SOS Village

Today we went to the SOS Children's Village
It is just outside of Lusaka, and is an orphanage and a school as well for the orphans and some children from the area.

There are about 200 children that live there, and about a hundred more that attend the school also.

Kabwata Baptist Church has recently begun an outreach to this SOS Village.I wanted to go and see what it was like and if there was anything we could do to help.

They have 3 sunday school classes with the children and then the teenagers and some of the workers attend the church service that runs at the same time. So each week they have teachers and a preacher that come as well as others who want to help with crowd control. There is the potential for more children to attend the sunday school class, and more of the workers to attend the church service, if the children are being taken care of at the classes.

There are several brick "homes" spread throughout the campus. 12 children live in a home with 2 women. One is the "mother" and the other, the "auntie". The children stay in the same house/family home until they are 16, then they move to the young peoples housing or center.


This week, there were several young women from the church that had come to see and help out as well. Hopefully they will continue to have people want to come and help in this ministry.

Esther, one of the women who has been helping there for about a month and a half told me that the children are doing better now. When they first started coming they almost wanted to cry, because the kids were so loud and not sitting still or quiet to listen and it was very hard to get control of the class. They are doing better now, but they had not ever had church services to attend.

The girls and I went to sit in on the SS class and James and the boys went to the service. Afterwards one of the women that works there took us back to her house, though she was not a "mother " to 12 children. I belive she was more administrative, her and her husband and they helped get the contact for Kabwata to come and work with the children.

We visited for a few minutes with the other ladies and then headed back to where the service had ended and found James. He was talking to Simeon. He was orphaned when he was 6 years old and is now in 10th grade. He said that there are 2 boys he has been with since he moved there. I asked him if they were kind of like his brothers then since he has known them so long. he said yes, and that is what they tell us to treat each other like family. He goes to school and said that he would like to be a doctor.

He also said they each have different chores and responsibilities that they have on a daily basis and then they rotate.







I am having touble with uploading this video clip. SO if it is there...
This video is only 24 seconds. I set the camera down because at the end a couple kids start pushing and fighting and I thought I should stop videoing and help.
but I think it shows what I mentioned about the need for more helpers.