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.

This prayer alert in from BGR prayer coordinator Lori Funderburk:

Tabitha Ministries, a BGR partner in South Africa, is in need of prayer.  This ministry is under great pressure because of the needs it is trying to meet.  More and more people are relying on this ministry and the pressure of added numbers of people starving and abused is heavy.  Nearly 5,000 children in child headed households are dependent on this ministry.  Since January over 4,000 people have died in this community.  In the last week  alone, 191 people have died.  This ministry deals with the sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor.  Will you lift them up in prayer today?

From BGR prayer coordinator Lori Funderburk’s “BGR to GO” newsletter:

In South Africa many babies are born to very young girls. Unable to care for the babies, the young girls often abandon the babies in places where they hope they will be found and cared for.

BGR partner Tabitha Ministries has placed a “Moses Box” in one of the villages where this has happened often. They also do school presentations telling girls they can leave their babies in the box. Currently they have 30 orphans, most of whom are HIV-positive.

Will you pray for the volunteers that raise these children? Ask God to continue to provide for all of their needs. Pray that a Ministry Home will be built quickly for the most vulnerable children.

To subscribe to BGR to GO send an e-mail BGRtoGO@gobgr.org. To subscribe to BGR to GO for KIDS send an e-mail to BGRtoGOforKIDS@gobgr.org.

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.