A chance meeting on Facebook

Madaki Elkanah

Our paths happened to cross on Facebook. That is not so strange until you realize Madaki Elkanah lives in the nation of Niger whose population is 80% Muslim and one of the poorest nations in Africa. Madaki works with a small church in the city of Tere. A small group of people were led to Christ by a missionary from Nigeria who lived here from 2005-2009. The church continued without leadership until Madaki moved to work with them in May of last year. It was about that time that I learned of his work and began to pray for him.

 
When you pray for someone God will often use you to answer your own prayers. Although my prayers for Madaki have continued for over a year it is only in the last couple of months that we have been chatting via Facebook.
Through our chats I learned that World Vision has a small presence in this area and actually has a well drilling machine. The World Vision director for Niger has offered to drill a well for the village where the church meets. The normal cost is $6,000.00 but the director wants to help this small group of believers. He told Madake that if they could raise $2,000.00 to cover the cost of

Some of the members of the church that meets in Tere.

the pump, housing and other supplies they will drill the well!
When Madaki forwarded this request to me at Hope Springs, even without having money on hand, I had to say yes. This is too great an opportunity to pass up. But when I say without money on hand that is the reality. On Friday of last week we drained our well drilling funds to zero to provide two new wells for villages in Gombe State, Nigeria. So I need your help ASAP to secure the funds to make this well a reality. Here is what a well will do for this small band of Christians and other villagers:

 

• Provide clean, safe drinking water. (Prevent many diseases, worm infestations.)

• Provide water for food production. (A severe drought is causing increasing hunger across the Eastern Sahel in West Africa, affecting 10 million people in four countries. Niger has been hit the hardest.)

• Provide water for good hygiene and prevent the spread of disease.

• But most important of all, it will be a tangible expression of the love that Christ has for them.

 

Help us bring lasting change to Tere, Niger! Give here: www.hopespringsint.com or by mail at: Hope Springs Intl., 118 Wessington Place, Hendersonville, TN 37075.

Fertile soil, but with out water nothing grows! Water is life!

A Goal To Bring Lasting Change…We are making progress!

Preventable Disease By the Numbers

1.5 million kids die annually from diseases that are easily preventable through routine vaccinations. (World Health Organization)

1 million people die of malaria each year. (Compassion.com)

30,000 people die weekly from illnesses caused by unclean drinking water. 90 percent of these deaths are children. (Charity Water)

17 million kids were orphaned because of AIDS in 2011 (globalhealthfacts.org)

As discouraging as these figures can be, we are making progress!

The global mortality rate from malaria has dropped 25 percent since 2000.

In Africa, the malaria death rate has fallen 33 percent in the same time frame.

Vaccination programs have resulted in a 74 percent decrease in measles deaths worldwide.

God calls us to not only meet these needs, but to empower people for sustainable and lasting change. Hope Springs International provides deep water wells, affordable health care, training in dry season farming and animal husbandry as a means to accomplish these goals. Each project is planned with an exit strategy in mind and a time line when each work will stand on its own with minimal or no ongoing support will be needed. Even our orphanage is being structured to one day be able to function without the need of outside support.

“If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” Isa. 58:10, 11.

Your gifts are bringing lasting change. Donate here: www.hopespringsint.com

Three Questions

“A few years back, three questions rocked my world. They came from different people in the span of a month. Question 1: Had you been a German Christian during World War II, would you have taken a stand against Hitler? Question 2: Had you lived in the South during the civil right conflict, would you have taken a stand against racism? Question 3: When your grandchildren discover you lived during a day in which 1.75 billion people are poor and 1 billion were hungry, how will they judge your response?” (“Out Live Your Life”, by Max Lucado)

The Lord blessed me with a tremendous opportunity to make a difference in the lives of a few of those poor and hungry. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of our 41 orphans at our orphanage in Dono-Manga, Chad. When I do I am also thankful for 7 ladies who fully or partially sponsoring 7 of our children. One of those ladies sponsors 2 children. They have become mothers to the motherless. In fact until sponsors can be found for the remaining 34 children, the money these ladies give enables us to provide at least two meals per day for all of our children.

I don’t know how you would respond to the three questions above. I know how these ladies have responded. I am thankful and proud of them. I know God is and I am betting their grandchildren will be too!

If you would like to join these ladies (and you don’t have to be a lady), and sponsor a child it is simple. Full sponsorship is $100 per month; joint or ½ sponsorship is $50 per month. Just drop us a note at Hope Springs International, 118 Wessington Place, Hendersonville, TN 37075, or email us at: hopespringsinternational@yahoo.com and let us know your intentions.

I love what was the Apostle Paul said about David in Acts 13:36, “After David had done the will of God in his own generation, he died and was buried.” NLT.

