Making A Difference

“If you can't feed a hundred people,
then feed just one.”

Mother Teresa

Make the choice to make a difference! It is estimated that a child is orphaned by AIDS every 14 seconds. AIDS creates 6,000 orphans in a single day. Join with the sponsors and volunteers of Children of Grace by making a difference in the life of an orphaned child.

A team of volunteers visited Uganda in July to work with children affected by HIV/AIDS. The following are excerpts from a "blog" written by Karen Jones that told of her adventures in Jinja.

"The schools... There are many layers - first rutted roads and shacks speak to the poverty in Africa that you think about. But then the layers begin... Ernest the headmaster welcoming us to the school and proudly showing the new facilities that are being built (compliments of Children of Grace) and the individual latrines by grade (a hole in the ground, built compliments of a US donor.) There is the feeding program paid for in part by many of my friends that prevents kids from being swatted away from the food. There are the kids who sing to us in a presentation "our nature is happiness now that you're here." They also sing of crying at night because their parents and brothers/sisters are dying of AIDS."

"Brenda haunts me. She is a pretty, assertive (for an African) girl in the 6th grade at New Victory School. She is generous, inquisitive and seemingly happy. She has three younger sisters and both of her parents have died (I assume of AIDS). She lives with her grandmother who is not able to do much to care for the girls. She wants to be an accountant! She is sponsored through Children of Grace which helps not only her to go to school, but also her family as they don't have to pay the school fees for her. We took her and some other sponsored kids to the market to buy clothes and a two-week supply of rice, beans and sugar and she was concerned about her family as well as the other kids. For those of you who have asked what to do, I am now a true believer that sponsorship is a great way to make a difference in the life of a family. I have a letter for a sponsor back home that starts out "Dear mum and dad" and ends "your daughter"... I am in tears as I write this..."

"This world has so many problems in it; too many people are left on the streets with nothing but the clothes on their backs. I have way more than I need and I feel selfish not going to help as much as I can. We might not solve all the problems of this world, but we can still make a difference. Isn't that what everyone wants in life? To be able to make a difference in someone's life? This I believe is why I decided to go to Uganda."

MAKE THE CHOICE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!