TWCF News & Stories

Well it has been an amazing two and a half months with Cat and Laurel here. They have added immensely to the strength and functionality of the home. It has been with enthusiastic and joyful spirits that Cat and Laurel have modeled for the staff the appropriate measures we have in place as well as guided and taught them. They have done a great job.

The staff have adjusted and picked up so quickly. We are so blessed to have a strong team who truly understand the calling and vision of this organization and bend themselves readily to serve it.

Steve has also been here for two weeks now and has taught our men staff a great many things with the aid of POWER TOOLS!! It has been a hilarious experience. The laundry line has been fixed, new trellises build for the garden vegetable and yams to grow on, bunkbeds sawed in half, door frames fixed, some Terrano problems adjusted, plans for the new cement gen shed extension, and so on. The guys have loved having him around and dont leave him alone.

Only a few more days left here in the village before heading to Abuja and they jump on a jet plane outta here. It will be sad to see them go although it has been an amazing trip for them and for us to have them! xoxo

We have had a wonderful man who is from Isuikwuato, who more recently heard about us and what we are doing, and stepped in immediately to start donating finances to us. It has been beyond exciting as he is the first person here in Nigeria to take a serious interest by helping, and who has backed up his words of support with his actions and follow through. We are so grateful and pray God’s blessings on him as he has continued to support us over the last four weeks.

With those donations we have been able to AT LAST put up our security wire around the compound wall. We also were able to meet a months wages for the staff as well as diesel and water for two weeks. We are continuing to do work around the house with the on going support, by having new front doors for the house made, a new door frame plus labour for installation. Also we are able to poor new cement slaps and wall to extend the generator shed, as we have also had a NEW generator donated!!! We are awaiting its arrival soon.

We are so happy to have Steve here. We are getting some much needed repairs done finally. The bunk-beds which we had built here, are now being dismantled and cut in half as they are not stable enough to be bunk beds. Not an easy task as all the legs need to be even. There are four bunks to be done. There has been repairs being made to the generator, as well as to the Terrano, both of those which have been serving us well but are falling apart. It would seem this terrain and life here are very hard on things… not to mention us, but we wont go there. :)

Well it has been a long two weeks of strange noises at night in the ceiling. While we are used to the typical lizard races and fight clubs that are clearly going on up there, as well as the chichiba (mouse/shrew thing) and rat scampering around and games of tag…there have been some strange non-legged animal sounds going on.

Well after listening carefully night after night, which is only possible as our generator has been broken and not running, and in-between the screaming sessions that Michael has, oh yes, and on the nights that there happen not to be neighbours yelling and fighting, evangelists preaching in mega phones and praying, the town square bell and town crier, or all night vigils or wake keeps… well we have discovered and come to the conclusion that there is a distinct and large SLITHERING sound going on in the ceiling! AHHHHH. Yes what in the world are we going to do!? We have checked to make sure there is now way for our new non-welcome friend to come through the roof into any of the upstairs rooms, but how do we get him OUT is the questions. So we have consulted with our staff and discussed some of our funny traditional and herbal methods lol, and have come to the conclusion we need a professional “vermin catcher”. So until such a time as a “vermin catcher” can be acquired we are sleeping with one eye open and having our torches click on and off throughout the night…just incase.

Well, our generator has been broken for one week straight this time. Often before it has been broken for several days only, but this has been the longest. And with a full house and children it is certainly not easy. We are getting by with lots of hard work, patience and with our torches as we have been lucky enough to see NEPA light come on a once a day whether for 20 min or for a couple hours, it has been enough to charge the lights. We have had the pieces of the gen in the city twice trying to be fixed as well as people in the gen-shed everyday working on it. Hopefully by tonight it may be working again! To be honest this gen is very old and it has served us so well and faithfully. It is by God’s grace that it has been running over this last year, though it has broken down many times, we always managed to get it fixed for a time. We are looking forward to a new generator soon!

