PRECIOUS FREEMAN and her 10 yr. old son Maxwell, waited patiently,  as we met with countless people from the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana.  Everyone had their desperate story.  Finally Precious ventured to ask, “when will it be my turn to receive prayer”?   I answered, “When everyone else is gone, come to my room”

     

Precious in her room across from the camp.       Maxwell & Precious one year later back in Liberia

I will never forget that night, when Precious came to our little hotel room, across from the camp.  It was the night she met Jesus, when “Everything changed!”  Precious, like many others, fled from Liberia, during the tragedies of the civil wars.   She vowed, ” I will NEVER go back to that God forsaken land, Liberia, where the rebels killed  my mother and my father!”  Precious left our room that night, with a new found hope.  Her face was literally glowing!  I too could feel the peace, and the presence of God everywhere in the room!  I knew from that moment on, Precious and her son, would always be part of our ever-growing Liberian Family!  The next morning, she  met me still smiling!  She could hardly wait to share her heart.   “Usually I go to sleep, and  sleep small.  Then I wake up and I worry, HOW WILL WE MAKE IT?  Last night I slept ALL NIGHT LONG!!  and the PEACE, IT IS STILL WITH ME!“  Maxwell was not in school.  Every day he would go about looking for food.  His mother had a low paying job at the Hotel we stayed at, across from the refugee camp.   We bought her a bag of rice, put Maxwell to school and bought him a new uniform, black shoes and a book bag.   Today he is one of the top students in his class!

  

Maxwell having chicken dinner with Mama Karen                   Sitting on their bed in Liberia

It was so much fun inviting Maxwell to dinner.  “Tell Maxwell he doesn’t have to go looking for food tomorrow, I am inviting him to have dinner with me!”  I ordered him the biggest plate of chicken and rice,  possible.   I whispered, “You don’t have to finish it, we will package what you can’t eat, and you and mama will eat that later tonight”   I always remember the words of Mother Teresa, “IF YOU CAN’T FEED A HUNDRED PEOPLE, THEN FEED JUST ONE”

  

Today with a MICRO LOAN,  Precious Freeman has been able to run a successful food stand outside her home.   She has managed to enroll herself in a vocational school where she is taking a 2 yr. course in Business Management and Accounting.   With her profits, Precious is starting to build herself and Maxwell a  house!

 

Brick by brick, with her little profits, Precious will buy another few bags of cement, so the brick layers can continue to build.  However long it takes, I know she will finish.  “Precious, I am so proud of you!!”  “Whatever your hand finds to do, I know you will prosper, because God is with you!”

 

 

Refugee Assistance, Single Mothers Empowerment Program

BUDUBURAM REFUGEE CAMP in Ghana  is a very difficult  place to live.   Over 30,000 people are left stranded here, just  hoping and praying to go back home to Liberia, or any other place, but this camp!   How will they go, they have no money.  Rice is  sold for $60 dollars a bag, they have no jobs.   They buy their drinking water AND their bath water.  There are open sewers, flies and rats.  Diseases of every kind. 

Provision of Hope has a Single Mothers Empowerment Program where we help these single mothers with micro businesses,  just to “try” to survive!  Their children are not in school, unless they find a sponsor.  They all need help!  We have over 70 mothers, with children.

These four single mothers are the next on the list to go home.  

Our goal is to get them HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.  They all have relatives who will help them once they get to Liberia. 

The cost for one adult is $250  Children $75.  They can travel home by bus.  

 

   Annie Williams and her Daughter Passion     Precious Jopleh & her two children       

Each one of our mothers has a horrific story of how she ESCAPED THE WAR in Liberia, and fled to seek asylum in this refugee camp.  Some were tortured and beaten by rebels.  Often captured and raped.  They ran while others were gunned down, and killed.  It’s been a horror story!   Unimaginable to most of us in North America!      

 

      Cynthia Boimah and son Emmanuel                       Helen Byrpu and Son Marvin

If you would like to help these mothers home, please fill out  our DONATIONS PAGE and send it with your cheque. 

