The Problem Now Has A Face

Yesterday was somewhat of a jolting reminder of conditions overseas.  We have heard about child trafficking.  We have been horrified and grieved, of course. But until yesterday,child slavery never had a face. Today, it does. We know this child.

This update is from John's blog....

I was talking to Emma a few hours ago. She had spent the day with Sergey and Anya today. They were traveling around checking up on the different projects that we are involved with . One of the stops brought them to a small village where we help with a young boy we knew from one of the orphanages. The orphanage closed, so he went to live with his Grandmother.

Today when they stopped in to see him. he was not there .. they did some asking around and found out some terrible news.. From what we can gather, the Grandmother had a stroke, and our young friend went to live with relatives that were drinkers... They decided to sell him to a family that took him to Kazakhstan to work for them.. He was sold for 100 som..thats about $2.25 . What do you do with that ?

We are now trying to get any information we can about where he was taken and any information we might be able to use to find him, but there is not a good history with cooperation from the Kazakh government, and this is a common thing. As soon as we can find any thing, we will figure out what to do next, but we can't just leave him there...

This inhumane tragedy has a face of a 11 year old boy, who before all of this happened, suffered from pretty serious tramua-related events.  We saw it in his drawings and his behavior.  We can only wonder now what more is happening to him. 

JUST IN.....visit the Wright blog for an update    http://www.actofkindness.blogspot.com/

Our Working Students from Kyrgyzstan

It is hard to believe that we have been home a month already. Time goes so quickly and we haven't posted. During this month, our young Kyrgz students have been getting acclimated to America, meeting many new people and working hard at their jobs. We are so proud of them on how they have adjusted and how they approach their jobs - with a very strong work ethic.

I stopped in their work places last Friday just to check on them....thought the pictures would be fun to see.

 Aikhan, one of our university students (on the right), is doing "great" according to her boss, Cary, in the center. We feel so bless to have him work with her as he has had much experience working with international students.

 Thought she looked quite official in her uniform. Aikhan loves her job and now reports she is very fast at sandwich making.

Zhenya, on the right, is learning some things about make-up from Bethany Koch at the salon where she is working.   She is also working for the Wientge family on their car lot and loves that too.

This weekend, David and I are heading to Canada for a planning meeting with our team.  Just today, we learned of two tragic events involving orphanage children we love and care for.  If appropriate, we will share more as we learn details.

We are currently planning to return to Kyrgyzstan in late August for a targeted training trip and university work.  Although we are here, we miss there and when we are with our young students,we realize how very much we love the people of that country.

Our journey continues