare privilege of watching it grow in their hearts. We invite you to be part of making-it-so by offering the opportunity to sponsor one of these 5 new girls or the children who will soon follow them. This can be as simple as a financial commitment or as personal as walking with a child through the journey of their life in relationship. I have to say that watching a kid’s face light up as they receive a letter from a sponsor is one of the highlights of my job. If you want to sponsor, click here for all the details.
Running water is at last a reality at Calo Me Lare as we have finally secured all the components needed to replace the hand pump with a solar powered, battery assisted submersible pump which slowly fills a 10,000 liter tank, which then gravity-feeds the homes with water. Getting seemingly simple systems up and running has proved to be no easy task in a land where the right parts and pieces are hard to come by. So we’re very thankful that water flows from our sink taps and they no longer have to fetch it from the well.
It’s been a busy month of construction around CML, with 3 new homes well under way and nearing completion. Our administration building is about done and we’ll be moving in next week. It’s beautiful! We’re now scouting for the children who will fill the 3 new homes. Please pray for our team, and the children, as we go through this difficult and sometimes heart-wrenching process of selection.
Keely celebrated her birthday in Africa for the second time, turning 18 in mid-May. She always likes to have a unique experience on her birthday. Last year she went on a mini safari, this year she got malaria. I guess that still counts. Unfortunately we got a series of false negative tests and didn’t seek malaria treatment for a whole week, which caused her to get very sick as the parasite rapidly multiplied in her blood stream. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody being more miserable. Once properly diagnosed she began treatment, which was effective and now about a month later she’s back to her normal self. Thanks for your continued prayers for our health and safety over here. Next time one of us gets sick we’ll get our blood under a microscope pronto, having learned, as we often do, the hard way! Effective treatment for malaria is available here to those who can get access to it, but malaria remains as one of the leading causes of death in sub-Saharan Africa because access to a clinic or dispensary for those living in villages or bush areas is not so easy.
Next week we get a visit from our fearless leaders in the US, the founders of Project Hope! We’ll be having 2 teams coming back to back during the month of July, both from Discovery Bible Fellowship in Oklahoma. Their focus will be on evangelism in the villages surrounding us, VBS at CML, and providing HIV/AIDS education and testing in our area. Please pray for the teams and God’s blessing on their travel and time here. Some of the team members are sponsors to our kids so they’ll get to spend some neat time together getting to know one another. Everyone at Calo Me Lare is super excited to have them with us!
One week after the teams leave, we’ll also be boarding a plane for home, bringing Keely back for college and making our way around the northwest in Aug/Sept to visit as many of you as we can before we return to Uganda. We look forward to spending some time sharing our adventure with you, and catching up on yours.
See you soon! Thank you for every penny and prayer! Your love is making a difference.
Andy, Cami & Keely Flege
No comments:
Post a Comment