To donate by credit card phone 250-454-9456 and ask for Karen Barkman.

Always remember, no donation, is ever too small.  TOGETHER WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

 

Refugee Assistance, Single Mothers Empowerment Program

MAXWELL NIMENE just lost his caregiver in the BUDUBURAM REFUGEE CAMP.  This is the lady, who took his hand and helped him escape through the gunshots, of the last Liberian war!  I am only too sorry, we found him after her death, perhaps we could have helped this lady.  She had no money, and no medical help.  Countless hundreds die, premature deaths because they have no-one to help!   Now Maxwell has  no-one to care for him, and no food.  He goes around begging to survive.   He knows he is Liberian and just cries to go home.  In 2003 amid the gunfire Maxwell ran for protection.  He was only 8 yrs old during this horrific memory.  Since that day he has not seen his parents and has no idea if they are dead or alive.    Perhaps his parents survived the war, no-one knows.  I HAVE A HEART FOR THIS BOY WHO JUST TURNED 16.  I want to help him home, have him live at My Father’s House, and send him to school.  Can anyone help him? 

 

Maxwell sitting in his room at the Buduburam Refugee camp.   Here he stands outside his room.

 

Maxwell is getting ready to have a bath, in the pink bucket.  They pay for their water on the camp.  Obviously they cannot bath every day, there is no money.  Picture living on a camp, it is smouldering hot, there is every disease imaginable with flies from the sewer buzzing on your food.  Yes, this is where we go every year to help “the least of these”    Provision of Hope has already helped hundreds of people in this camp.  I pray we can do something for Maxwell too.

To help Maxwell home to Liberia will cost 200 Dollars

To help Maxwell get some clothes + shoes, when he is in Liberia  200 Dollars

To help Maxwell get a mattress, blankets and a mosquito net is 150 Dollars

To help Maxwell get to school for 1 semester   150 Dollars ( includes all supplies)

To sponor Maxwell as he lives at My Father’s House in Liberia  per month  50 Dollars  ( includes school and most basic needs)

Any donation towards Maxwell’s needs would be most appreciated!

You can donate NOW by credit card if you wish by phoning…

250-454-9456

Or fill out our DONATIONS PAGE and send it with your cheque or money order.

THIS IS HOW WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE… ONE AT A TIME!

Mother Teresa said it well  ” If you cannot feed 100 feed JUST ONE!

Refugee Assistance

TONIGHT I CAN HEAR THE CRY  of a Mother and her children on the BUDUBURAM REFUGEE CAMP.  Tomorrow they will be going to the clinic in Kasoa to try to get help for Nathan.  Nathan is the older boy in the photo, who had severe malaria, that affected his brain.  This family lives in the poorer area of the camp.  Many times they go to bed hungry.

                                                                                                                                        

We are wanting to move this family to a better  location on the camp.  Cost to do that is 200 USD

We want to buy them a mattress  Cost is 100 USD

They need blankets and a mosquito net    35 USD

I wish I could give them one bag of rice    50 USD

 

Nathan and his family, outside their room on the refugee camp. They live amid the open sewers and garbage.

More than money, they need a MIRACLE for NATHAN’S HEALING.  Please join me to pray for him.

If you want to donate for this home  fill out our DONATIONS PAGE and send it with your cheque or money order.

If you are pledging to donate, I would love to hear from  you. Email karen@provisionofhope.com    Right now their needs are desperate.   A little goes a long way here.  We also share open book financial reports, if you want to see our records.

For credit card donations call Karen Barkman at 250-454-9456

Into the hovels of the poor.  Into the dark streets where the homeless groan.  God speaks:  I’ve had enough, I’m on my way to heal the ache in the heart of the wretched….. Ps. 12:5                                                                                                                         

 

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Refugee Assistance

One of the GREATEST JOYS  in this work is seeing the HOPELESS find HOPE!   

