It is sometimes difficult to hear the heartbreaking stories of the people we help, especially when they involve children. What keeps us encouraged are the stories we receive from our partners detailing how dire situations have been turned around and lives are renewed.

(Left to right) Siblings Nancy, 5, Humphrey, 8, and John, 4, had been living on their own for three years until a Catholic school supported by Cross International Catholic Outreach rescued them and placed them in a loving home.

One of those recent stories came from a Catholic school we support near the second largest urban slum in Africa.

Meet siblings Humphrey, 8, Nancy, 5, and John, 4. Four years ago, their mother sold them to a woman living in the infamous Kibera Slums of Nairobi, Kenya. When the staff of a nearby Catholic school we support found out what had happened, they helped the children enroll in school and put them in their grandmother’s custody.

But their troubles were far from over. After a few months, their destitute grandmother abandoned the siblings to go earn a living on a distant farm, and the children spent the next three years caring for themselves.

They lived in a one-room, iron sheet house in the middle of the bush. The windows and door didn’t close, the floor was made of mud, and there were gaping holes in the roof. Humphrey, who wasn’t even in third grade yet, juggled work and school, desperately trying to support his younger siblings, but they often went without food. Weekends were especially difficult because they did not receive a school lunch to fill their empty bellies.

When the staff at the school went for a home visit, they quickly realized that the siblings had been abandoned. The staff arranged for the children to stay with a catechist and his family at the local Catholic mission compound. The siblings are now clothed, well-fed, and able to attend school every day. Their happiness is evident by the gaping smiles always on their faces. They are now receiving the care and love every child deserves.

Our Catholic benefactors enable us to support several life-saving programs like this one in Kenya and other Sub-Saharan countries. To learn more about our work with orphans and vulnerable children in Africa, click here.

Tuesday I traveled into Kenya’s Great Rift Valley. The trip was long as the roads were typical of what one sees outside most city limits…the last five miles on tracks that picked through the arid landscape. This area has been severely affected by an ongoing drought. Everyone seemed to be pleased that it had been raining for a few days and, of course, everyone hoped that it would continue. I heard someone say that Kenyans ‘eat’ rain…an expression that connects the rain to food production.

I finally arrived in Katale and the following day I checked in on a project we support there, St. John Bosco Rehabilitation Center. The center is operated by the Maryknoll Lay Missioners under the guidance of the Diocese of Kitale. Russ Brine is the project manager…a great guy, extremely organized.

This education program is multi-pronged: The most vulnerable children are housed on campus from Sunday at 3 p.m. through Saturday at 1 p.m. The children have an opportunity to stay connected with their families but not long enough to slide back into negative behavior…sniffing glue for example. A social worker goes to students’ homes to keep parents/guardians informed of their progress. Each student is carefully monitored…They are intentional about the number of students they admit so they can maintain quality monitoring.

A family of the Turkana tribe stands in front of their igloo-like hut made of garbage scraps—the typical home of students at St. John Bosco Rehabilitation Center in Kitale, Kenya.

We visited slums where most of the students live. The children are from Turkana families. They are nomadic pastoralists who have moved to Kitale due to the drought that has parched the area near their homeland around Lake Turkana. Their homes are made by the women from sticks and whatever plastic and cloth can be collected from area garbage dumps, and resemble igloos…they do not keep out rain but do provide a measure of protection from sun and mosquitoes.

Russ has a good understanding of resource management and emphasizes quality over quantity. He is building a national staff that is well trained and very involved in the development of their program—one of the most culturally appropriate programs I’ve seen in Kenya. They have farming and vocational training programs, as well as an additional 20 or so adult women who implement the program in the slum areas. They are eyes and ears for the center’s staff.

I remain impressed by St. John Bosco Rehabilitation Center. They are doing a good work here.

The United Nations World Food Programme recently reported that food aid to the world’s poor is at a 20-year low, yet the number of hungry people is at the highest level ever — 1 billion. Part of the problem is countries such as the U.S. have cut back their aid because of economic woes, leaving millions of poor without food.

