ZOE is a distinctive three-year program, developed in Africa that empowers orphans and vulnerable children around the world to overcome extreme poverty, become fully self-reliant, and learn of God’s love for them. Active in Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Liberia, Guatemala and India, ZOE has approximately 28,000 children currently enrolled.
  Established in 2004, Zoe Ministry gives hope to orphans in Africa (due primarily to the HIV/AIDS epidemic) by ministries of food relief, education support, medical care, and empowerment life-skills training. The three-year partnership my home church had with one of the Zoe “families” -- the Amani (“peace”) Thuuria Working Group -- has just ended. Here is the report we received from Zoe:

“Three years ago a group of orphaned and vulnerable children were brought together and told that some people from a church very far away not only thought they deserved a better life, but believed in their ability to become self-sufficient and even to become leaders in their community.  It was hard for them to fully grasp what the future could hold, but ZOE helped them dream and then taught them how to achieve their dreams.  You provided the resources to make those dreams come true. Those young people have now graduated.  Today they are no longer hungry or hopeless.  They tend to farms and livestock, run small businesses, attend school and church, and serve as role models for other.”
 

Each year my church sends a missions team to minister at Jackie’s House—a private orphanage in the Dominican Republic that ministers to handicapped, abused and neglected children, in Jesus’ name.

Each of the 25–30 children in the house has a sobering life story. For instance:

• Claudia has cerebral palsy; when she was found, her caregiver was her 5-year-old brother.
• Israel, Estenfani and Clara have bones so brittle that they are called “crystal children”; all three are wheelchair-bound, due to multiple fractures in their bodies. Their mom is too poor to provide proper medical care and nutrition for them.

Jackie and her husband, Hernando, felt called to care for these poor and marginalized children in a loving, Christian home where they are happy, well fed, clothed and home-schooled. Jackie’s House relies completely on donations.