         

 Just a few months ago Silas was so sick, we wondered if he would make it.  He was malnourished and unable to walk.                                        

LOOK AT HIM TODAY!!   I could not believe the difference when I saw him at the camp in February!!  Wow!!  This photo was taken after he was treated medically and given nutritious food.  I love the quote of Mother Teresa “if you cannot feed one hundred people then feed just one.”   

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                   Silas poses in his new clothes.  Mama Maybe is thrilled to be getting assistance!  Many nights she would wonder “HOW WILL THEY SURVIVE?”  Today they have help and they are “THANKING GOD EVERY DAY!”

           

               BEFORE  HELP                                                 AFTER HELP

I am asking everyone who reads this to say a prayer for our single mothers on the Buduburam Refugee Camp.  Mothers Day is often a sad day for them.  I know some who are sick, and others who have no food.  Rice has gone up to 60 dollars a bag and everyone pays for their drinking water.  Life is so hard for those with no help.  If you can help “just one”  please get in touch with us or fill out the form to donate http://www.provisionofhope.com/donate.htm   Email me if you have further questions karen@provisionofhope.com

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!

LOVE,

MAMA KAREN

Refugee Assistance

PATRICK WILLIAMS is a young 14 yr. old boy who has nothing but the clothes on his back.  This is Christmas but for him, he only hopes he will have something to eat.  He has been living in a deplorable situation, on the Krisan Sanzule Refugee Camp in Ghana!  Here, a kind old widow woman was taking care of him. This place is a living hell!  Patrick”s home looks like a chicken coop!  Many times he goes to bed hungry.  They have no mattresses, and no blankets.  They only hope they will not die with the next malaria or typhoid fever.   

Patrick’s story is one of thousands in West Africa. 

In 1996 when war broke out in Liberia everyone including Patrick’s mother, Phebe, ran for their lives!  In Phebe’s frantic escape  she was caught by the rebels.  Both her and her mother were beaten and raped.  The rebels killed her father and oldest brother.  They took Phebe to the bush where they tied her up, saying “we will come back to kill you!“  Thank God she was able to untie herself and escape.   Soon after travelling by foot to Ivory Coast, she knew she was pregnant.  In January 1997 she gave birth to Patrick.  In Ivory Coast Phebe would go to the market and carry luggage for people, for small tips, to get food for the day.  There was a very kind old widow there who saw Phebe’s hardship and came to her rescue.   This widow lost her husband and children in the war, and took Phebe like her own.  Unfortunately Ivory Coast broke into war in 2002.  This is when the old widow, said, “Give me Patrick, and I will take him with me to Ghana where we will be safe from war”  This kind widow woman has taken care of Patrick until now.  Phebe travelled home to Liberia recently in search of her sister Bernice.  Someone there told her that her sister lived at the Buduburam Refugee Camp and that is how Phebe located Bernice, telling her that her son was in the Krisan Sanzule Camp, and would she please go to find him.  “The old ma says she is now too old to take care of Patrick and she cannot help him any longer“  It was then that Provision of Hope instructed Bernice Williams, the aunt of Patrick, to bring him home with her to the Buduburam Refugee Camp.  “But mom, how will I take care of him, I have little myself?”  I said, “Bernice, just bring him home,  GOD WILL MAKE A WAY!“   Today Patrick is with Bernice Williams on the Buduburam Refugee Camp.  Bernice is one of our leaders for the SINGLE MOTHERS EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM on the camp. 

Phebe, Patrick’s mother, lives in slum- like conditions at West Point in Liberia.  I hope to send our Director of Mercy, Aaron Paul, in search of this single mother and the 4 children she is trying to feed.  Her oldest is Hannah, who lost her father and mother in the war.  This is the child of Phebe’s oldest brother.  The father of her bio children, was carried off in the war in Ivory Coast and she has not seen him since.

For some, Christmas is not like you and I know Christmas.  It is very sad for some.  Many times I am reminded of the star-fish story, and it inspires me to keep rescuing the Patricks.  

