EXCITING NEWS FROM UGANDA AND SIERRA LEONE! BiblePay currently sponsors 10 orphans in Uganda through BLOOM who go to school at Side By Side Christian Ministries. I just got letters and photos from almost all of them (still trying to get one more), addressed to BiblePay, thanking you for your sponsorship!

BiblePay also sponsors 4 kids in Sierra Leone, who also sent letters, photos and even REPORT CARDS!

I tried to post the image shack links here, but this forum deletes them. Posting on the BBP forum right now and will link up here.

UGANDA:
https://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=221.msg3978#msg3978

As a reminder, Side by Side Christian Ministries in Rakai, Uganda, rescues a child out of an abusive foster or biological home and places them in a Christian boarding school until a suitable family placement can be found. Children are provided education at one of the best schools in Uganda and are given everything they need each month including: food, housing, school fees, uniforms, necessities, etc.

A few statistics:
Every 20 minutes a child is orphaned in Uganda.
Rakai District has continued to experience high HIV rates at 12%, compared to the national average of 7.3%.

SIERRA LEONE:
https://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=222.0


As a reminder, children in Sierra Leone receive 3 meals per day with this sponsorship, but we have separate fundraisers for their school fees/uniforms/shoes/supplies and their Christmas gifts. We are currently raising money for their school fees that are due September 1st. These children are all in the process of being transferred to foster or extended families right now, as the orphanage is being forced to close it's doors and be transformed into a community center (which will also serve these kids in other ways).

Quick fact: Sierra Leone has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world, with 49 years old for males and 51 years old for females.

Thank you all for this life-changing support to these children.

April
Executive Director, BLOOM

LAST MINUTE PROPOSAL VOTING REQUEST!
Hi All- I have submitted a proposal a bit late for voting this superblock. It's called "BLOOM Sustainable Farm to Feed Orphans - Uganda". Please check all the details out here and vote! We appreciate your support.
https://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=219.0#msg3971

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the questions! I hope I'm replying correctly. I'm new to these forums. The Polish orphans will be with the Christian host families for 5 weeks this summer. The transformation you see in them from week 1 to week 5, and in their mentorship after they leave via email/skype/facebook after that is so impactful. When my family hosted an orphan during Christmas in 2016-2017, and we talked about Jesus and the Bible just in casual conversation, she would say "I do not believe in these things." We said, "ok, no problem, we do believe and it makes us happy that Jesus loves us. We want to honor him in our home. But if you ever want to talk about it, just let us know." Then a week or two later, Christmas rolled around, and we gave her her first Bible in Polish (thank you ebay). She opened it, CRIED, and said "wow, no one has ever given me scriptures before. I want to learn more." And by the end of the 4 weeks, she went to church with us and smiled the whole time. The program truly plants seeds and gives families a chance to live God's Word by example, which is the most powerful thing one can do.

I cannot show the Polish kids' faces publicly, due to Poland's strict governmental rules against posting their pictures online without them being password protected. We do have a site for that, but it is reserved for families who fill out an application with us so we can screen them for eligibility. If you guys want to see photos (with the kids' faces covered for privacy) and hear brief anecdotes about the kids who are eligible for the program, you can follow us on facebook at www.facebook.com/beloveorphanoutreach . During the program, I often post kids with their host families (Polish kids' faces covered) to share stories about their experiences. I will email you a couple pictures of Ukrainian kids we have served in the past with their host families though. Ukraine doesn't have rules against it. I can't figure out how to insert an image on here, as it just says and I don't know what goes in between there to add a pic as these are not hosted online anywhere. You are welcome to reply and post the pics I email you on this feed.

If anyone would like to read more about the hosting program, you can visit www.bloomworldwide.org/hosting . Thank you and please feel free to ask any other questions!

Hi all,

Posting my proposal here for some feedback before opening it up for voting. Please provide feedback here after reading below: http://forum.biblepay.org/index.php?topic=150.0

I'm the Executive Director of one of BBP's recipient charities, BLOOM (Be Love Orphan Outreach Missions.) As some of you may know, one of our main programs is orphan hosting. It's an amazing program where we bring kids from Poland (and hopefully Burundi this summer) to the U.S. for a "reverse mission trip" where American families host the orphans in their homes, and the kids learn English, experience the love of Christ through a Christian family that exemplifies Him, and they get dental and eye exams, etc.

The kids significantly increase their self esteem through this program, thereby decreasing their chances of going into prostitution, becoming criminals, or committing suicide (all very common among orphans who age out of the system in Eastern Europe). 15% of orphans will commit suicide before their 18th birthday, 60% of orphan girls will become prostitutes and 50% of orphan boys will become criminals if no one intervenes in their lives to show them that they can have a future. Hosting mentorship, plus sharing the love of Jesus gives these kids the hope they need for a better future.  Also, orphan hosting significantly increases a child's chances of getting adopted (by about 50-70% depending on the country's adoption rules).

I would like to ask if Bible Pay would sponsor a few "hosting scholarships" for Polish orphans to help offset their airfare to come here on the hosting program. My research shows that kids who have scholarships are 75% more likely to be hosted.

Five one-time scholarships at between $500-1250 each would help us place 7-9 more kids this summer, including hard-to-place sibling groups! If that is too much to ask, we can certainly reduce this number. To give you perspective, I have 45 Polish kids to place right now, but no scholarships from donors yet, so you'd be really making an impact. I have only placed 5 so far with families, so there will be many heartbroken kids if we cannot boost this number thanks to scholarships.

The benefits of sponsoring a scholarship are that I will directly send updates on how the child is doing in their host family while here in the U.S., including pictures, and you only have to fund it ONCE instead of worrying about ongoing monthly sponsorship funding. And it's exciting to know you literally brought a child out of their orphanage, possibly for the first time in their lives, to get to know the love of Jesus and love of a family, also for the first time ever. Of course, I would give another shout out to BBP as the sponsor on Facebook and in our next newsletter.

The only downside is there would be no letter writing involved, since we don't tell the kids that someone sponsored them (other than their host family).

Here is a breakdown of the hosting costs per child and how significant BBP's impact would be:
Total hosting cost: $2995
International Airfare: $1000-1200 (BBP contribution 50%)
Domestic US Airfare: $250-500
Food for child in airport/during in-country transport: $20
Medical Insurance: $100
Chaperone travel fees (approx 1 chap for 10-15 kids): $200
Social worker home visit: $150
Child's visa: $160
Child's passport: $100
In-country travel for child to get to airport from orphanage and to embassy (2 trips): $60-80
BLOOM in-country coordinator fee: $100
In-country paperwork chase for child's travel docs/coordinator transport: $50-60
Program shirt/lanyard/ID card: $20
Interview trip/BLOOM US coordination fees: $330
Airline Escorts: $50
Emergency budget: $40-120 (depending on above costs being higher or lower than expected)

In sum, I'd like to ask if BBP would sponsor the following (non-recurring):
Three $500 scholarships for individual kids=$1500/750,000BBP
Two $1250 scholarships for sibling groups of 2 or 3=$2500/1,250,000BBP
Total: $4000/2,000,000 BBP

If this is too much for the budget right now, I will revise and reduce as needed, but, this would give between 7 and 9 kids a chance at knowing Jesus this summer as is.

Thank you for the consideration and let me know if you have any questions!

April Wareham
BLOOM Executive Director
www.bloomworldwide.org