We’d like to offer some alternatives:

“Shop your closet,” then have a garage sale. Use some of the money for accessories to update old outfits, then send a child in Africa to school.
Don’t have your own child to send to school? Sponsor a child in Uganda for $420 and save $186.40!

You can view items in your cart at the bottom of this page.

Book Review
There is something beautiful about the way we are all knit together. Melissa Fay Greene’s “There is No Me Without You” weaves a tapestry of love, hope, and decency in the midst of the world’s greatest crisis…Plus – News from Uganda, & Sooth those Back-to-School Shopping Woes

Download the Aug-Sept 2010 Newsletter (18)!

Basically,  our phone carrier switched their business model around and decided not to do phone service any more. We started the process to move the number, but services ended before the move was complete. It’s frustrating to us, and I’m sure it’s frustrating for those of you trying to reach us.

We really are here. We really do want to take your call.

Join us there THIS SATURDAY, at 6pm for an evening of good food, great coffee & tea, and wonderful friends. Hear about changed lives and God’s faithfulness, and learn how easy it is to really make a difference in Africa.

$10 in advance
$12 at the door

Includes salad, specialty sandwiches, coffee, tea, or water
Specialty coffees and desserts also available
(10% of all proceeds benefit FOT)

Door prizes For advance ticket sales call (804) 684-1790 or 804-815-3358

All of the TOUCH children, staff, and volunteers are okay, and the church is working to respond to the needs of those who suffered in this attack. While we pray for justice and for safety from further attack,  a lot of us are looking at the news (when we can find it), thinking, “I was just there,” or wondering how where our friends were at that moment when the blasts occurred. We wonder how anyone could do such a thing. We wonder how the world will change.

The news that the most-feared terrorist group in Somalia has taken credit for the attacks that they may have had help from another group in Uganda, and the solemn warnings of experts and the media are like a second wave, planting fear and uncertainty.

We don’t think about it, but there are other terrorists all around us, every day. Their names are so familiar, that the words themselves hardly cause a stir within us. Divorce. Addiction. Sickness. Poverty.

Each of these is destructive to families and societies and can leave a wake of fear, uncertainty, and cycles of further destruction.

• We hear that 40% of marriages will end in divorce.*
• As of December 2005, child pornography was a $3 billion annual industry.*
• There are over 200 million people worldwide who abuse drugs.*
• Approximately half of all deaths caused by infectious diseases each year can be attributed to just three diseases: tuberculosis, malaria, and AIDS. *
• Almost half the world  over three billion people  live on less than $2.50 a day*
• According to UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to poverty.*

When 24,000 children are dying every day simply because they are poor – then the biggest terrorists are apathy and inertia.

Each of us must take a stand. We must work and pray for and with each other – Faith and Action together. If you saw someone plant a bomb in a crowd, wouldn’t you do something?

sources:
www.divorcestatistics.org
www.infoplease.com
www.globalissues.org
www.safefamilies.org
World Health Organization
UNICEF

Of course, Sara and the staff at TOUCH love and care for the children no matter what their background or beliefs. They continued to serve faithfully and to pray that God would show them how to reach the children. It became clear that the children were hardened because of the conditions of their lives, the trauma they have endured, and the sins committed against them.

Like the prophets in the Bible, Sara decided to spend time in prayer repenting for those things. The workers at TOUCH, and here at Friends of TOUCH, joined together for this purpose. Over the next few months, we prayed and wept together through over 200 circumstances, events, crimes and sins that scar the lives of children.

Slowly, change began to come. At Christmas, the children of LifeHouse Church in Hagerstown, MD raised enough money to purchase a brand new Bible for every child at TOUCH. Prayer and the Word of God are a powerful and effective combination, and the children began to open their hearts.

I will walk about in freedom,
for I have sought out your precepts.

- Psalm 119:45

As the second school term began just two weeks ago, our secondary school students returned to a government-run boarding school. The headmistress there says she wants more students from TOUCH, because they are so well-behaved. They are leaders in the school, especially in the Bible Club. They live as examples to the other students, and their enthusiasm for the word of God has spread to others.

Sara reports that students who finished with TOUCH and are now living on their own come back to worship at Calvary Temple, where TOUCH classrooms are located. “It’s so good to see them coming to worship God from their own hearts – not thinking they have to maintain a place in the program.” Sara says, “Their relationship with Christ is their own.”

Prayer is a vital part of caring for children. The World Weekend of Prayer for Children at Risk was June 5-6^th this year.  This international prayer movement is facilitated by the VIVA Network, to make people aware of the millions of children who are at risk for poverty, disease, and exploitation, and to pray for them.  Friends of TOUCH hosted one of the prayer events at Lighthouse Worship Center in Gloucester, VA.

Participants prayed for the children of the world in five areas:

• Those who need a family
• Those who suffer violence
• Those who have no educational opportunities
• Those who suffer hunger and poverty
• Those who have been affected by loss and death

So many of you have called or written to tell us how you pray for the children. Please know that your prayers are powerful and effective. We are watching expectantly to see what God will do in their lives, here in the second half of 2010.

See the June-July Newsletter - June-July Newsletter (31)

Beth writes, “A reckless faith believes when there is no evidence and hurls itself at what is unseen but promised. For the children I serve, and for many of us, it is far more reckless to believe God created us with a plan in mind than it is to just try something new. It is downright wild to trust someone with your heart and believe they will love you regardless.” Yet God does this very thing to every child on earth.

I highly recommend you read this book. It will inspire you to have more faith. You will believe as Beth does that it is okay to throw yourself into reckless abandonment to God and His will for your life. You will be awed and brought to tears as she tells you story after story of the children under her care and the miracles God has performed in their lives.

Did you know that when you shop at Amazon.com
from our site, a portion of the sale goes to Friends of TOUCH?

THANK YOU to everyone who prayed with us! See the update in our newsletter: June-July Newsletter (31)

June 5, from 9 a.m. to noon
Lighthouse Worship Center
4299 George Washington Mem. Hwy.
Hayes, VA 23072

Promotional Materials
Day of Prayer Bulletin Insert (color) (38)
Day of Prayer Bulletin Insert (black & white) (32)

The system below is one of the improved water access points in Kitintale:

As if worry over food and shelter wasn’t enough. As if the trauma of all they have seen and experienced in this week was not enough. Children in Haiti face a danger that is only rarely spoken of.

Even before the earthquake, poverty provided opportunity for evil men to steal children and traffic them for labor or sex. Human trafficking is always a very real and present danger to children in poverty all over the world. Now, with all of society’s safeguards in chaos and aid workers overwhelmed by the immediate life-and-death needs, Haitian children are in dire need of protection from human traffickers who will target them because of the desperate situation. The Atlantic published a story this week about how human traffickers respond immediately to the opportunity natural disasters provide.

Friends of TOUCH does not have a presence in Haiti, but we are asking you to pray specifically for protection for Haiti’s children during this critical time. We also encourage you to give as you see fit to organizations at work there. The Christian Alliance for Orphans has a list of member organizations that you can trust working in Haiti.

Our God is able to sustain the children and to protect them. We are praying that workers in Haiti will be able to provide protection from traffickers. We are asking for safeguards to prevent people from simply walking into a field hospital and pretending to be a relative. We are praying for God’s hand to defeat the schemes of the wicked, and for the children’s protection and deliverance from them.

Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked;
protect me from men of violence
who plan to trip my feet. (Psalm 140:4)