Photo: Children at our main orphan home campus are excited about the brand new water filtration system that is providing them with crystal-clear clean water.
We are happy to share the good news that the 8th annual harvest at our Myanmar rice farm took place in December. The crop yielded 4.6 tons of rice at the 14 acre farm. We are thankful for a good crop that will provide a nutritious staple in the diets of our children and the staff in our 3 orphan homes. Another benefit to growing this staple grain is that it stores well over the year in our orphan home pantries. We are praying for another bountiful harvest of rice in May as our native team has already planted the new crop. Harvesting rice in the summer is a new venture for us and we are excited to see the results.
Part of the rice harvest yield produces byproducts referred to as “broken rice,” “rice husks,” “rice bran,” and “hay straw,” all suitable for various types of livestock and poultry feed. The harvest in December profited our native team $135 from the sale of these rice byproducts. To keep these amounts in perspective relative to the local economy, remember that the average weekly income of a Myanmar citizen is around $37 per week.
We are also growing bananas, pumpkins, and a variety of vegetables at our new campus garden, so the children always have delicious food to eat. We are praying to be able to relocate to the new campus before June as soon as funds are provided to build our own facilities that are not vulnerable to flooding — 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.
In other good news, our children took their end-of-semester exams in October in which they all did very well. We are proud of 2 of our children who received special recognition — one girl won an award for excellence in sports, and one boy won an award for accomplishment in art.
To celebrate our children’s hard work, our team organized a week-long camp in October for 150 children (ages 4-16) where they had fun learning new songs & Bible stories, playing soccer and other games, and eating different good food each day such as pork, fish, beef, and chicken.
School resumed in November and our children have been studying their native Burmese language, English, math, geography, history, physics, chemistry, and biology and also receive extra tutoring sessions when needed from the staff at our orphan home. Final exams will occur in March and then the children will enjoy a “summer break” before school starts again at the end of May. When the children are not studying, they enjoy playing soccer, jump rope, running, singing songs, playing guitar, and watching TV together.
To round out the good news: thanks to your support and our partnership with the “Lift Up” organization, funding was raised to provide a brand new industrial reverse-osmosis water filtration system which has just been installed at our main campus. This will provide affordable and safe drinking water for over 2,000 local neighbors and our orphans at our 3 orphan homes. We plan to sustain this project and make the purified drinking water available to local neighbors at an affordable cost of just $0.15 per bottle. This will pay to keep the machine and filters maintained.
In closing, a message from our faithful field director:
I would like to say thank you so much for your kind support for our children’s ministry. Please continue praying for this ministry and the new campus building project which are our urgent needs. I am sending a big thank you to all of our donors.
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