January 2014 Update

Feb 5, 2014

What a Trip….

Thank you for your support. We wanted to update you on the accomplishments of this latest trip to visit the kids in our program as well as the remaining children still at the orphanage.

Success Story – Lilliane

One of the great surprises was that of Lilliane, 12, who only last year scored a ‘0” (yes zero) on her entrance exams to her boarding school. Now she has found herself  scoring 72% for the last semester and near the top of her class. A girl who was called “stupid” by administrators at the orphanage she lived at a year ago. Amazing what happens when someone is simply given an opportunity to learn.

New Students Added to Our Program

We also added a group of new students including brothers Joshua & Eric who were living on the streets of Kigali for the past year after being kicked out of their foster home by a family that couldn’t afford to house them anymore. Somehow they had both managed to continue going to school with the older brother picking up small jobs here and there so he could feed them and occasionally rent them a room. The stunner is how well they are doing in school. Joshua is currently ranked 7th out of 34 students in his class. Eric Just passed his entrance exams for University. When we met them in front of our hotel they presented us with their report cards and we told them we would send Joshua to boarding school and cover Eric’s expenses to University of Kigali. Eric broke down in tears. His appreciation was overwhelming.

Christmas Delivery to the Orphanage

Through your donations we also delivered a toy for each of the 350+ children at the orphanage as well as other food & supplies including 200 toothbrushes and toothpaste donated by Dr. Jamie Sands, DDS, and 8 laptop computers procured from Microsoft by Chad Johnston that will be used to set up a computer lab at a new boarding school for our children in April.