5 Prayer Requests for the Orphan's Project

Wow, what an amazing week. On sabbath, I’m hoping to set up a blog of what is happening. This is unbelievable so far. Thanks for your amazing prayers. This was indeed an amazing week. What is happening here looks normal from an American perspective. But I keep hearing Mark and Linda say things like, "We’ve been here 7 years and this is the first time we met wth the director of education for all the SOS orphanages, and the director for all of SOS for the entire country."

Yes, although Mark and Linda Roth have served at the orphanage for 7 years and this week got to meet with the new orphanage director, and then yesterday, we met with three of the biggest directors of the SOS orphanages for the entire country. For the last two days, Linda Roth delayed her prep work for her ‘Hebraic Roots Teens with a Mission’ teen camp (which starts on January 18) to help me assess all the kids. I originally thought this was going to take up to a month to accomplish. Wow, done in 4 days. Also, we got to meet with the top brass from San Jose who came up to Limon yesterday. So here’s what we need prayers for.

1) Pray that the essential oils alternative treatment option is approved. I showed my ziplock bag of essential oils to the director of SOS education for Costa Rica. I told her the key part of our curriculum was in addressing the deep scars and wounds these kids have suffered. To do this I wanted to anoint the kids with essential oils. The Director of the SOS Education programs for Costa Rica says this alternative treatment will need approval. In the curriculum document add information on the oils. That means I will need more information on the healing qualities of Rose, Lavender, Orange, Frankincense and olive oils. I am completely new with the oils. Can you guys help me out with this? I plan to state in the document that this treatment will be offered to any child that wants it. It will not be forced on kids. However, we will track the kids to see if there is a difference in the two groups. 

2) Pray that our proposal for a digital grand parenting and pen pal program is approved. This will be for church members to be paired with orphans and write letters and become lifelong friends for kids without families. This will also help the kids with English and give them a connection with someone that cares for them and is praying for them. Wow, this proposal will be scrutinized at the highest levels. Currently, any letters the kids get have to be read by the European founders of the SOS programs, which they run in 134 countries. There are so many layers to this that it is doubtful. Letter have to be checked for promises that can’t be kept. No social networking can ever be used with these kids. Most appear to be hidden here so their parents can’t find them. This digital grand parenting idea (to email letters to us here and have us print them off and give them to the kids) has garnered a lot of support from the USA. We are getting lots of names of people that are interested. Please pray that this idea gets blessed. 

3) Pray our container gets through customs quickly. Most of our curriculum and hundreds of books and expensive headsets and solar panels and 24 truck batteries (so I don’t have to be writing in the dark when the electricity goes out) are all in a container that HRTWAM shipped from Florida last week. We believe the container arrived in Limon yesterday. It will then be shipped from where we teach, to the other side of the country (San Jose) where it goes through customs. We will then need to hire a truck to bring it here. This process could take a week. It could take half a year. A buddy of mine at Ambassador College was sent to Nepal to code computers to catalogue humanitarian donations received there, at the request of the Queen of Nepal. However, my buddy sat in Nepal for three months because even the Queen couldn’t speed up the red tape problems and get the computers out of customs. In the end it took 6 months to get the computers through customs. Costa Rica is also notorious for red tape. Our container could be processed quickly or it could take months. Please pray that YHWH moves it quickly.

4) Pray for the curriculum to be finished ASAP and for its quick approval. I’m done assessing the kids. Before I can teach, I need my curriculum approved. Deanne and I have graduate degrees in Curriculum and Instruction. However, it took me the entire year to develop a curriculum and plan for Legacy Institute when I went there in 2008 for my sabbatical. Here, there want me to come up with a curriculum and schedule and timeline and they want to approve it before I can teach. First, I’ll need God to bless the work of my hands to come up with an overall plan that includes enough of a structure so that we can get this approved ASAP. If this takes me too long, then it could add weeks to getting it approved. I’d like to start teaching next week if possible. I’d prefer to get this going while these kids are on vacation. They go back to school the first Monday in February. Also, this needs to be a really attractive curriculum. I’ve been told to be very, very, very sensitive to these kids. They’ve been through tremendous trauma. They all have good days and bad days. If the kid wants to leave my class, they can leave at any time. My curriculum should reflect an oasis that these kids can’t wait to come to. My goal is to develop a curriculum that kids want to learn and that more kids hear the great news about our program and are added to our classes than leave our classes. By my count 84 of the kids came to get assessed in English. There are 101 kids under the SOS Limon care. Of the 95 that could have been tested, we tested 84. I believe many of the older boys opted out of the testing or refused to come. Maybe these boys will hear about our program and want to come to our classes in the near future. 

5) Pray we can serve the kids in the Heredia House. There are 6 boys in a house several hours from here. They have physical problems or were trouble makers in this house, so they were moved to a house that I believe is closer to treatment possibilities for them. We want to help them if possible.

Thank you for your prayers,

Dusti Howell