I have had some personal experience with the debilitating disease of Malaria, having had recurring bouts of it myself - as well as having held tiny babies as they suffer through it. If they are lucky they recover, many babies, already weak from hunger, cannot survive an onset of it.
I know well the snowballing effects of the illness. The horrible symptoms are enough to deal with... but it also keeps you from working the farm, providing a living to support your family, and doing your daily routine. In Sierra Leone, for most, that "daily routine" is an act of survival - scrounging for food,shelter, water and/or fuel for you and your family. When someone is knocked down due to malaria, the whole family suffers because it takes everyone (parents and children alike) working together to get through the day. If the family foot is affected, the family body can't walk.
To me, here in the States, it is an inconvenience - but I can be treated. I have shelter, I have clean water, I have healthy food. Imagine suffering this dreadful disease without a proper bed, no shelter, barely enough food and drinking only from a jug of water filled with bacteria. It is incomprehensible and no human being should experience this - let alone on a routine basis, time after time.
Nazareth House has no cure for malaria. We are aware there are methods out there of curbing it and preventing it. We are also aware that those actions of prevention are bottle necked somewhere and not made readily available to those in need. What Nazareth House is able to do is care for those who suffer it. Your donations will provide bednetting ($10 per net), food, shelter, medications to lessen the symptoms. Better still your pledged monthly donations will continue this aid month after month.
Nazareth House is in the middle of a campaign to purchase a compound in the capital city of Freetown, Sierra Leone. This center will house a medical clinic, a small orphanage, our storage & distribution center for rice,medication,supplies, a Home for the dying, a guest house & teaching center and staff quarters. The compound is vital to our continued and necessary expansion work in Sierra Leone. It make it possible to bring ministry to those we've had to turn away because of lack of facilities. In Louisville there is a group that will teach your group how to build a water supply center to serve a village of 10,000 people. We want to begin having people trained and sent to do this work (A clean water source is invaluable to survival), but until we have the compound with its guest house to reasonably safely accommodate a group during their stay, it cant happen. What an experience this would be for a group of College Students - to build a water supply and help out 10,000 villagers! How often is an opportunity like this presented to you...to make a real difference when the world around you is becoming more and more self centered? We must acquire a 4-W vehicle for access to distribute needs to villages in up country where roads are treacherous. The school we are building in Kabala is closer and closer to completion. We are accomplishing big things with very little. Our goal is $500,000 to complete the compound project. Not a million dollars, not two million dollars --for what we are providing from the compound, the cost is extremely low. Its up to you to get the word out to share your experience with Nazareth House. Scroll through the many photo albums of documented work that YOU've made possible, spread the word. We can do this, we can make a huge difference. Ask someone for their support today. Remember those who are suffering from the horrible effects of malaria and consider what you can do for them. It would only take 1667 people giving only $25 per month - less than a dollar a day - to meet this goal. God bless you.
