Recently a member of MIPC gave me an article written by Nicholas Kristof about educating girls in Vietnam. In the article Kristof tells the story of a 16 year old girl who ranks near the top of her 11th grade class. She gets up each morning at 3:30 AM, checks her homework and commutes an hour each way to school. Each night she washes her one school uniform-a white dress-in a bucket and hangs it up to dry. She hopes to continue to the university where she would like to study economics. She is very poor, but very tough. She has gotten her scholarship through a program called Room to Read, but MIPC has its own scholarship program that sends poor children to school in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, South Africa, and Mexico.

Here is what is surprising in Kristof's article. He says, "It puzzles me in my travels that the donors who invest most in education are fundamentalist Wahhabi Muslims from Saudi Arabia. Often in Africa and Asia, I see madrassas that they have established to inculcate reactionary attitudes, because they understand that education is the best tool kit to change societies."

If you would like more information about MIPC's scholarship program (ISSF) please contact Glo Ceteznik, gloc@mipc.org

Help the Sisters Serve the Poor in Hue, Vietnam

Do you remember seeing your unborn child for the first time on an ultrasound screen? Have you or someone you love benefitted from early cancer detection? These are things we take for granted every day here in America.  The ultrasound at Kim Long Charity Clinic in Hue, Vietnam is over 18 years old and cannot accurately diagnose and address these medical issues.  I am hoping to raise $20,000 for my senior project in order to purchase a new ultrasound device for the patients of the Kim Long Charity Clinic.

After visiting with Sister Bong at the Kim Long Charity Clinic in December I saw the amazing work the sisters do.   Kim Long Charity Clinic serves the poor and offers reduced or often times free health care.  Every day the sisters use the ultrasound on at least 20 patients.  The ultrasound is used for the diagnosis of breast, thyroid, and abdominal complications.  However, the current machine is not adequate to provide the medical care needed and some patients must be turned away and sent elsewhere.  

With a new ultrasound the sisters would be able to efficiently and successfully address these issues in their clinic as well as provide essential heart and pregnancy ultrasounds.  Witnessing firsthand the dedication and passion the sisters have in caring for their patients, I was inspired to try make a difference for them and the people they serve.  $20,000 will allow the clinic to purchase a new ultrasound device.  If you would like to join me in helping the sisters provide better medical health care please write a check and send it to MIPC with “ultrasound” in the memo line.  If you would like more information contact me at: cody_hall@rocketmail.com.

A Story from Cambodia

Sacred Moments

Missions Musings

We had heard last spring that one of our students in Cambodia, Sovanara, had stopped going to school because her mother was very ill and no longer could sell vegetables in the market. So Sovanara went to work in a factory to support her mother and younger brother.

We alerted her sponsor to the situation, and her sponsor would not let her go. She wanted us to do what we could to convince Sovanara to stay in school and offered to pay her factor salary of $100 a month. Her sponsor had met her on one of our trips a few years ago, and Sovanara told the sponsor that her dream was to go to medical school. Her sponsor hadn’t forgotten that.

So when we were in Cambodia last month we arranged to meet Sovanara and her brother at our hotel to tell her about the offer.  Tragically, their mother had just died of AIDS the Thursday before we arrived.  That left Sovanara and her brother alone. Maybe 50 years of factory work lay ahead of her because she was only 17 years old.

Our scholarship administrators in Cambodia, Sina and KC, talked with her about the offer to pay her to go to school and talked about how working in the factory would leave her little time to be with her brother. Sovanara agreed to think about it and the next day she decided she would go back to school even though she would be much older than many of her classmates.

In reality, her sponsor couldn’t afford the $100 a month payments in addition to her scholarship payment, because her husband is in school, and she is the only one working.  But she was determined to find a way to help Sovanara to have a better life, a life of hope.

It turned out that one of the people in our group who met Sovanara said that she would write a check for her every year…$1,200 to pay her salary.  The benefactor could more easily handle that $1,200 payment every year and was more than willing to help.

What do you make of this story? Does it remind you of the Gospel? The one lost sheep?

Sometimes we are able to catch a glimmer of what God’s love and generosity must be like. Those are sacred moments.  May we each find them every day.

