Progress in Kenya and Plans for Texas
Nick sent me these couple of pictures from Kenya this morning. A couple of posts ago I mentioned the head of the Anglican church had been apologizing for the treatment of the AIDS community there. Nick and Dr. Oronje attended one of these meetings, which attracted large crowds and Dr. Oronje and some others from the Silas Christian Foundation sang in the choir. Nick said the speech was excellent, and there is some positive movement from churches in the area in responding to the crisis. It's wonderful to hear this news.

Also, a kind partner of Lahash recently donated the money needed to purchase the car that will be used as an ambulance in the Silas and Munyaka slums! That purchase should be made within the next couple of days!

Bono's Speech
For those of you who haven't watched Bono's speech in video format, YouTube.com has a posting of the video clip.

March for the Children of Uganda - April 29
The situation of the Invisible Children is being revealed to the Portland community. Erik Wecks of Imago Dei is spurring on a goal of 1000 members of Imago Dei to join in the march locally. It is going to be a powerful opportunity to tell the press and the nation about the hellish war of Northern Uganda. I'm hoping to lend my voice to the movement. InvisibleChildren.com

Save Darfur March - April 30
As the world wakes up after the global night commute for the children of Uganda, the Save Darfur coalition is organizing a march on Washington to raise awareness of the issue. SaveDarfur.org

Another Annual Trip to Texas
The staff at Camp Eagle in Texas have asked me to work on their summer program and integrate the projects and people of Lahash into the weekly presentation! This will be an exciting opportunity to speak to a couple thousand kids in Texas and their youth leaders. I'll be flying down sometime in April for a couple weeks - and hope to network with the Lahash friends in that area as well.

Prayer Requests
* Please pray for the deteriorating security condition in Southern Sudan
* Elizabeth (from the Renew Program) asks for prayer as her father undergoes surgery
* The formation of the board and process of incorporation happening for Lahash this week
* We need prayer to connect with a volunteer coordinator for the United States contacts

Tunataka Maji (We want water)
Wednesday is World Water day - and this year a fifth of our family around the world lack access to clean and accessible water. You can visit the link below to read more about this issue.



Movie Links
While I was at Imago Dei Community this past Sunday, I bumped into some guys running an "Invisible Children" booth. This is a movie I've talked about before, but hadn't had a chance to view it yet. They gave me a copy, and wow. I was moved to tears by the story of these precious kids. The movie is about 3 reckless Americans heading for an "adventure" in Africa and discovering the children who are victims of Uganda's civil war. I saw the rough cut - but it was still a very powerful and moving piece of video. There will be screenings in Portland tomorrow (check here for the listings) and I have two copies if anyone would like to borrow one. Then on April 29th, there will be thousands of Americans taking to the streets to sleep in the same way the kids in Uganda are sleeping! Anyone in Portland want to join me that evening? Movie Website || Movie Trailer

Another couple of films to check out:

* Shooting Dogs: A BBC film about Rwanda - the story of a British priest and his acolyte surrounded by the chaos of the genocide. Movie Website || Movie Trailer

* Boys of Baraka: Several young boys from Baltimore (where over 70% of high school boys don't graduate from high school) are sent to Kenya to get a new perspective. This film is playing locally in Portland at the Cinema 21 theatre. Movie Website || Movie Trailer

A busy week at Lahash
The Imago Dei presentation went really well on Sunday, although I think the team was a bit tired out by the third service of presenting. We were able to connect with a lot of Imago Dei church-goers, and I've just been trying to follow up on all the new contacts this week. Part of preparing for that presentation was finishing up a version of the DVD - so let me know if you'd like a copy of that.


Child Sponsorship Program
There has been a quick response to the child sponsorship program in Tanzania. About half of the kids have already been chosen, and checks sent in for those. So this month the program will really be able to take off. If you are interested in sponsoring one of the kids, let me know by email as well so I can get the page updated. The photo above is of the Mennonite church there in Dodoma that is the home to this program. Jo French also emailed me three more pictures of kids. The photo to the left is of little Neema and her mother (HIV positive) at the church. Neema's not sponsored yet...

Kenya AIDS Apology
The Anglican Church in Kenya has made a public apology for shunning the members of the AIDS community in the past. This is really exciting news to see this happen. You can read the article here at BBC. I know that Nick especially has felt there isn't a huge response from the church community in Eldoret - even at this stage in the AIDS pandemic.

Presentation at Imago Dei Community this Sunday
This Sunday, March 12, our Lahash Africa 2005 team is reuniting here in Portland, and we'll be presenting to the church body at Imago Dei Community. We'll be there for all three services, showing some video highlights and giving a summary of our time there. We'd love for all of you Portland friends to make it! Afterwards we'll have some of the new DVDs available for free if anyone would like to take one home with them.

Parents are back from Sudan
My parents just returned from Sudan last night. They spent the past month and a half in the city of Yei Southern Sudan teaching and living with a community there. The people there are really desperate in life, and in constant danger from the militias and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA.) One night the LRA was a mere 25 miles from the school and the class spent the night sleeping in the brush.

They also met up with Susan and Shirin from the Amazing Grace Orphanage, and were able to donate the items gathered from the friends here. I received an email from Ezbon this morning - he is about to head back up to Sudan from Uganda - and is eager to get the music video in circulation there.


