OUR FIRST SPONSOR

Child sponsorship results

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:32:00 +0100

It's Week 4 of Child Sponsorship Month!

With only a week and a half left of Child Sponsorship Month, we'd like you to meet Sophie, Natalie and Harvey.

Sophie was rescued by Open Arms last August at just two months old. She lived on the streets from the time she was born. Her mother was addicted to glue and gave Sophie glue to sniff as well. God spared this precious baby's life by bringing her to Open Arms.

Natalie (14) arrived at the Village having been repeatedly passed between relatives, hearing each time that she was an unwanted burden. Natalie has finally found a place to call home, where she is accepted, loved and secure.

Harvey is an 11-year-old boy who came to the Village with his brother, Jack. Harvey loves to play football with his new brothers and sisters. He would like to be a teacher when he grows up.

These are just some of the 39 children that we are caring for at the Open Arms Village in Kenya. Currently, we are operating at a deficit every month, and we need your help to cover the cost of caring for our children. Our goal is to get all of our children fully sponsored.

Would you support one of these children on a monthly basis? Become a Partner Parent now!

NB All names have been changed to protect the identity of the children

Another year oF POSH GUITARS - TIME TO TITHE

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:22:55 +0100

Dear Philip

Thank you for your very generous donation of £1300 in support of the children of Open Arms.

We are enormously grateful for your gift at this time. Our US funding for the Slums Feeding Programme has recently come to an end and we are asked to take in new children almost every week. Like you, we live by Faith and we believe that all these needs will be provided for.

In the UK we are increasingly working with more Corporate Partnerships. I was wondering if you would like us to add a link to your Guitar website onto our corporates pages?

Thank you again to you and Julie for your wonderful support.

Best wishes

Hélène Frost (MInstF)
Chief Executive Officer
Open Arms International UK

New Homes

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 14:51:02 +0000

More Children Get a New Home

With the opening of the third Children's Home, Amani, Open Arms has been able to welcome several new faces at the Village over the past week or so. Here are a few of them:

Cassie (9) and Megan (11) are sisters. Their father abandoned the family and their mother locked them out of the house and has now abandoned them as well leaving them to roam the streets. Megan ended up in juvenile prison from where the sisters were referred to Open Arms by the District Children's Officer as an emergency referral

Paul and Sarah Kipkemboi are the new house-parents of Amani house, which means Peace in Swahili. They have 3 children, the youngest of which will be with them at the Village and is in class 5 at school.
The staff are working with the local authorities to identify other children to be welcomed to the Village. The paperwork is being sorted and soon the children will be able to move in, so watch this space for updates!
Kenya has nearly 1.5 million orphaned children; roughly 200,000 children below 5 years of age die each year and over 250,000 children spend their days and nights alone on the streets; many of them orphaned or abandoned.

At the Open Arms Village we are responding to this urgent need by trebling the number of children in our care, from 28 to 80 this year

Without us these seriously vulnerable children would be living on the streets, becoming prime targets for child traffickers. All of them are at risk of disease, hunger, violence; drugs, alcohol, and sexual abuses. We give them a safe and loving home and a hope for the future.

We are so grateful for your support at this time....

To support this work and help it expand further please donate on-line: click here, or to enquire about setting up a donation.

Shaddy

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:48:40 +0000

Hi there,
Went to see Shaddy yesterday and I am thrilled to report he looked great and is clearly a very happy and healthy little boy. Priscilla is teaching him to count to 10 and his ABC which he says and also tries to write as you will see in the pics.
It was a really positive meeting.
We gave Shaddy some new clothes, the present from his sponsors and some crayons and a colouring book. We also delivered milk and eggs which we will be doing on a weekly basis. We measured his feet so that we can get him some shoes.
The sunglasses were from the sponsors so I am sure they will want to see!! Going to taking de-worming tablets next time as well.

Blessings!

xx

First Home - They’re in!

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:45:45 +0000

18 months after the first children came to live at the Open Arms Village, and got new families, new hope and a new future, they are now getting a brand new home to live in.

The 16-strong family of Daniel and Lydia Yego moved into their new home this week, and will soon be followed by the family of Peter and Stella Kimelli, who will move into the 'house next-door'.

This move is the culmination of a lot of hard work and amazing generosity by Open Arms volunteers and supporters, for which no amount of thanks can be enough.

Three more homes are also under construction and will be ready for habitation in 2010. Open Arms staff are currently conducting interviews to find the new house-parents that will head up those homes and allow us to give a new life to more orphans and abandoned children.

To read more about this milestone in the story of Open Arms, and some personal reflections on what it means for the children that have made the move, click here.

I don’t realise how lucky my kids are

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 18:50:29 +0100

Hello

We hope this finds you well, and having a good autumn. I was fortunate enough to have a trip to Kenya at the end of September, and I just want to update you on progress out there as well as tell you a beautiful story of a life transformed.

Things are really progressing well at the village now; there are 5 homes for children in various stages of completion, with occupation of the first one expected by end of this month. Two more should be complete for occupation before the end of the year which means that all the children we currently have will be in their new homes by Christmas – what a wonderful present that will be.

Construction has started on the first three guest homes, for volunteers or visitors. We are aiming for the village to become self-sustainable within the next three years and the revenue from our guest homes will provide a new income stream to support the running costs of the village. Plans are also being drawn up for the ‘Open Arms school’ so that our children can all get first class education on site.