O Lord, what an amazing opportunity you have spread out before me—a chance to make a difference for you in a desperately hurting world. Help me to see the needs you want me to see, to react in a way that honors you, and to bless others by serving them gladly with practical expressions of your love. Help me be Jesus’ hands and feet, and through your Spirit give me the strength and wisdom I need to fulfill your plan for me in my own generation. In Jesus name, Amen.

CAN OUR GENERATION END EXTREME POVERTY?

I was blessed to be able to attend Catalyst in Atlanta last week. One of the speakers was Dr. Scott Todd one of the leaders of 58 and the author of “Fast Living: How the Church Will End Extreme Poverty.” The data he shared was eye opening. People living in extreme poverty dropped from 52% in 1981 to 26% in 2005. In just a 30 year period there was a 50% decrease. But that is not all. In the past 20 years child mortality rates have been cut in half as well.

Todd showed a video where people from a number of different countries were asked the question, “Do you think that extreme poverty can be eliminated in our generation?” People from country after country responded with a resounding yes! But when Americans were ask the same question they did not believe it was possible. Todd said that low expectations and a wrong interpretation of Jesus’ statement, “For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.” (Matthew 26:11), have led to low expectations and in turn has fed apathy toward the possibility.

Here are some more compelling figures. There are 138 million committed Christians in America who have a total income of $2.5 trillion per year. But that group only gives away 3% of their income.

Todd challenged us with the words of Isa. 58:6, 7, “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?  Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” Todd then said, “God has given us everything we need to end extreme poverty. No question. And it’s clear what He wants. The question is, what do we want?”

At Hope Springs International we have seen the change that Todd speaks about first hand. We have seen funerals for children under the age of five go from one a day to seldom just by providing potable water from deep wells that have be drilled. We have seen sick children get well because of the availability of drugs from our dispensary. We have seen scores of people come to Christ because they have experienced firsthand the no strings attached love of Christ as they were taught about the salvation that is only available through Him.

We believe that God has given us a mission that has only just begun that will spread from our work in Dono-Manga to all of southern Chad. Will you join us in making this a reality?  Your sacrificial gifts will continue to save lives and enable ministers on the ground to share the Good News that Jesus Christ is Lord.  You can make donation on line at: www.hopespringsint.com or mail your gifts to Hope Springs International, 118 Wessington Place, Hendersonville, TN 37075.

More Than Just New Wells In Dono-Manga

25 Days after workshop

Not only is water flowing freely in Dono-Manga, but now crops are beginning to grow as well. The results of the recent Drip Irrigation Workshop held here in March are evident from the photo’s above. This valuable training not only gives people the knowledge and tools necessary to provide for themselves, it can be duplicated over and over again resulting in thousands of lives being changed. At Hope Spring International we are about helping people help themselves. 

Drip Irrigation field prepared

 

Twenty graduates and twenty observers from March Workshop

A Heart Touched By The Needs Of Children

Ebenezer With Lydia

During the campaign last November, the district leaders told Ebenezer of the many orphans in the Dono-Manga District and requested that we consider helping them with this great burden. This need was again brought to Ebenezer during this trip in a very forceful way. What follows is Ebenezer’s description of another way we can be Christ to the people of Dono-Manga.

“You may recall that in the second mission trip it was reported that the local government chairman had requested that we look for a way of assisting the orphans in this community. This time I could not avoid the situation as one of the orphans, Lydia, now three months and three weeks old was brought to me. Her father died while she was still in her mother’s womb and her mother passed away four weeks after her birth. Since that time she is with a neighbor who is nursing her own baby and this little girl. She is surviving so far. The foster parents are new Christians as were the baby’s parents. So many others were brought to me with similar stories.

Lydia's adoptive Mom

“The reason for the large number of orphans is that many men from Dono-Manga were drafted to fight in war torn Darfur. They all died in battle and never returned home. At the same time their families suffered economically and with poor health as they could not afford medical services so many of the mothers died from disease. The district leader had also mentioned before that there are also so many orphans resulting from the AIDS crisis.

Food provided for the 41 orphans by Ebenezer and Regina

“We [Ebenezer and his wife Regina] have decided to help with the feeding of forty-one of these orphans and hope that others will join us in this effort. As a beginning, the children will stay with their foster families and will come the where the Church meets for their breakfast, lunch and dinner as long as they have enough to share.”

Ebenezer and Regina have had a heart for orphans long before his visit to Chad. Since they have lived in northern Nigeria they have visited and supported orphans in a small orphanage in Maiduguri on a regular basis.

Ebenezer with the orphans

We want to  work with Ebenezer in the caring for these children. He tells me that $60 per month would provide basic food, medical, clothing and shelter  needs for one child. If you would like to make a difference in the life of one or more of these children contact us ASAP. You may not be able to change the world, but you can change the world for one of these children.

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:17 NLT