More on Torit (Sudan)

From Joe Knittig, Live in Sudan

Children everywhere.  Very few men.

This is the community borehole (well) the local church put in.  That pump has been going nonstop since we got here.  It’s HUGE that this community has access to clean water.

I’m walking over to the church to show you that.

The current church is in the front.  It’s falling down.

A church in Germany asked the local church leadership here what is needed.  Instead of a new church structure, Pastor Bernard asked for a school.  And that’s what’s going up behind the church.

That school will have 4 classrooms built for 160 students, but will more likely have about 100 students per class.  The locals will have a tough time, because qualified teachers will not come to this destroyed area and work for free.  It won’t cost much to fund the school at a basic level – maybe $30 a year per child at a proper capacity (200 students).  But that’s WAY out of reach here. So I’d say this school building is a work of faith as much as anything.

This area really needs several of these schools.  It’s a key and inexpensive intervention for the children here, virtually all of whom have lost either a mother or father.

That’s an early finding about this project.  We’d probably do typical huts for the complete orphans who need residential care, and then invest in more schools for those children and the other thousands of kids who have a hut to go home to (with a mom or extended family), but have nothing else.  If we emotionally invest here in materially inappropriate orphan housing, that would kill this community.  Humble residential care for the end of the line kids and broader support through schools will be key.

Lastly, here are a couple of the kids who courageously came over to say “hello”….new friends of ours.

Joe