In this story a man is walking on a beach, which is filled with thousands of starfish left to die by the outgoing tide. The man watches a young boy who also walks the beach. The boy is taking starfish after starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. The man asks the boy what appears to be a sensible question: “What do you think you are doing? How can you possibly make a difference with all the thousands, perhaps millions of starfish covering the beach?”  The young boy’s answer had the wisdom of a sage. As he threw yet another starfish back into it’s element, he replied: “It makes a difference to this one!”

We will make a difference to this one!   That is, if you can help.  

CLICK HERE TO DONATE  

We would like to put Patrick to school, buy new clothes for him, and give him a HOPE and a FUTURE.  We would also like to buy a mattress and some blankets for the widow woman, who was so kind to Patrick.  

Together we can CHANGE LIVES!

Refugee Assistance

SUDDENLY, in a humble little room, on the BUDUBURAM REFUGEE CAMP, the PRESENCE OF GOD came so strong …. and we “all” knew we had been touched!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BERNICE WILLIAMS and LEONA WLEH with daughter SUCCESS that night in January 2009.

It all started when we began to PRAY and ASK God to come and bless these dear Single Mothers.                                                                             

We  could all feel the Power of God in the room, that night.  Wow!!!   Carol Jones, from Kelowna, BC was there with us praying.

We stood up to leave, and go back to our Hotel across from the camp, when Leona began to share the vision God was giving to her.  “God is giving me a vision, to start a PRAYER GROUP!!!”  Her face was glowing as she spoke about this revelation!!

Immediately these girls began to gather with other single mothers, and very soon they grew from 5 to 24 single mothers and children who would come out to gather in an open field, at THE PRAYER TOWER.   They had only one purpose and that was TO FIND GOD!!

They remind me of the song TAKE YOUR CANDLE GO LIGHT YOUR WORLD   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhUVHmt6BHs

Today when they gather they are close to 60 in number.  This Friday night they will spend all night in prayer.  The children come too.  We have watched how they pray!!  They learn from their mothers.

  

These are women from various churches, all reaching out in unity to SEEK THE FACE OF GOD AND PRAY.     Is it any wonder God comes to touch them?  It is always the desperate who find God!

These single mothers all have tragic stories of how they survived the 14 yrs. of civil war in Liberia.   They have experienced one trauma after another, in their flight to  seek asylum in Ghana at this Refugee Camp.  They have suffered much.  Many have been raped, or suffered some kind of abuse before reaching their final destination.  The refugee camp is hard!  Exceptionally hard!  No human being should have to live here in these horrendous conditions. 

There are open sewers right next to houses.

Garbage is thrown everywhere.

Flies are buzzing on the open sewers.

Diseases are fast spreading.

Many are hungry.

They pay for their drinking water, and their bath water.

They keep CRYING OUT

REMEMBER US LORD GOD REMEMBER US!!!

Psalms 12:5  in The Message  is a passage I love!

“In the hovels of the poor,  into the dark streets where the homeless groan

God speaks:    I’ve had enough, I’M ON MY WAY  TO HEAL THE ACHE IN THE HEART OF THE WRETCHED.”

PRAY THIS PRAYER WITH ME… FOR THOSE LEFT IN THE HOVELS OF THE BUDUBURAM CAMP…  that God would come

and Heal the Ache in their hearts, and let them know, THEY HAVE NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN.

 

Refugee Assistance

Life in the Buduburam Refugee Camp, in Ghana,  is very hard.  Many times ERIC GBOUR  and his wife KAMAH  will put their children to bed hungry.    There are no jobs, and no-one to help.  Kamah is expecting their 3rd child.  She is afraid to deliver this baby, at the camp, because her last child died there, during the delivery process.   If they had the funding they would take her to Accra, to a proper hospital, but they have no funds.  Funds to do that would be 100 dollars. 

When we say we can save lives for as little as 100 dollars, it’s so true.  For me, this is one of the hardest things to face, in this field.   Many die a needless death, from preventable diseases.  

