The Life Essentials for Orphans Project identifies orphans and vulnerable children with immediate needs and provides them with life essentials such as food, clothing, shelter and emergency medical care.

Many of the 150,000,000 orphans in the world live in abject poverty; some living in the streets, others living together in orphan-led families. The Life Essentials for Orphans Project seeks to identify orphans throughout the world who need immediate help or emergency medical intervention and provide for their needs while looking for a more permanent family-based solution for these children.

Featured Story Illustrating how the Project Works: Melita and Suzana Can See Now!

header_left1While traveling throughout Mozambique to film a documentary on the plight of the orphans there, we arrived at a remote orphanage 20 kilometers outside of Marremeu. The conditions were the worst we had yet seen. The orphanage consisted of a hut with a dirt floor. There was no running water, and the children were dressed in rags.

We asked the director to tell us of some of the most difficult situations, and he brought forward Melita and Suzana, sisters who could not see. He said they had been blind since they were much younger, but he did not know for how long.

We asked him if the children had ever been seen by a doctor, and he said he did not have money for the bus fare to bring them all the way to Beira where there would be a qualified doctor to see them.

Our team looked at each other and our eyes teared. We knew why we were there that day. We were going to do everything in our power to help Melita and Suzana receive their sight.

While we were filming Melita, she reached her hands toward the sky and in the sweetest little voice and with the sweetest smile she said, “I asked God to help cure my eyes.” She was a little girl with a lot of faith.

We arranged to have the girls brought to Beira where they were diagnosed and later received surgery that corrected the problem. Now Melita and Suzana, who were blind for many years, can see! Click here to read the report in Portuguese from the missionaries who facilitated the treatment for us.

We also arranged for a well to be dug so that the children would have fresh water and would not have to walk a long distance to bring water to the orphanage. We are hoping this will help them to maintain a garden and to be able to grow much of their own food. We also provided a bike for the director so that he could get supplies more easily from the city and transport children to the local doctor when needed.