As we all know, those living in a 3rd World Country tend to suffer much more frequently from diseases such as Malaria, HIV AIDS, Cholera, etc than we do here in the United States.  Cholera is a water borne disease and is easily prevented and curable.  The spreading of all these diseases have caused people not only to get sick, but also to die.  Currently in Lusaka, it is the rainy season and due to the increased possibility of diseases being spread, our wonderful Zambian Staff in our Health Department has established an outreach program in order to help take a proactive role in preventing the spread of these diseases.

Our Zambian staff is going around to some of our community schools and compounds to assist in cleaning the unsanitary areas and places where the children are in classes everyday.  Some of the areas they are going to include: Chawama, Misisi, John Leing, George, Kanyama, Matero, Kuku, and Linda Compound.  We are so thankful for the incredible ways that our Health Department is reaching out to so many children and helping protect them from these destructive diseases.

As you know in the last year we have added a few people and we plan to add a few more which we’ll announce in the next week or so.  All of this growth has made things a little tight in our Irving office so we have staked our claim on the offices next door.  The only problem is that there is a wall separating the two offices.

An ordinary man would cower in fear at such an obstacle and perhaps call in a professional….Greer Kendall is no ordinary man.  With the help of his trusty hacksaw, Greer was able to make this hole in no less than 15 to 30 minutes.

We are prayerfully considering opening a new ministry, Family Legacy Demolition.  All demolitions are performed Biblically by marching around the site seven times at which point the walls will come crumbling down.

The Tree of Life Children’s Village will be ready to open this summer.  The initial opening will be seven houses which will serve as a new home for 84 orphans.  The houses are scheduled to be finished before Camp LIFE 2009, so the next step is getting those houses outfitted so that the children can call it their new home.  We need you help to get furniture and other housewares for all seven houses.

Our containers are scheduled to ship to Zambia on January 31st so we need to get these things fast!  There are a couple of ways you can help:

1. We have created a Target wedding registry to list all of the things that we need.  You can go to any Target and on their wedding registry computer type in “Family Legacy” as the first name and “Missions Intl” as the last name.  There is something on there for every budget so even purchasing a set of hangers for $2 would help.  Please email Julie Rives at email if you have any questions or would like her to come pick up your items.  Otherwise, just drop them off at the office anytime.
2. If you would like to help with getting furniture, please email Paige Baten-Locke at email“>email.
3. If you would like to donate money for us to purchase and ship the items then click here to go to our donate page and type “Tree of Life Furniture” in the comments.  If you would like to send a check then click here for instructions.

All your donations are tax deductible.  Thanks so much for your faithfulness in getting these children into a safe home.  We would also like to thank Paige and Julie for volunteering their time to collect all of these things.

This weekend I was browsing through the CIA World Factbook (as I do every weekend?) and I started comparing Zambia to the United States.  We have some statistics about the struggles of Zambia strewn throughout the website, but we don’t have anything that compares those numbers to the US.  Here are a couple of the sobering facts that really put into perspective how difficult life is for Zambians.

There is a large population difference with Zambia at just under 12 million people and the US with over 300 million so I focused more on percentages than actual numbers.   In the US the median age is 36.7 years old.  In Zambia it is 16.9 which means that 50% of the population is less than 16.9 years old.

The infant mortality rate measures the number of children who die under the age of one.  In the US the infant mortality rate is 6.3 children for every 1000 births.  In Zambia, 100.96 children die for every 1000 births.

We have an estimated 950,000 people in the US living with AIDS which makes up about 0.6% of the population.  Zambia has an astonishing 920,000 people living with AIDS or 16.5% of their population.  AIDS is even more lethal in Zambia because of the lack of basic medical care.  The death rate of those with AIDS is more than 4 times higher than that of the US.

What can you do about this problem that seems too big to fathom? I would start with prayer…and then either sign up for Camp LIFE 2009 or sponsor one of our Zambian children.