Recent reports of severe food shortages in Guatemala and intense famine in Kenya and other East African countries have only reinforced the idea that world hunger has reached a crisis level.

A young boy begs in the street for food in a rural village of southern Ethiopia’s Borana Zone. Famine and decreased food aid because of the economy are expected to leave 20 million more hungry.

We at Cross Catholic are responding to this pervasive need by providing tens of thousands of meals to the poor through our Catholic ministry partners around the globe. We ship containers of nutrient-rich food packets, support school feeding programs, and provide food for nutrition centers and feeding programs for the sick, elderly, and orphaned.

World hunger may seem like a problem too big to tackle, but we’ve seen firsthand that just one meal can mean the difference between life and death.

For Javier, a toddler rescued by a nutrition center we support in Central America, it was seven meals that saved his life.

The 10-month-old orphan weighed just under 9 pounds — little more than a newborn — when he was rescued by Las Mercedes/Prince of Peace Nutrition Center in Honduras. The doctor there said he would die within a week unless he received food immediately. With love, care, and a ready-supply of food, the staff at the center was able to nurse Javier back to health. In just four months, he had made a full recovery.

That first week of meals saved Javier’s life. Without them he never would have grown into the happy, healthy boy he is today.

A few meals saved Javier’s life. The 10-month-old, who weight just under 9 pounds (left), would have died in a week if a nutrition center we support in Honduras hadn’t intervened.

Javier’s story illustrates the impact just a few meals can make. Though malnutrition can be devastating, many of its harmful effects can be reversed with a steady supply of nutritious meals, especially if it is treated early. When someone is starving, one meal really does make a difference!

Help save a life and share the love of Christ by supporting one of our feeding programs — CLICK HERE.

One thing we’ve learned from doing AIDS relief in developing nations is that you can’t just build a clinic or send medicine and then wait for the problem to go away. Medical treatment is vital, but it’s not the whole solution. There are deeply-ingrained attitudes and perspectives that need to change – attitudes toward AIDS victims, their families, and even chronically ill people in general.

Mike Henry, a Cross Catholic project officer, recently returned from Haiti, where he met with our ministry partners to talk about how they can better serve the needs of HIV/AIDS victims. One of those ministries is Rainbow House, a shelter for children infected with HIV or orphaned by AIDS. We are helping them relocate to a new, larger facility on an eight-acre tract of land.

Rainbow House in Haiti provides shelter and care for HIV/AIDS infected and affected children

Mike described to us the stigma that AIDS carries in Haitian culture. The disease is often blamed on black magic, and those who catch it are looked down upon and isolated from society, to suffer and die alone. Ignorance about the disease leads to fears that you can catch it by breathing the same air or touching the belongings of someone who has it, or by being bitten by a mosquito. AIDS orphans are abandoned in hospitals or left to fend for themselves on the streets.

The stigma brings other complications, too. AIDS patients trying to keep their problem secret don’t want health workers visiting their home. At-risk men, women, and children should be made to feel as comfortable as possible with getting tested and seeking help, but this can’t happen without a change of attitude in their neighbors. That’s why we stress the importance of education.

At Rainbow House, this is done through peer-to-peer workshops and youth events that dispel myths about AIDS, so that communities will learn to accept infected children with love and compassion. Similarly, our Riara Health Project in Kenya invites patients to one-on-one and group teaching sessions on health and nutrition; and our Itimpi Home-Based Care project in Zambia organizes community support groups to curb risky behaviors that lead to the spread of the disease.

The Cross Catholic approach to the AIDS crisis is more than damage control. We aim to change hearts and minds, to bring about a better, healthier future.

One of our project officers recently brought back some neat photos from St. John Bosco Rehabilitation Center, a ministry we support in Kenya that provides temporary shelter and education to street children. Most of these children come from pretty desperate situations, so it’s nice to see them smiling and having a bit of fun.

Players from the St. John Bosco soccer team celebrate after a game.

One of the girls at St. John Bosco enjoys a little jump rope after school.

Daisy, a former street child who lives at St. John Bosco, shows off her hula hooping skills with an old bike tire.

Click here to learn more about this life-changing program.