Meeting the children at Kogoya

At our first visit to Kogoya Hope Center, we were blessed by meeting our beneficiary, Tawina. He was just six months old when we first signed on as his sponsor in 2005. He is so sweet, small, and shy, and seemed unsure about all of the attention we wanted to lavish on him! He was limping from a badly infected foot, but luckily there was an onsite clinic that day and he was treated and bandaged up with antibiodics to take home. 

Annie loves "her Tawina"!

Leanne and Tawina - a joyful first meeting after 7 years.

On the first day of our visit to Kogoya, we rejoiced in our first hugs for Tawina … after 7 years!  After more visits to Kogoya, we noticed Tawina missing from the center. With help from the Kogoya staff and a village committee member, we found out his mother had remarried and Tawina was not being cared for at home. He was not going to school, not coming to the Hope Center for his 1 meal a day, and not receiving much in the way of food or clean clothes.  (In Malawian culture, it is quite common for a new husband to disregard the new wife’s children, in effect, abandoning them). Soon, Tawina showed up to the center again with his aunt, who told us she had taken him into her own home and was doing her best to clothe him and feed him.

Tawina comes back, with the encourage and care of his aunt.

We were also excited to meet Joyce, a beautiful, smiling 12-year old girl who was recently sponsored by our sister’s family in Vista. We shared some quiet time with her to learn about her life and to tell her about the family in America that prays for her and loves her.  

Leanne and Annie share a special time with Joyce, newly sponsored
by her sister and brother-in-law Laurel and Bill DeWolf in Vista.

The children love to hear about their sponsors!  Please feel free to email us if you have a special note or words of encouragement for your child and we will hand-deliver it to them (leanne.green@me.com).

 We also have many stories of the children and staff from the hope centers, and will begin posting them to this blog fairly soon.