So what with all that, plus 5 teams of volunteers giving their support and input over the summer months – life has not been dull!
Of course none of this would be possible without the generous support of so many wonderful Open Arms supporters - through financial giving, involvement in fundraising activities, and participation on teams – a huge thank you to you all. We do still need to furnish each home which costs £5,000 per home and we are praying for this money to come in. If you feel able to help, we would be so very grateful.

Now for the story of a life transformed. Many of you will remember earlier this year I mentioned little B, a 2 year old who had been found wandering on the streets of Eldoret, scavenging for food, abandoned by her alcoholic and drug / glue addicted mother. Well, she has now been at the Village for almost 6 months, and she is doing so well. Lydia, her new mother, was telling me that in the past 2 months little B has got to the stage where she is happy to sleep indoors, rather than outside which is all she would do to start with, and will also stay indoors to eat rather than wanting to take her food outside. She has also got more relaxed about her meals in that she isn’t feeling the need to try and cram all the food in quickly before anyone else can take it.

All this drove home to me just what a precarious and threatening start some of these children have to their lives, but also what an amazing story of hope and transformation can be found within each life.

Again, without your support, none of this would have happened, so as you read this e-mail, know that you have played, and continue to play, a critical part in enabling the lives of so many children to be transformed.

Wishing you a wonderful day

The Team

OAI Promotional Video

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:29:34 +0100

A short video highlighting some of the recent work of OAI. Worth a watch.

Team visits

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:34:43 +0100

Kenya Teams 1 and 2 are home!
We welcome back from Kenya our first two summer outreach teams!  Team 1 worked at the Open Arms Village, landscaping around two of the new children's homes. They shovelled dirt from large piles into wheelbarrows, then dumped that dirt around the homes to level out the ground. Once the dirt was all moved and compacted, they dug up grass from a nearby field and planted it in front of the homes so the children will have a beautiful yard to play in. 
Team 2 hosted a medical clinic for the community in and around the Kambi Teso slum. In four days, the team of 26 (plus six local medical students, one Ugandan doctor, three Ugandan dentists, and one Ugandan ophthalmologist!) treated:
1,069 patients in medical
174 in dental
420 in eye
1,243 in pharmacy
210 tested for HIV (9 were positive)
We are also celebrating the 37 healings and 81 salvations that occurred during that time!  The last team of the summer is flying out July 25 to host another medical clinic. Because of heavy demand for services during our previous clinic, our medical supplies and funding for this outreach are running very low. Any help you could provide for medicines and supplies would allow us to touch hundreds more with medical treatment and the love of Jesus they so desperately need. You can send a cheque payable to ‘Open Arms International’ to PO Box 144, Stockport, SK7 6WG, or call 01625 859773 for credit card donations.
NB: that phone number is just for this occasion as I am away on a summer school so unable to answer the 0845 number until next week. Please call during office hours.

Many thanks, and God bless

Helen

Leonida

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:27:25 +0100

Dear Phil and Julie

I hope this finds you well. I am writing this in Kenya, but won’t send till back in the UK as Kenya internet is somewhat slow, so attaching photos will not be good!

I just wanted to let you know that I met with Leonida a couple of times now, and have passed on your gifts to her. We are doing medical clinics up at Kambi Teso, which is the same place that Leonida lives, so although she didn’t come to the clinic, she did come to the feeding programme which happens there also.

So just to let you know that she is OK, initially she was as shy as you would expect a girl to be of her age that is confronted with a white person who doesn’t speak her language, but after she had seen me there on a few days, she was coming up to me for a hug and with a smile. She is always with a group of similar age girls, and clearly has some good friends. She is P2 at school (out of 8 classes), so is perhaps a year or so behind where a girl her age would be expected to be, but given the life circumstances she has had to endure, to be at school at all is a dream come true.

I have not been to her house, so am not sure what the current situation is with regard to whether they have started to rebuild it, but I will try and find out for you.

Attached are some photos of Leonida, I hope you like them.

I haven’t managed to see Shaddy, as time has not worked out for us, but I know his gift will be passed on, and that he is doing OK. Rachel is in regular contact with Pricilla regarding his care.

Thanks for your support to Leonida and Shaddy,

God bless

Helen

Letter from Ruth

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:08:40 +0100

Hi all,

Isn’t God great! - Don’t know if you realise, but it is a year today since our first children were received at Open Arms, what better way to celebrate than with the committal of all our children. Yes ALL our children were committed this morning and I have the paperwork in my hands!!
We were all there before 8am as instructed and sat around waiting for over two hours, there were some very important people arriving at the court and all the court officials had to stand on ceremony to welcome them, once they arrived the hearings were able to start and the whole procedure took less than 10 minutes!! We were on our way by 10.35 and went to the Sirikwa hotel to celebrate with a soda! We also took the opportunity to take some photos of the kids which hopefully you can use in newsletters etc - I will forward disc shortly.
We also met Beatrice our newest family member, Philip the DCO approached us and asked us to take her in as an emergency case. This beautiful little girl is about 2 and a half years old and has spent at least three days lost, living on the streets, fending for herself. Her mother has mental health problems, is a drunkard and lives on the streets. Beatrice and the two people from Berur Streetcare who had been looking after her went back to the village with all our kids to settle her in. She will be living with Daniel and Lydia and is already happily playing with the kids - Ruth has given her her own teddy to play with, which she has claimed and won’t let out of her sight.
Praise God she is safe tonight.
The letter from the DCO states that she is under our temporary care and protection as they look into her matter, but I have been advised that this is the standard statement and they are in no way planning for it to be temporary. Beatrice will get checked out at the Docs tomorrow. Please pray for her especially over the next few days and weeks as she adjusts and settles into village life.
Thanks for praying…
Blessings,
Ruth