A St Louis based non-profit called Small Rain hosted a food booth at the Festival of Nations this past week-end in St Louis with the proceeds going to the Sheltering Wings Clinic. The festival is an annual event which brings together foods and cultural experiences from many nations of the world.
The more adventuresome attendees could sample culinary delights from the Near East, the Far East, Europe and South America.
Small Rain ran an 'American' booth which made many visitors smile by serving hotdogs, lemonade, and ice cream bars.
Thank you, Small Rain! Thank you to all the many volunteers who made this great work a lighter load for Kate Horrigan and the Small Rain board!
The children of Burkina Faso thank you for your labor of love.
One of our boys, Emanuel Kouda, is in the hospital in Ouagadougou. I received an urgent call yesterday from Mathieu, also studying at the university, saying that they had called an ambulance and that Emanuel needed surgery.
As it turns out, I had gone to OUA to take care of some business yesterday. My schedule got completely changed, but I am glad that I was there and was able to meet the boys at the hospital.
Ema has appendicitis and typhoid fever. The surgery was successful and he is now recovering in his hospital room and may be released today.
Please pray for Ema. He has been discouraged about his studies and he has been dealing with 'not feeling well' for some time now. He has lost a lot of weight. He is a very tall boy and now resembles a walking skeleton. Please pray that real soon Ema will be back on his feet.
It was a great joy this past week to receive Phillipe and Beda Alonso and their family for a visit to the orphanage and to Burkina. This was the family's first return visit to Burkina since adopting their daughter, Tene, in 2007.
Tene's early childhood was filled with pain and suffering but she has been wonderfully rescued and is now thriving in a loving family and a beautiful environment in France. One of her older brothers, Eloi, is in this picture. She has another older brother, Quinten, who was not available for the picture.
Tene is completely integrated into her family. She is thriving physically and mentally. She will be entering the 5th grade this Fall. She plays the saxaphone, is an avid skier, enjoys swimming, and has many friends.
Here is little Tene when she came to the orphanage in 2005.
The Lord sent two special gifts to Burkina Faso this past year. They were packaged in the forms of Lisa Otterpohl and Sarah Oeder from Germany. Sarah and Lisa worked tirelessly with us at the orphanage for one year and they have left their mark in each of our hearts.
The list of their accomplishments and impact on our projects here is vast but to name just a few. . .
they ministered to our babies and older children by caring and loving, teaching and mentoring
they conducted child evangelism activities where 100's of children accepted the Lord
they reached out to children and churches outside of our community expressing the love of Jesus, encouraging local pastors, touching the children
they preached, they taught
they sang and they danced with our children
they participated in church activities
they painted our house!
they painted our church!
they organized our house and the clinic and the storage building
they held art classes with the orphanage children and our school children
They taught English in our primary school
and many, many more things and blessings are now ours through their time with us
So, we cannot say 'good-by' but we say 'A Bientot', see you again soon.
Lisa and Sarah, you will forever be in our hearts. Thank you for your obedience to the Lord in following his call to Burkina! Thank you for your servant hearts! If the Lord allows, we will see you again. Maybe on Burkina's soil? Maybe on Germany's or US soil? But if not on earthly soil. . . . for sure we will meet again in heaven.
With love from Burkina,
Ruth
Thursday, August 12, 2010
New Student Desks for a New School!
Little by little we are getting ready to start school this Fall. Sarah, one of our short-termers from Germany who just left this past week donated enough money to order new desks for 2 of our classrooms. Here is a picture of our 7th grade classroom. . . ready for the first day of class.
DEDICATION Ceremony for the Clinic and a gift from the Rotary Club International--This past Saturday, August 7th, we held a big party to celebrate the official opening of our clinic to publicly thank the Lord for all that He has done for us and to thank the Rotary Club International for the enormous gift that they recently gave to us.
With rain pending, it was not sure that the party would occur but with hopeful hearts a crew of 20 women started cooking at 4 AM. They fried 10 chickens and 16 kilos of fish. They prepared beautiful salads. And they prepared riz gras, an African rice dish made with tomato sauce and fresh vegetables.
Food Preparations--
At 7 AM, a crew of 8 men installed two huge tents and set-up 80 chairs. The whole courtyard had been swept clean. The clinic was spotless and the school classrooms were cleaned and set-up as dining halls.
At 10 AM, members from the Rotary Club in Ouaga arrived, and invited officials from Yako arrived. Friends and work associates from Yako came and all of our children and local workers were here to join in the celebration.
Several speeches were given; one by the president of the Rotary Club Crystal, one by our local director of Social Action, and by the local representatives from the Haut Commisaire and from the mayor's office.
Madame
The Rotary Club held a symbolic presentation of the gifts by passing some medical products through a chain of people with the end of the chain being one of our nurses, Josephine.
After a prayer of dedication of the clinic and the Rotary gift, we took a tour of the clinic showing the Rotary members and the Yako officials the new lab equipment, the new motos, and the stacks and stacks of medicine now available to the community.
The ceremony ended with a delicious meal prepared and served by women from the community and by our baby care-takers.
Saying 'thank you' does not begin to express all that is in my heart for what the Lord has done for us. In French to express this we say 'grande merci' or a huge thank you! And, even that only begins to adequately express our deep sentiments.
Once again, thank you to the Rotary Club! This gift enables us to expand our ministry to the orphans and vulnerable children in this region and allows us to start going out into neighboring villages looking for and treating sick children.
Small Rain Fund-raiser 