We are working hard at meeting the needs of the house each day, its not been too easy, but God keeps coming through. We were low on food in the store and going through the small money we had to selectively shop, and we were called that day by the head of Abia State Women’s Affairs to hurry and come into town because our NGO had been selected by the Governors wife to receive donations. So we rushed there and got to the event just minutes before they started calling the selected NGO’s up. We received 7 bags of rice, a bag of beans, cartons of pasta and Mr Noodles, toilet paper, yams, cartons of soap and Milo (a hot chocolate type drink). Upon our turn to meet Her Excellency and shake hands, she was so happy to see me and know we were working in her State. After they finished handing all the donations out, they asked me to be the Speaker of the Vote of Thanks address to Her Excellency on behalf of the State and all the homes that received donations. I said yes, and spur of the moment with help from the MC, wrote an address to give.  The whole event of course was filmed and on TV and the news. So hopefully that has helped get the word out about who we are! We also saw two other friends of ours from in Abia that run motherless babies homes, and they also had been selected for donations.

Also in the last two weeks we have had some specific visitors come by who have been bringing us bottled water and bread! As we have to buy bread every day, it has been such a blessing. Thank you.

Welcome to our new little “son”, Michael!

Michael has finally moved in to live with us. We are so excited as we have been waiting months for him. Yesterday we welcomed him with open arms and he had a good day transitioning while meeting everyone. (Today has been a bit more difficult, but it will get better).

Michael is 2.5yrs old and suffered from Bacterial Meningitis just under over a year ago. He is a strong and brave boy to have survived, although he came out of it having lost the ability, to talk, walk, sit-up, control his limbs and more. It is hope with some intense physiotherapy and daily exercises from us, we will be able to get some muscle tone back in his legs, hips and arms, as well as help with some core body strengthening. He also needs support and work in the way of face/mouth muscle movement and vocal control. He can chew and swallow food (if its cut or mashed a bit) though and drink too! Yay!

Michael loves to smile and laugh and does try to talk to us although words just dont seem to come out. He is cute as ever and is going to be a great joy for us all in this house!

Since the word seems to have been spreading quickly of who we are and what we are doing here in this area (on top of the intense surprise factor when people learn we have been around going on 9 years) it seems we are now starting to hear of more situations. We have had to be so careful in our self description to try and eliminated misuse or misunderstanding of the Foundation, but in that it seems it is paying off as more cases are starting to come forward that fit what we do. There are so many people in need, so many in abject poverty, so many widows struggling with children, there is room for some many projects and programs. For us we have to stick to the guidelines and criteria that we have established so we may succeed at what we do. And as we continue to pray for the right cases and situations, and continue to clarify our criteria and the type of children we accept, all the while helping where we can (helping widows with rice, seriously impoverished families with our own clothes, etc), we are starting to see people come forward and ask for help. Identifying the type of children we have criteria for has been difficult in this area as the people have a great deal of pride in family and self. So much so that rather then admit they cannot care for a child of a late relative, they would keep the child and have it suffer. As we pray against that and show by our love and encouragement and support, we are slowly starting to see a change of heart. It is important for us to show that we are not judging the people or families here, only that we want to try and help where they are not capable.

*We are currently looking into two cases that fit our criteria, waiting on five cases that have been on going, waiting for two more that we hear are coming, and investigating three that dont quite fit our criteria but we will see how we can help.

We have had many more visitors over the last weeks then we have had in a long time. And these visitors are not coming anymore to see the “white people” but rather to discover what exactly is this “Wanted Children” they keep hearing about and seeing around. We have had some “big” businessmen, state politicians, Ezes, Reverends/Pastors and their church members, and some military men. All of them have also come with donations whether on the first visit or the second ones that followed a few days later. Again we pray this is the start of something good. Word seems to be spreading fast suddenly!

We have been able to attend two very large tribal council meetings with the rulers of the entire area of Isuikwuato. We were invited to both of them to come and share about the Foundation. These were extremely important and exciting invitations to get, which we have been waiting for a long time. We were well received at them, and were able to clearly outline the Foundation, its goals and objectives, criteria and needs, as well as the hopeful networking and involvement of these great community leaders. Good questions were asked and phone calls and visits to the home ensured over the next days! It is the start of something good we pray!