The Jamaa Letu Orphanage newsletter is compiled from the March 2021 Quarterly Report from the Director’s of the BART, and the March 2021 Quarterly Reports from the Director’s of CEJAL Jamaa Letu Orphanages.
Girls Orphanage—CEJAL
(Centre for Jamaa Letu)
Jamaa Letu greets you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus-Christ.
We thank all of our partners especially from PNWAC and our Task Force for your engagement and support since the beginning of our Ministry and throughout this period of pandemic.
May God almighty restore your bodies and shower you with blessings for your families and your activities.
We thank our dear Missionary Jean-Paul Dietrich for his unwavering guidance and support to our Jamaa Letu family.
Jamaa Letu wishes you all the best for this year 2021.
A Message from Jean-Paul Dietrich
Dear friends of Jamaa Letu orphanages
I was invited to address a greeting to you. Since several years you have been supporting the two orphanages financially and with love. For this I thank you with all my heart. At present, 25 girls and 19 boys find a temporary home. They are fed, enrolled in school, and experience a Christian community of life. In addition, these children and young people are prepared as well as possible for the hard life in Congo once they leave the orphanage. It is obvious that they are not spared from illness and some of them need major medical interventions that can hardly be financed from the current budget. The local parishes, other groups and individuals support the orphanages financially and in kind. The church leadership is also aware that it will have to take on more responsibility in the future. However, Congo is one of the ten poorest countries in the world in terms of income per person, which means that most of the people and members of the Methodist churches here in Lubumbashi are also poor. Therefore, good will might not be enough to bear the burden of the two orphanages in the short and medium term. Dear donors, dear brothers, and sisters in Christ, I appeal to you to continue to support these girls and boys in the coming years and to accompany the two institutions with warmth and advice.
Cordial greetings, Jean-Paul Dietrich (Switzerland), Global Ministries Missionary, Member of the board of trustees of the Jamaa Letu orphanages.
Events and Other Activities
We had different set of activities during this quarter:
We are sensitizing the girls and employees to pray for our partners and for the future of our orphanage so that God can help us through our Church and partners.
Jamaa Letu Fundraising
The pandemic has been hard on many things including the fundraising for the orphanages. For at least a decade, HFCA has been struggling to raise the funds necessary to provide quarterly support to both the CEJAL and BART Orphanages and the pandemic did not help in this struggle.
Thankfully the program has had a “savings account” of undesiginated donations to the Hope for the Children of Africa received more than a decade ago. These undesignated funds have been used to make up the difference between the support provided to the orphanages and the donations received each year from sponsorships and the Jars for Jamaa Letu giving.
While these reserve funds have helped us maintain provision to the orphanages at $80,000 annually. However, even before the pandemic, we were not raising the necessary funds on an annual basis. The last year we raised the full funding for the orphanages was 2016, the year we hosted Blessings and she spoke at Annual Conference.
In an effort to provide as much stability to the funding as we can with the resources that we have we were forced to reduce the amount we normally provide by 25%. Our reserve funds have been depleted and the pandemic has severely limited some of our normal fundraising avenues such as in person church, Jars for Jamaa Letu offering at Annual Conference, and other in person fundraisers.
Additionally, in 2019 we attempted to bring over another former resident of Jamaa Letu and education scholarship recipient. These efforts were crushed when the application for a visa for the student was denied by the US embassy, twice.
The work of the orphanages continues and our financial support allows the kids to receive shelter, food, clothing, and education. We ask that you continue your support, donate early if possible, and even increase your giving if that is an option. The Jamaa Letu children thank you.
How You Help Support Us
Donate Online
You can help support our orphans and students by going to our websites www.JamaaLetu.org & www.JamaaLetuEducation.org and clicking on the Donate links.
Donate Through Your Local UMC
Local UMC Instructions: Mark donation to Jamaa Letu Orphanages & note if it’s for a Child & Youth Sponsorship, Education Scholarship, or general Jamaa Letu support. Talk with your coordinator.
Donate Directly to the Pacific Northwest Conference
Send Donations to Jamaa Letu Orphanages Pacific Northwest Conference Office P.O. Box 13650 Des Moines, WA 98193-1009. Mail donation or direct your bank to send the funds & note if it’s for a Child & Youth Sponsorship, Education Scholarship, or general Jamaa Letu support.
Visiting Group
We were visited by different groups, foundation, church members and friends:
Laure Foundation (brought loin clothes to our girls for the month of women)
Program
The main activities are still the same concerning the program HFCA: food, shelter, education, health care, religion, social reintegration, and family reunification etc., For The Children Of Africa!
March 8th, 2021 (International Women’s Day)
Celebrating Birthdays
We have celebrated a few birthdays at CEJAL as a new way of pleasing our girls and make them feel valued. We hope to continue to do this for all our girls despite our little means.
Medical Care
We have faced a few cases this last quarter among children and employees as well:
Choudelle
Choudelle is very sick and anemic (as mentioned in previous reports) just like Victoire.
She needs urgently to go through a costly pelvis surgery. Her health is deteriorating quickly and she has lost a lot of weight these last days as you can see on the picture below.
Victoire
The screws form the metallic plate are loose as we can see from the x-ray.
Her condition is serious but our missionary Jean-Paul Dietrich his following this case despite his many responsibilities.
Victoire is a young woman with Sickle Cell Anemia. She is too ill to continue in the university. She is recovering from the second surgery for badly broken bones in her hip area, the first being to insert some metal pin, etc., and this one to remove them. Victoire is also experiencing pain from her leg.
Help Support Our Orphans!
Your gifts in support of our orphans are needed and greatly appreciated!