Julia’s Place: 2012 Partner for Gifts of the Heart Offering

By Dawn McConaughy

Sometimes it is easy in the Advent season to distance ourselves from any involvement in the original story of Christmas. When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem – about to bear a newborn – they had no roof over their heads and were forced into an animal shelter. Would we have done anything to help them? The reality is that there are thousands of families in King County who face this situation every night. Through our Gifts of the Heart offering this year, we are being given a chance to get involved and provide shelter for those for whom there would otherwise be no room in the inn.

The Mission Committee is proud to announce that this Advent season we have chosen to join Madrona Grace Presbyterian Church in their effort to provide shelter for homeless families. Since 2010, families have been the fastest growing segment of the homeless population in Washington State, particularly women and children.

v 71% of homeless women have slept in a car.

v 26% of homeless women have had to find food out of a trashcan.

v 57% have taken a bath in a public sink.

v 92% of homeless women have experienced some sort of severe physical or sexual abuse in their life. 

v Seattle Public Schools reported that in 2011 over 1,300 of their students were homeless.

 Why the increase?  While each person’s story is unique, experiencing life crisis without family or financial support can have devastating consequences.  A job loss, domestic violence, divorce, illness and lack of health insurance, substance abuse and mental illness all contribute to the homeless rate.

Seeing the need, Madrona Grace made the decision to renovate their basement into an evening shelter called Julia’s Place, adding 14 much needed beds for Seattle’s homeless families. These are families, many with very young children, who would otherwise be sleeping on buses, under bridges, in cars or separated from each other in different shelters; women and young children going to one shelter, men to another and adolescent boys to a teen shelter.  That is if they can find a shelter with room.  It is not uncommon for a mother to call 30 to 50 shelters in one day looking for a safe place for her family to sleep that night.   Now these families have a warm, safe place to eat dinner, do homework, play games and sleep while working toward permanent housing. Between April and November of this year Julia’s was able to provide 2,997 bed nights and dinners for homeless families.

 

Sarah and Victor came to the Julia’s Place with their four children in May after both lost their jobs and subsequently their housing.  Since then, they worked diligently everyday towards obtaining housing, both catching the bus from Madrona every morning at 5:45am to get to their new jobs in Woodinville.  By the end of July, they had saved up enough money to move their family into their own home. 

 

This Advent, through the Gifts of the Heart offering, we have an opportunity to help families in need.  Families who, just like Mary and Joseph, and most of us, just want a warm, safe place to lay our heads after a long day. 

Just Make More

"Just Make More" has become a new slogan for some of MIPC's ministry to Feed the Hungry.

The LOGOS kitchen crew makes extra meals for the children at Friends of the Children, a mentoring program for at-risk students in King Country.  In addition, during worship skills at LOGOS, children bring extra snacks for the children at Friends.

The Super Sixties group is also "making more" by paying an extra dollar for their monthly lunches so that the kitchen crew can make meals for the Catalyst House, one of Youthcare's emergency teen shelters. 

The pantry is full for Friends of the Children.

4th & 5th graders graciously shared snacks with Friends of the Children.

 A special thanks to Julie Stillman for coining the phrase, "just make more."

TEAM MIPC and Seattle AIDS Walk

Thanks to all MIPC members and friends who participated on TEAM MIPC at the Seattle AIDS Walk on September 22. TEAM MIPC had 30 walkers/runners participating in the 5K event, raising $4,480. If you would like to donate, go to Seattleaidswalk.org and choose: TEAM MIPC. 

This year the Seattle AIDS Walk has raised $320,000 plus dollars.

IJM Earns Positive Response from President Obama

 

Earlier this year, some of us  joined more than 73,000 Americans in signing a petition asking President Obama to take four key actions to combat slavery. Yesterday, he responded to you, announcing an Executive Order on one of the four requests made to him - officially calling for new standards that will address the terrible crime of slavery within U.S. government contracting.

In his speech, President Obama also highlighted IJM's work - honoring the advocates who "dedicate their lives and at times risk their lives to liberate victims and help them recover," and sharing the conviction that IJM and other groups, "like the great abolitionists before them, are truly doing the Lord's work." Thank you for making this movement possible.