Children of the Nations: News & Updates

A Spiritual High for Malawian Teens

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 07:52:51 -0800

Our teenage children in Malawi were able to attend their first annual teen spiritual retreat this December. It was put on entirely by Malawian national staff and volunteers (including three African Bible College students who were part of our team to Uganda this past summer). The retreat was seen as a huge success by all. We had a number of children accept Christ into their lives for the first time. Our teens are already looking forward to their next retreat!

Big Buildings in Banta

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:54:32 -0800

Construction on our Banta Mokelleh Children’s Village reached new heights this week as our nursery school is now at roof level. We are anticipating its completion in February. Our construction team is also making progress on our primary school and land was recently cleared for the building of the new children’s homes. Next up we will be digging a well that will provide utility water for the compound and construction process. Our children are excited about their new homes and look forward to moving in some time this summer!

New Year's Team Brings New Starts to Sierra Leone

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:56:02 -0800

A team of eight from Washington State recently returned from serving the needs of our ministry in Sierra Leone. They brought New Year’s gifts for our children and staff and helped with the updating of our children’s profiles for the sponsorship program. Team members participated in a variety of ministry activities including teaching English to our older children, leading arts and craft classes, working on minor electrical problems and carpentry repairs, and completing physicals on our children in Freetown. One team member had the vision last year to re-seed the oil palm industry in Sierra Leone, which had flourished before the civil war. The pilot project is now underway with 6,000 hybrid oil-palm starts. There is much interest by the local community hoping this type of a project will help generate sustainable revenue for local farmers. Local mining companies are also very interested in the prospect of being able to purchase harvested palm oil for the production of bio-diesel.

Healing in Uganda

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 07:56:53 -0800

Chris Clark and a small team of staff and individuals visited Uganda again this January. They continued with further development of our mission plan for the children of northern Uganda and were encouraged by the people God is putting in place to accomplish this mission. The team was able to hear from both adults and children who were in our counseling sessions this past summer. What an encouragement as they heard testimony of how God continues to heal the hearts and lives of those that suffered trauma.

New Website Launch

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:57:02 -0800

As you may have already noticed, we recently launched a newly redesigned website which we are very excited about. This new site will allow us to share all that is going on at COTN and will also make it easier for you to partner with our ministry. Check back in the coming days and weeks for some exciting new additions!

House of Purity - Malawi, Africa

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:45:29 -0800

Chris Clark recently returned from Malawi where in Chiwengo Village, he commissioned the first-ever teen girls’ home and gave it the name ‘House of Purity.’ Two aunties supervise the home for 18 girls ranging in age from 14-18 years. All the girls share in the household responsibilities and gain advanced instruction in cooking and house keeping. They also return to their original Chiwengo homes at least once per week to visit and help with cleaning, cooking and caring for the younger children. “In this way, they understand that they still have the same parents who care about them, and the aunties in the teen home are only there to help but are not their new parents. We believe this will help the girls to keep the sense of stability they had when in the home,” says COTN Country Director Tom Mambo. The girls are also reaching out to other communities. “They visit the sick at the local hospitals and bring baby clothing to the outlying villages where there is a great need. They use this as an outreach to share the love of Christ.”

Team BroMan Summits Mt. Kilimajaro for COTN

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:48:11 -0700

Pictured from left to right: Darin Desmond, Kevin Warren, Jeff Sondermeyer, Matt Foster of BroMan Expeditions (www.bromanx.org) with their two Tanzanian guides summit Mt. Kilimajaro holding the banner displaying the sponsors who helped get them there. Founder Jeff Sondermeyer and Team BroMan worked for over a year on their “Kili for Kids” climbing campaign. The funds they raised, helped build and equip a state-of-the-art recording studio at the newly completed COTN Njewa Mission Center in Malawi, Africa. The recording studio will produce Christian and other educational programs predominantly for children in Chichewa. In addition, the studio will serve as an income-generating venture for COTN as musical groups and choirs will rent the facility for individual recording projects. COTN children from Chitipi Farm were able to sign the BroMan banner before the team left Malawi in February. You can see their drawings and signatures scattered amongst the sponsor logos. The children symbolically and perhaps prophetically reached the summit, the highest point in Africa, with COTN and BroMan Expeditions.

285K Meal Marathon Coming in May

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:11:48 -0700

On May 4th, we will be holding our second annual 285K Meal Marathon. This event brings the entire community together to package 285,000 meals for famine-stricken children around the world. The food packaged at this year’s event will be shipped to Uganda where it will help sustain the life of nearly 1,000 children for an entire year. You can help feed these children by donating 2 hours of your time to package food at the 285K.

Click here for more information

UNICEF Partners with COTN in Sierra Leone

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 02:12:50 -0700

Impressed with our work in Banta, UNICEF has recently offered to partner with COTN in Sierra Leone. Details were finalized at a meeting earlier this month (March 1, 2007) when UNICEF met with COTN–SL Country Director, Angie Myles, and they announced they would provide program funding for two cheifdoms in Banta Mokelleh (Upper Banta and Lower Banta). Funding will provide for vitamins and immunizations for the children, malaria medications, treated mosquito nets for our children as well as each person in the outlying villages, a program promoting “exclusive breastfeeding” (for a minimum of five months), and training of more health educators. UNICEF is also providing COTN–SL with one motorcycle and four bicycles to allow health educators to offer services and training to outlying villages.

Sierra Leone currently ranks #1 in both infant mortality (death of an infant prior to reaching age five) and maternal mortality (death of a mother during childbirth). Leading causes of infant mortality in Sierra Leone are malnourishment, malaria, and upper-respiratory tract infection—all of which are preventable and treatable with proper medical attention. The high maternal death rate, which is linked to early pregnancy and a lack of prenatal care, is largely due to a lack of education regarding the risks of such pregnancies.. COTN is currently the only NGO (non-governmental agency) in the Banta region of Sierra Leone addressing these issues. Through partnering with COTN, UNICEF hopes to makes strides toward recent government mandates to reduce the national infant-mortality rate by two-thirds and the maternal-mortality rate by three-fourths.

New Land in Sierra Leone

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 03:40:56 -0700

Approximately 100 acres of land in the Mosenessi area of Lower Banta was recently gifted to COTN! Sierra Leone Country Director Angie Myles and her husband Joe were looking to buy a small piece of land on which to build a church, as there was none in the area—but the chief refused their money. He would not take money from COTN, “who has done so much for us!” Angie and Joe are using their money to erect a temporary church. Pray for provision of funds to erect a permanent structure.