It’s a boy!
Trip talk date annouced
CRESS has worked in a number of refugee camps, however we have just begun a new pilot project in Rhino camp about 4 months ago. Two agriculture groups have planted their first crops, some have harvested a little with the main crop of tomatoes and andokra yet to ripen. Also, Scopas with a child evangelism team has had over 600 children attending programs, with some 192 giving their lives to Jesus. However, this is a very new region for CRESS. It is an international refugee camp with refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda as well as a larger population from South Sudan. It is a fertile area and the refugees have been very peaceful, with the exception of one rather disruptive tribe which was moved to another area to preserve the peace.
The road to the camp is entirely on dirt roads which are very bumpy, necessitating the replacement of shocks every 3-6 months for vehicles regularly using the road. It is the dry season and the red clay dust floated everywhere. One and half hours of a breakfast blending drive, excellently negotiated by our driver, Sadam, brought us to the camp. We visited three house/house compounds made of sun-dried clay bricks. Each family group was a member of a savings group who had prepared a three-year, pictorial plan for moving forward. These were designed to help them stay focused on their goals which they thought, in consultation with the rest of the group, would bring them to being largely self-supporting. The CRESS trainings offered to them included organic gardening, basic financial accounting and business planning. The savings group’s savings allowed the group to make loans to members to finance projects.
There was hope in these families while still acknowledging there were still huge hurdles. One man has bought 200 chicks, which he hopes to sell when they are grown. Generally for meat rather than eggs. Others needed start-up cash to open small vegetable and sundries shops. The term of the loan is only 4 months so there is not much time to dawdle and all thought they would do well.
After seeing these we also saw two of the larger group gardens that were doing well,in spite of incursions from hungry goats. It was wonderful seeing half the group of mostly women wonderfully dressed carrying parasols.
The rest of the day involved listening to two and half hours of speeches, testimonies and letting 600 people know what CRESS does. Some talked too long but the people stayed and listened and clapped.Their patience indubitably strengthened by a promised lunch which was begun about 4PM. The day was a great celebration and a good beginning for CRESS in a new area. The day was highlighted by 30 children sharing testimonies of what CRESS discipleship meant for them and the wonderful circle dancing with drums which were great breaks for all the talking.
The Savings/Agriculture and later Vocational training work is the core of CRESS’ support – there are now 82 groups each with 30 members – each of these members has on average 8 family members – this means 19,680 people have better food, and the opportunity to lift their lives from utter despair to one of hope and a better future
Andrew
