2008 Year In Review

By Julie Cramer

Last year—during the peak of the world’s economic crisis—283 people were leaving their homes in the US to help orphans around the world.

On 27 mission trips, Orphan Outreach (OO) teams worked alongside mothers in the trash dump of Guatemala City; gave Christmas presents to 650 children in orphanages in St. Petersburg and Leningrad; brought electricity to a school in Honduras; and handed out backpacks and school supplies to children in Indian slums.

We would like to share a few highlights of how God has allowed OO to grow in its second year of ministry—and to thank you for the part you played in making that happen.


Guatemala

Rayitos de Esperanza is a school that embodies its name: Ray of Hope. It sits on the edge of Guatemala City’s central trash dump. This year OO covered the school’s windows with netting to black flies, which buzz in the dump, from getting into classrooms. It also renovated parts of the school, from the floors to the bathrooms, and gave sewing equipment and materials to the mothers of children in the preschool.

At schools in Zone 18—the country’s poorest—OO worked with Guatemala’s former first lady, Patricia Arzú, to distribute humanitarian aid and school supplies. A team of 60 women from Midday Connection, a broadcast of Moody Radio, went to the region in October to hold vacation Bible school for the children and host a carnival for 550 students.

“From a Christian perspective, our obligation to care for orphans doesn’t go away. We’re going to have [economic] issues here in the States, but the kids in these other countries are left with nothing. Christ cares for them.” –Mike Douris, OO president

Honduras

In Honduras this year we served more than 1,300 children; established a foundation to conduct OO work in the country; helped facilitate 40 emergency shelter units in partnership with UPS, Westinghouse, and AIDMatrix; and distributed over $100,000 in critical supplies to local ministries through a team from WaYfm, a radio station out of Michigan.

The WaYfm team also constructed Genesis’ School’s first-ever playground and OO brought electricity to the Love, Faith, and Hope Daycare and School, located in Tegucigalpa’s common trash dump.


India
More than 550 Indian orphans received care from OO last year in the form of vacation Bible school, humanitarian aid, wells in the Shahabad slums, Christmas presents, backpacks and school supplies for students in Santvana Children’s Home, and medical services through operational support of Jiwan Jyoti Clinic Ministry.


Russia

For more than 200 young adults who graduated out of the Russian orphanage system last year, OO was there to help. In Leningrad, OO is working with the Committee of Education to begin a comprehensive graduate program in the region, and in Luga, OO hired a local case manager to oversee and mentor graduates (and soon-to-be graduates) with independent living skills, housing, jobs, university, and emotional and spiritual care. The goal of this program is to work with the local church in supporting these graduates and members of FBC Luga conducted weekly bible studies as part of this spiritual outreach.

OO, in partnership with Lone Sheep Ministries, also passed out 10,000 Bibles to children; completed construction of new rooms at Lomonosov baby home, which, as part of its ministry, cares for infants with AIDS; established a foundation of OO Russia; and developed a church ministry model and curriculum that can be duplicated throughout the country.