Myanmar: 75 orphans taking their end-of-semester exams; case study of orphan rescued from poverty at age 4; our team faces challenges after flooding

Photo: Orphan children in our program are thankful to receive complete residential care in a family environment along with an education, medical support, and daily nutritious meals.

We are happy to report that 75 of our orphans (ages 5-18) are preparing to take their end-of-semester exams in October. To prepare for their exams, the children are receiving tutoring and putting in extra hours of study of their school subjects — their native Burmese language, English, geography, history, and math for our primary school students; Burmese, history, geography, English, science, and math for our middle school students; and math, history, English, physics, chemistry, and biology for our high school students.

We are so proud of our students’ diligence and hard work toward excelling in their education. To celebrate the end of the semester and the children’s school holiday, our native team is planning to organize a week-long children’s camp in October where the children will learn about stories from the Bible, learn new songs, play soccer and other fun outdoor games together, and enjoy delicious local cuisine made with pork, chicken, and fish.

Today we want to share the redemptive story of 9-year-old Yuzana* who lives at one of our orphan homes in Myanmar:

Yuzana is from a village in a very remote area. When she was 2 years old, her father died from a serious illness, leaving behind his wife, Yuzana, and her brother and sister. After her father’s death, under great distress her mother abandoned her children and no one in the village wanted to take care of Yuzana. She stayed with her grandmother for awhile, but her grandmother was very poor and could not provide enough food or clothing for Yuzana. She was hungry every day and cried often because of her impoverished life. Thankfully, a kind man found Yuzana in 2014 when she was 4 years old and with the permission of her grandmother he brought her to one of our orphan homes.

Now she has been living with us for 5 years, she is in the third grade, and she is so happy to be safe and attending school. Yuzana’s favorite subject is English and her dream is to become a Sunday school teacher when she grows up. She loves to sing and attend Sunday school at church. Her life has been transformed now that she has access to healthy food, new clothes, an education, and school supplies such as textbooks, a backpack, and an umbrella. Our field director reports: “Thank you for praying for her life. God is good.”

In other news, our 3 orphan homes were recently affected by flooding due to heavy rains that began in June. The flooding invaded all of our homes, forcing our children and the orphan home directors to move to a local Bible school campus so that our native team could cook for the children, and they all slept upstairs at the local church.

In addition, due to the bad weather conditions, nearly all of our children and orphan home directors came down with the flu. We sent our children and directors to the local medical clinic and thankfully many of them have recovered, and those who are still ill are now starting to feel better. We are also thankful that while there is still some rain in the area, the flooding has now stopped.

However, we did receive some damages from the flooding — our washing machines, our dryer, and some of the children’s books were destroyed by the high levels of water. We are also in need of a water purification machine to provide healthy water for our children to drink and to prepare their meals, and to enable us to sell bottled water to the local community. Thus, we need to raise $4,500 in order to purchase 2 new washing machines, and new dryer, a water purification machine, new books for the children, and consistent medical care for our children and our native team.

The problem with recent flooding highlights our urgent need to relocate to the 5 acres of land that we acquired last year, which is about one hour north of the city. The location is very tranquil and is not prone to flooding like our current campus. There is also a water well that is producing consistent and fresh water, and there are good public schools nearby.

We are praying to be able to relocate to the new campus as soon as funds are provided to build our own facilities — we need to raise $75,000 to construct a two-story building, including a bathroom and library. We also need to raise $24,000 for a transformer in order to supply electricity to the new campus.

Lastly, in June we planted our rice crop on our 14 acre rice farm, and we look forward to a bountiful harvest at the end of the year. We are so grateful for your continual prayers and faithful support making the work that we do for these children possible.

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* Story names are changed to protect our program participants.

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