{"id":250,"date":"2009-01-22T13:25:34","date_gmt":"2009-01-22T13:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html"},"modified":"2009-01-22T13:25:34","modified_gmt":"2009-01-22T13:25:34","slug":"first-day-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"First Day in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Just back from our first day at carepoints in Swaziland. A day filled with many highs and lows. Highs because the first orphan village we visited is sponsored by our church, Vanguard, in Colorado Springs. So many great things are happening there. A playground has just been put up, the kitchen is finished and operating, the building is up serving as a church and community center, the school is running, and the kids are doing great! Hope is evident everywhere in the eyes of the children, the staff, and the teachers. The kids all keep talking about their futures and how they get to go to school. Amazing!<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>The low was the second place we visited called Bobokhazi. It&#039;s not sponsored by any church, or online community, and is suffering. I heard story after story about how there&#039;s no food and little hope. A little 13 year old girl told me her tragic story. Both of her parents are dead from AIDS and she&#039;s all alone taking care of her 4 year old brother. Her father just passed away December 5th. They literally have nothing. My heart breaks for her. There&#039;s not a penny for her to go to school when only $80 covers her costs for the entire year. We are feeding them some with what we can so they aren&#039;t starving, but this place desperately needs people to come to their rescue. If you&#039;re one of the answers, please let me know.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>Pictures won&#039;t load here, so have put them up from both carepoints on Facebook for you to see:&#160;<a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/bbzfdk\">Click here to see the Pictures if you have a Facebook account.<\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>Please continue to remember us. We&#039;re off to two more places tomorrow and the local AIDS hospital. Miss you all!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just back from our first day at carepoints in Swaziland. A day filled with many highs and lows. Highs because the first orphan village we visited is sponsored by our church, Vanguard, in Colorado Springs. So many great things are happening there. A playground has just been put up, the kitchen is finished and operating,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>First Day in Africa - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"First Day in Africa - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just back from our first day at carepoints in Swaziland. A day filled with many highs and lows. Highs because the first orphan village we visited is sponsored by our church, Vanguard, in Colorado Springs. So many great things are happening there. A playground has just been put up, the kitchen is finished and operating,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-22T13:25:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"First Day in Africa - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"First Day in Africa - Red Letters","og_description":"Just back from our first day at carepoints in Swaziland. A day filled with many highs and lows. Highs because the first orphan village we visited is sponsored by our church, Vanguard, in Colorado Springs. So many great things are happening there. A playground has just been put up, the kitchen is finished and operating,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2009-01-22T13:25:34+00:00","author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html","name":"First Day in Africa - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-01-22T13:25:34+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-22T13:25:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2009\/01\/first-day-in-africa.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"First Day in Africa"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}