Relevant Article
And welcome to all of the Relevant Magazine readers! Kate Goodell from Relevant just wrote a kind article about Lahash - focusing specifically on the Amazing Grace Orphanage. You can read the article here if you'd like.

Samputu and Itafari Benefit Concert for ERM
On Saturday evening we had a great time at a concert put on by Samputu and his dance troupe Ingeli. The three Rwandans put on several performances here in Portland. The team recently won a Kora award for "The Most Promising Male Artist" in Africa. They used lots of traditional stringed instruments and drums. You can view some of their performance in a QuickTime movie over at ERMRwanda.org

The Concert was to help give a voice to Emmanuel Sitaki and his ministry ERM - which is a partner of Lahash. You can purchase Samputu's latest album in the iTunes store. The picture on the left is the ERM board joining Jean Paul Samputu on stage after the event. Probably the best part of the evening was when the 50 or so Portland Africans joined about the same number of Americans on stage with Samputu and danced and sang - most of it was in Swahili. It was great to see the release of the crowd enjoying the moment.

I made a short video for Emmanuel for the concert and you can view that here: Emmanuel's Story

Pictures from Kenya
Nick sent me a couple of photos this morning from the team in Kenya combating AIDS. The first image below is of the Kitonga family's home infested by ants. The one room mud shack is home to HIV positive Kitonga and his 4 children - who sleep on the floor. Nick writes, "I was shocked to see those insects in the house. Imagine the children saying that they can't sleep at night. The house is just like a cell in hell. I mean the floor is wet (from the rains) and the children sleep there. I think Dan, just for God's sake, let us look for good shelter for this family."



The second picture (below) is of a car Nick and the team would like to purchase. The team has to walk long distances often in the middle of the night through the dangerous slums attending to the sick. Many times they have to hire a taxi to come all the way out to pick up a sick patient. The car below is being offered for $600 to the team - a 50% discount because the man appreciates the work SCF is doing in the community. Nick has a license, and is trained in electrical wiring, and his brother Daniel is an auto mechanic, so the car will run for a long time in the situation. If anyone wants to specifically sponsor this project - let me know.

New Lahash Video
You can now click over to Lahash and visit the new video I finished describing what Lahash does, where were are working, and how you can get involved! It features footage and music that we encountered on our latest trip.

Lahash Overview (6 minutes - 44 MB)

Dodoma Sponsorship Pictures and Gallery
I've uploaded the new photos from Jo French in Tanzania. There are pictures of 16 kids on this page here, and none of them are spoken for at the moment, so you are welcome to choose a kid to sponsor. It is $9 per month, and at this point we are asking that you commit to at least one full year - as the program is new and all.

And then there is a new photo gallery with pictures from our trip and some pictures from the children's registration in Dodoma.

The goal with this program is to make it as relational and interactive as possible. We hope to have several art projects and digital photos and letters and maybe some video and audio options as well. The church has had experience with Compassion International - they also sponsor about 230 kids for Compassion at the same place - so the program has been relatively easy to implement there.



Kibera Project Update and Pictures
The picture above is from Nick's recent trip to the Kibera slums to deliver the donations recently made to Mama Margaret's Orphan School there. The kids are having their lunchtime porridge. Margaret has an ambitious proposal that I'm dissecting and hopefully can set out to work toward. Nick had a good visit there, and spoke about the possibility of transferring some orphans under the care of the school.

Margaret also makes some crafts with the ladies there, and she whipped up this little piece that Nick took a picture of. Maybe someday I'll be able to sell the ladies' crafts from Lahash.net.



Couple other things
Emmanuel Sitaki and Itafari had their first concert with Jean Paul Samputu tonight. I made a video for the production. Samputu will be in concert again tomorrow night at Central Bible Church - and I'll be attending that concert at 7:00 PM.

I'll try to get out the new video sometime this weekend - so be looking out for that.

Please pray for my parents - who are in Sudan - and will be traveling back soon. I just got an email from my mom saying they were doing well, but just had a scare where everyone thought the LRA rebels were around and so most of the students and their families spent the night in the bush.

Dodoma Child Sponsorship Program Update
Jo French just sent me the profiles and pictures of the kids that Lahash is going to welcome into the Sponsorship program. I'm pretty excited about this. The details are that people here in the U.S. can support these kids for $9 per month. There are 20 kids in the program right now. The $9 heads straight over to Dodoma Tanzania where the Mennonite Church there has created a full program that mirrors the Compassion Project there. The difference is that these kids are often orphans or children living with relatives or grandparents who are struggling to provide for them and don't qualify for the general Compassion fund. So we've partnered with the church there to enable more of these kids to be sponsored. The really great thing is that the church there has also found Tanzanians that will match the contributions from Lahash. So it is a partnership that includes the Tanzanian community.

Here's a photo of Jastine, with the profile information as well.



Kenya Kibera Update
Nick and I just talked on the phone today. He was on the road heading back from Kibera where he met with Mama Margaret of the Kibera AIDS Orphan school. He was asked by her to take pictures of the kids with his digital camera, and I asked him to prepare a report on the work there. Thanks to everyone that has helped with this project.

New Video Coming out soon
I've been working on a new video overview of Lahash and what we do. It's turned out really great, and I'm fixing some music issues and then I'll have it posted on the web. It's about 6 minutes, and has lots of footage from our recent trip.