Merry Christmas!!
“Huh? It’s June, you dope, a little early in the season, don’t you think?!”
Yes, we know, but we have so many delightful African treasures we have collected over the past 50 years! While you’re sunning yourself this summer, browse our Marketplace page (http://www.lalmba.org/market-place/) and get a head start on your shopping. Where else will your early Christmas shopping improve the lives of the poor in a forgotten corner of Africa? Each African item has been handcrafted by a local artisan working hard to make ends meet.
Go to our Marketplace page to see the all the items we have for sale:
http://www.lalmba.org/market-place/
Does Lalmba Really Make A Difference?
We can think of no better way to convey the good that Lalmba accomplishes than by telling you stories of real people whose lives have been changed because of Lalmba.
Meet Geremew. He was born in a remote village outside of Chiri, Ethiopia, where he and his six siblings lost their father during an earthquake. He was six months old at the time. His mother, who suffers mental problems, took them to the closest sizeable town a few days’ walk away in search of support. She found none, and the desperate family was homeless and hungry. Begging on the street with her 6 children at her side, she had no option but to give her children away to people to work as servants in their homes. She thought, “At least then my children will be fed.” Geremew was lucky enough to be taken in by someone who allowed him to attend school when he wasn’t working. He was not well cared for, however, and was found by Lalmba’s Children’s Director in a very malnourished state, barely dressed, and shunned at school. Because his living situation was so unhealthy, Geremew was brought to Lalmba Children’s Home 9 years ago. He is now attending the 10th grade in the local school, where he is performing well, and hopes to become a Health Officer (like a doctor) and work for Lalmba’s Chiri Health Center someday.
These stories are not uncommon. Lalmba means hope for so many impoverished children with a bleak future of servitude ahead of them.
What we find so encouraging is how much good can be accomplished with relatively little in this part of the world. A child’s life can be transformed forever by what we pay for a monthly car payment!
- $100 pays for all of Geremew’s needs—food, clothing, housing, school supplies, and care for 4 months.
- $300 pays for Geremew’s inclusion in our children’s home for the entire year.
- $700 pays for the nutrition program, which trains families of malnourished infants on how to prepare nutritious meals to prevent future malnutrition in their children.
- $1000 pays for 5 destitute children who live with extended relatives to attend school this year instead of work as servants or in the fields.
We inhabit is a topsy-turvy world full of great imbalances. Each one of us could have been born on the floor of a mud hut in a tiny village in Africa. But instead we live in a place of plenty. The lives of our African brothers and sisters are no less beautiful than ours, full of happiness and pain just like our own, but their human struggles are magnified by lack of access to basic needs. Lalmba strives to meet those physical needs as much as possible, so that they face less needless tragedy in their lives.
It is enriching for all of us who do not ignore life’s imbalances. By acting with compassion for our fellow humans who have so little, we answer the call to make this world a slightly happier, healthier and more hopeful planet.
Tembea Na Mimi: A Walk Across Kenya!
It’s really going to happen, folks. On August 3, 11 Lalmba supporters will embark on the adventure of a lifetime! We are going to push ourselves to exhaustion, and face extreme physical and mental challenges as we plod 150 miles over 10 days across the ancient, wild lands of Kenya, East Africa. We are not aware that this exact route has ever been attempted before. We will end our adventure at the lakeside village of Matoso, the home of Lalmba’s largest program, which serves about 1200 destitute children.
Why are we doing this?
Like the explorers before us, we will endure hardship for a cause greater than ourselves. We will walk the land of the people we serve. We will bear witness to their great needs, to the great beauty of their country and culture, and we will strive to understand what it means to spend a lifetime walking in poverty.
When we come home, we will bring back stories of the great challenges, the breathtaking beauty,
and the real people we met who are struggling to survive. Please consider sponsoring one of us. Your sponsorship goes directly to Lalmba. All the walkers are paying their own expenses.
