The
Adjei Bimonthly(ish)
October 2002
This is our first newsletter after
arriving back from the UK on September the 9th. Our
original flight was cancelled so we left a day late.
However, being moved up to business class, having
a spare seat for Jasmine and having about 6 hours
less journey time just about made up for it!!
Thank you to everyone who showed us
their support while we were in England - those who
opened their homes to us, fed us, prayed for us, gave
us donations, invited us to speak at their churches
and were just generally very nice to us. We really
enjoyed the time that we were back and our only regrets
are about the friends that we weren’t able to see
this time.
All change
Arriving back in Bolivia we were gently
reminded why England isn’t generally considered to
be a hot country and why everyone here spends a lot
of time complaining about the dust. We also
found out that things at the boy’s
home, “El Camino” have been going very well and there
are now 11 boys there... 6 of whom have now been off
the streets for about 6 months! Also a significant
portion of the money needed for the next phase of
the building has now been raised and we are hoping
that work will soon start on the kitchen/ dining area
so that the rest of the dormitory can be freed up
to receive more boys.
You may remember malnourished baby
Moses from our previous newsletters and from our talks
in England. The latest news about him is that he seems
to have recovered completely whilst in the nutrition
centre. His mother, Doris however, lost her rights
over him because she didn’t go to visit him and so
he has been taken into care by social services.
Towards a new girls home...
After being cancelled for a few weeks
for various reasons we are hoping to restart the drop-in
project for girls in Casa Alfa next week. The girl
who seems most keen is Gladys, whose son Omar died
from malnutrition earlier this year. You may remember
from our last letter that Gladys 
was
7 months pregnant with another child when Omar died.
The good news is that Gladys is not living on the
streets anymore. Her boyfriend is working and together
they are renting a room so their daughter, Jasmin
(don’t know where
they got that name from!) is being looked after
a bit better than Omar was. Please pray for them,
even though Gladys may have learned a harsh lesson
when Omar died it doesn’t mean that she has suddenly
acquired all the parenting skills that Jasmin needs.
Part of the aim of the project is to teach and encourage
the girls to look after their children properly.
The project’s aim is to prepare girls
for going into a full time residential home which
we hope to be able to open in the next few months.
We would like to have a couple or a family who could
live in and do the day to day administration of the
home: organizing shopping, cleaning, schooling, maintenance,
etc. This would free us to concentrate more on the
actual rehabilitation process in the home: working
with the girls on a rehab. programme, counselling,
discipleship, etc.
Staff
On the staff front, the good news is that Sharon
has come back to work with us for at least one more
year (there was some doubt that she would return from
England when we last wrote), however, we are still
looking for the right people to be able to live in
and see to the daily running of the new girls home
which we hope to see set up within the next few months.
The Challenges
To give an idea about the economic
reality in Bolivia at the moment I’d like to tell
you about Yany and Salustio. Yany is the lady from
our church who was teaching the girls handicrafts
in the project and Salustio is her husband. After
being unemployed for 7 months (with no such thing
as unemployment benefit), Salustio
managed to find work just after we left to
go to England. Sadly, this meant that he had to stop
helping out at El Camino (the boy’s home) as he had
been doing for some weeks. Now, on arriving back here,
we have just found out that Yany won’t be able to
help at the girls project because she has had to find
work - the reason being that Salustio left his job
because for the 3 months he was there he simply wasn’t
paid at all. He is now 3 months worth of bus fares
worse off than if he hadn’t worked at all. They haven’t
been able to pay their bills and now their water and
electricity have been cut off. And this is not an
isolated case, we often hear about workers going unpaid
and people having to scrape together in any way they
can enough food to put on the table. Please pray for
Yany, Salustio and their daughter Kenia - they seem
to have the vision and ability to work with the street
kids, but not the means to do so.
Family News
Jasmine had her 2nd birthday shortly
after arriving back here which we celebrated with
a party in our back garden. She was very excited and
enjoyed playing with her friends and presents.
Whilst Jasmine’s English improved dramatically
whilst in England, her Spanish vocabulary was
cut by a dramatic 75% and she came back with only
the use of the word “agua”. As versatile and necessary
as the word “water” is, we were relieved when within
2 weeks of being back she had recovered a further
25% of her leaving vocabulary and is once again able
to take her leave of friends with a culturally sensitive
“chau”.
Please pray for:
- Us - missing family & friends and
getting used to being back here again.
- Staff for the girl’s work.
- Gladys and Jasmin.
- The setting up of a new girl’s home.
- Yany, Salustio & Kenia
Thank you for your friendship and support.
With our love,
David, Sarah & Jasmine. xxx
Please contact us at:- contactus@casaalfa.org
P.S. If anyone knows a Mrs
S. Eden-Jones please could she get in touch with us.
Thanks.