See page three for how you can help.
CEJAL KINDERGARTEN SCHOOL
Our kindergarten school resumed activities on May 1st 2021 since the confinement that started in December 2021 was lifted again. The school activities were slow since we had only a few kids attending school.
Yet another event came on and disturbed once again the work we are doing:
- Rumors about COVID-19 vaccines came out and parents were afraid that their kids would be compelled to take the vaccine without authorization from their parents. So, the parents decided to keep their children at home since we have indeed received official vaccinators from our local healthcare teams before, vaccines concerning other diseases like polio…
- Thing are getting back to normal after three weeks of activities.
These confinements are weighing heavily on our finances:
- Many parents started bringing their children last November 2021 instead of October 12th 2021 (official opening for school year 2020-2021).
- Moreover, many of them didn’t pay the fees for last December due to the confinement.
- We are collecting those fees now with difficulty since the parents believe there might be another confinement in the days to come.
- Among our pupils, 16 of them are still not attending school yet. We hope that we can continue at least with the remaining kids until the end of this school year due on September 8th, 2021.
Enrolled Pupils:151
| Grade | Girls | Boys | Total |
| First-Grade | 23 | 22 | 45 |
| Second-Grade | 29 | 26 | 55 |
| Third-Grade | 23 | 28 | 51 |
| TOTAL | 68 | 74 | 151 |
Issues At CEJAL Orphanage
- This quarter we have received only 75 percent of our usual budget (9,000$ instead of 12,000$).
We had discussions with the employees about finding a way to save more money and raise more funds locally.
One idea was to lower our salaries to that end but we realized that it is impossible at this point since the salaries are already low.
So, we are focusing on getting more gift locally (food especially).
- Following the many interruptions of electricity from our unstable power grid, our electric water pump was damaged.
We have a repairman looking at it and we expect details concerning the costs.
| Primary Students | School Grade | Age |
| Lolotte K | 4th | 10 |
| Emanuelle K | 4th | 9.5 |
| Jaelle K | 2nd | 7 |
| Olive L | 4th | 11 |
| Elaine L | 2nd | 10 |
| Clarisse M K | 3rd | 10 |
| Patricia M | 5th | 12 |
| Dimericia M Y | 5th | 14 |
| Ruth N K | 4th | 13 |
| Dorcas S | 1st | 7 |
| Jemima S | 3rd | 10 |
| Stephanie S | 3rd | 10 |
| Francine T | 6th | 12.5 |
| Secondary Students | School Grade | Age |
| Prisca K | 3rd Science | 14 |
| Suzane K M | 4th Science | 16 |
| Jemima K L | 2nd | 14 |
| Deborah K | 2nd | 16 |
| Micheline K I | 5th Social | 16 |
| Astrid M E | 5th Social | 18 |
| Chatty M T | 2nd | 13 |
| Abigael S | 2nd | 14 |
| Naomie S N | 3rd Science | 14 |
| Kulofwa Z | 2nd | 13 |
| Professional School | School Grade | Age |
| Ruth K | 3rd Couture | 19 |
| Marie-Choudelle I | 4th Couture | 22 |
Boys Orphanage—BART
Thanks to our God for continually protecting us during these very difficult times of COVID-19, Glory be to Him now and forever more, Amen.
| Our Boys |
| Nathan N S |
| Simon K |
| Mukut Z |
| Chadrack K N |
| Yannick K M |
| Willy K |
| Mukey J |
| Gracia M |
| Kelly K |
| Leon N M |
| Simon T R |
| Raphael K |
| Joseph K N |
| Bernard L I |
| Lievin I |
| Sandji M M |
| Ely M S |
| Joseph K |
Meet Our New Orphan
The twentieth of January 2021, we have received from the office of social affairs of the township of Lubumbashi, a 9 years old orphan boy, whose father passed away, by the name of Joseph K K abandoned by her mother.
We Had A Visit from the Bishop
The same month we have received people from the office of Bishop Kasap’ Owan led by the Reverend Tshamusa.
Another Visiting Group
The twentieth of March 2021, Madam Liliane, the president of Kipendano conference visited us accompanied by other members of Kipendano District and brought Food to the orphans and moral support during this time of COVID 19. They brought oil, soap, sugar, fish, chicken, etc. as shown on these pictures bellow.
Boys Activities
The activities are still the same, there is no a big change. During this period of school.
They also took pleasure in cleaning the compound, their rooms and also participating to different church activities such as choir worship.
The 14th of January 2021, people from the MMG company also came and brought Food and some Christmas gifts to the orphans.
About the Boys
As for the boys, they are all doing fine despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
We thank our partners from the Pacific North West for their support, may God bless you abundantly.
Education
The children go to school as usual and observe the security measures by wearing masks and sanitizing their hands.
Medical Care
Only two orphans, Kafeko N and Kelly K fell sick and were admitted to the hospital but now they are all doing fine.
Office Activities and Works Done
We are doing the following activities and works:
1. Taking care of them
2. Giving them good food
3. Teaching them how to interact with people in the society
4. Teaching them how to protect themselves against this COVID-19 pandemic
5. Teaching them how to live a Christian life
6. Teaching them how to respect church leaders etc.
Thank You Jean-Paul!
Thanks to our missionary Jean-Paul for assisting us with $100, the money that allowed us to fix the electric problem for the orphanage
Thank you for your support!
Support the Orphans Through These
Donation Options
Donate Through Your Local UMC
Mark donation to Jamaa Letu Orphanages & note if it’s for a Child & Youth Sponsorship, Education Scholarship, or general Jamaa Letu support. Talk with your local coordinator for more information.