According to UNICEF, 24,000 children, under the age of 5,  DIE DAILY, due to poverty.   They “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”  See STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2010 UNICEF 

                                                                                                     

Eric and Kamah fled from Liberia in 2002.  Already they had witnessed most of the 14 years of civil war that finally ended in 2003.  They saw loved ones beaten and watched them die.  Today they are thanking God that they escaped and are alive! 

For this reason, they try to help the needy whenever they are able to do that.    

I was so impressed with Eric, in January 2009, when he told me about his daughter Love, and the surgery she went through to remove a growth.  With everything he had, Eric, managed to pay for the surgery.  The cost was 550 USD.  I asked him “How is that possible, you live here at this camp?”  He told me how he would sell phones, which he purchased from Nigeria.  He said he took all his business funds to save his daughter’s life.  I KNEW THAT DAY THIS WAS A MAN I WANTED TO HELP!  I could see the depth of his love for his family.  I also knew he was a man talented for business, to be able to pay that amount of money for his daughter’s surgery, amid such extreme poverty, as I saw in this camp.   Truely this was remarkable!

  I know how difficult life is on the camp, where you  pay for your drinking water, and even your bath water.  Rice is over 50 dollars a bag.  For sure your family will come down with malaria or typhoid within any given 6 months.  This camp is a disease bed.  Yet what choice do they have, but to hope for a better day.  Perhaps by some act of God, they will get to return home to Liberia, their homeland…maybe life will be better there. 

I could see Eric had the ability to run an efficient business, if only he could get started with something.   In 2009, I offered him a micro loan of 600 GHc ( under 500 CDN)  Within the required time, he paid it in full.  He could set up a proper  business on the camp, if he had the funding to do so.  I know he would be successful.  He has already proven himself.  Eric is a man of integrity, he is a faithful participant in their local church, and is head of the press department, a job he volunteers his time to.   He is known to help others in need, when he has the means to do so. 

Eric is planning to set up a store to supply cell phones from Nigeria.  He is already familiar with this business and has been successful with his previous loan,  selling phones.   To do this proper he would need 800 CDN dollars.  He would start payments within 6 months. 

                                                                                                                                                                                        Miracle is a boy that Eric and Kamah have been taking care of because his mother is too poor.  She is a single mother, and has very little, even to feed herself.  They took him in when Eric was still making small income, selling phones.  Today he lives with them.   Miracle has a skin disease that flares up from time to time.  Provision of Hope has provided funds for his treatment.  He would be in school if he had the school fees.  50 dollars is all that is needed to put him to school. 

                                 Right now Eric has no funds.  

They have little food.   Kamah, his wife, really needs to go to Accra, to deliver her baby safely, and his children are not in school.  I told him I would get others praying for his situation, and we will believe together for a better day!

I see their hearts to help the poor, and that is why I want to try to help them.

This is Eric with his daughters, Love and Efrance.  Love is 15, and in Gr. 9.  Efrance is 9 and in Gr. 3.  The two boys are children he helps.  You will always find this family reaching out to the poor around them.  That is why they have Prince (7) and Miracle (5) living with them.  Prince could be in Gr. 1 but there were no funds to put him to school this year.  Hopefully by September we can raise the funds needed for him.  I chatted with him today, and he is hoping for a way to put Efrance and Miracle to school this next term.   

                                                                                                                                                                                     JACKSON GBOUR, in the photo below,  is a nephew that Eric took to be his own son.  When the rebels attacked Jackson’s mother, (Eric’s older sister), she later died, at home,  and left Jackson with no-one to care for him.  His father died from a fatal disease.  Jackson was living with Eric until we offered him a bed at My Father’s House in Liberia.  Provision of Hope transported him home, from the refugee camp, and gave him a scholarship for Gr. 9.   Jackson is happy to be living at My Father’s House where his needs are met, and where he can DREAM ABOUT HIS FUTURE! 

Refugee Assistance Refugees