Thuesday at the Zoo

Today we took the 50 preschoolers from Blessing Home to the Zoo - what a trip!  This was the first excursion for them.  Thank goodness they are well behaved!  Besides the eight of us, there were about 8 staff from the home plus Mike and Sherri.  Thanks to some UMW women at First Church, all the children had matching bright blue tshirts to wear so we could easily keep track of them.  The zoo was about 30 minutes away and we went in rented vans.  It was a fantastic zoo,,,, very large.   Called an 'open zoo' and many animals roamed fairly freely and there was much more opportunity for petting and feeding animals than in the US.

Less than 1/2 of 1% of the population here are Christians.  Mike and Sherri came here abot 4 years ago.... first missionaries here.  They've started 12 churches now.  The churches play a huge role in keeping the children safe from child trafficking.  If children are enrolled in school and/or belong to a church group, they are 95-99% less likely to be involved in the sex trade here.  This is how Blessing Home got started.  The only way to intervene in the child trafficking is to reach the children at a very young age.  Boys are taken at about 8 years old and girls at 10 (into the sex trade).  They are kept locked up in attics here in this very city and drugged until they are hooked on the drugs and then they are put to work.  They is almost no way to save the children at that point.  It's heartbreaking.  Parents will selll their children for $200 to get mostly refrigerators and Blackberries (phones).  The children at Blessing Home are being raised to know and love God... by Christian teachers.

Blessing Home is also trying to document all the children because without a birth certificate they are not considered 'legal' even tho they were born here.  And without birth certificates they can't go to school or work when they are older.  For the street children and many of the others who aren't living with their parents, it's a long and hard process but the church is committed to helping make a better life for these children.

Everywhere I go, it is so evident that 'the church' is the hope of the world.  Here.... more than ever.