Published: May 19, 2023
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Dear Friends,
I want to tell you about a recent success in Africa.
I tried to launch a program in November 2021 – "Bring the Mothers Home" -– but without success. Then in December 2022, the chief operating officer of the Congolese Integration Network (CIN) became pregnant with her first child. I am on the board of CIN and explained my vision for Bring the Mothers Home. The CIN officer then began telling people she met at parties about the plight of these women in the south Kivu region. And, without asking, people started throwing money at her to help – $3,000 in the first month.
In May this year, CIN officially launched Bring the Mothers Home with $10,800 to ransom the first 300 women and babies.
In the middle of unbelievably massive flooding of Lake Kivu this spring, Herman Chirihambali brought the first four new mothers out. A failure turned into success. I am hoping to pair up refugee women in the U.S. with these women in their home country
Herman runs two orphanages for war orphans in Congo – in Minova and south Kivu – through an organization called Congo Threads. He sent this note just today (5/18/2023) about the current tragedy in Congo:
“We been busy with the travels to Bushushu and Nyamukubi, where due to floods and landslides, we lost thousands of people. This is where I am now. Until yesterday 458 dead had been picked up from the mud and 4878 are still missing, they are under ground. The situation is very, very sad. The rescueds have lost everything. Those in hospitals also need food, clothes, medical care. Numbers of orphans are suffering in streets. This is a worthy occasion to start a new orphanage at Kalehe. With our 7 years’ experience of managing orphans in Minova and Mukwidja, we will be available to help on this.”
from David Albert, Friendly Water for the World (5/16/2023)