Baptist Global Response

Pray for the shipment of the In-Home Care kits set to arrive on December 19 at the Durban, South Africa port.  Pray for God to intervene and allow the shipment to be worked through without paying import tax or any costs.  Pray for the shipment to be transported to Pietermaritzburg without a problem.  Pray for each person who will receive a kit.

A huge THANK YOU! to those of you who sent a kit both now and in the past.  We can testify that these reach the people who need them and that they are a huge blessing!

If you would like to know how to send an In-Home Care Kit, click here.

The first container of BGR In-Home Care Kits will be arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa, this week. They have been pre-cleared but the Health department wants to inspect some of the items before the buckets can be distributed.

Please pray that this inspection will happen quickly and that the Health Department will be satisfied so that all items can enter the country. Many hurting people are waiting.

This just in from BGR prayer coordinator Lori Funderburk:

A shipment of BGR In-Home Care Kits has arrived in Zambia, but the process to clear the container through customs seems to have hit a big snag. 

Customs has demanded several original documents before they will consider duty free status.  Most every other country accepts faxed or scanned copies of these.  BGR is now trying to get these sent from the USA and South Africa.  Until they arrive the container remains in customs. 

Pray that these documents can be sent ASAP and that they will arrive quickly.  Also pray for Mark Hatfield, BGR Area Director for Africa, as he travels to Zambia on Tuesday.

Mark Hatfield, BGR’s director for Sub-Saharan Africa reports that the container with In-Home Care Kits headed to Zambia was to arrive in the capital of Lusaka over the weekend. 

“This coming week will be important in the clearing through Zambian customs,” Mark writes.  “Please pray that the process moves forward easily and that duty free status is granted.”

Southern Baptists in Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee have reached out to families in Sub-Saharan Africa that are caring for terminally ill loved ones.

A total of 1,378 five-gallon plastic buckets filled with supplies to help caregivers were packed by congregations and delivered to the Baptist Fellowship of Zambia’s human needs program and to Tabitha Ministries, an outreach that provides care to more than 1,300 HIV-positive children in a district of South Africa that has the highest per capita rate of HIV-positive individuals in the world. Earlier this year, workers at Tabitha Ministries reported they were seeing 85 to 105 people die each week.

The buckets contain a wide range of everyday supplies needed by a caregiver – from lotions, ointments, and vitamins to bedding, bandages, and thermometers. The total cost of each bucket ranged between $100 and $125.

Mark Hatfield, Baptist Global Response’s area director for Sub-Saharan Africa, sends a note to say the second shipping container of buckets has arrived in Lusaka. 

“Please pray for the Baptist Fellowship of Zambia as they begin to clear the container through customs. Pray for duty-free status and an easy process,” Mark writes. “Pray that the use of these items by loving caregivers will show the love and compassion Jesus Christ has for the terminally ill. Pray that they would come to know the True Hope that comes from a personal relationship with him.”

The items in the buckets will be a tremendous blessing to families that must care for terminally ill relatives at home because access to health care is so limited. And although there are more than 22.5 million adults and children in Sub-Saharan Africa who are living with the HIV virus, the need extends beyond even those families. Thousands of people in the region die at home each year from sicknesses like cancer, tuberculosis, malaria, and other life-ending diseases. In-home care is all the care they will receive.

So to the churches in Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee that helped with this pilot project, almost 1,400 families in Africa shout a hearty “Thank you!”

If you or your church would like to participate in the 2009 phase of this project, please e-mail Dennis Eastridge at deastridge@gobgr.org.

This note just in from Lori Funderburk, BGR’s international prayer strategist:

“Several months ago, BGR initiated a pilot program encouraging Southern Baptist churches in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee to pack In-Home Care kits that would be distributed among caregivers for people with terminal illnesses such as AIDS.  The BGR area director for Africa reportsthat the container holding 739 five-gallon buckets (weighing 7,390 pounds) has been shipped.

Please pray that the transport of these much needed materials will be quick and the customs and duty processes would be easy and inexpensive.

Also ask God to bless the hands that will be distributing these buckets as well as the hands that will be receiving them.