Childcare Worldwide

After church today, I felt like I needed to come home and write about Childcare Worldwide. They are the mission group that brought the Orphans Choir here last October. Jamil, the chaperone who stayed with us along with the three other boys, one of which was Allan, is employed by Childcare Worldwide. I have during the last week been in contact with their headquarters in Washington state and have spoken several times to the woman who runs the Orphans Choir. To be honest, we never contacted them about trying to get guardianship of Allan. Jamil assured us that he knew how to do that and we felt as though we could trust him. Once we started to suspect that some of what was going on was not accurate, I called them and Amanda was so sympathetic and helpful.

They are launching an investigation and there will be significant consequences for Jamil. They will in a timely fashion, terminate his employment and we're hoping make it impossible for him to enter the states again. Right now they are securing all the information they need from us, speaking with the Embassy in Kampala and making sure that no harm comes to their work in Uganda.

Allan has been in boarding school this whole time and has absolutely no idea that any of this has been going on. Amanda has checked with the supervisor over there and there is no way that Jamil could even have access to him. We are so happy about that. Happy that this entire time, he's been receiving an education and he's not been waiting to get on that plane! As much as it breaks our hearts, it makes it easier knowing that he's not been walking this journey with us. His precious spirit is healthy and well.

Amanda will be traveling to Uganda this month and has promised to keep us informed of every detail related to the situation. God is good, even in the midst of hard times. This whole experience has been a learning situation for our entire family. We're not done learning and that will undoubtedly take years. To realize that you've been lied to and deceived is a very hard pill to swallow, but both Mark and I are thankful that we felt confident in our prayerful decision making process to at least have attempted what we did. Our God is a faithful God and sometimes, we just don't see what he's trying to show us, and sometimes we do see it and just don't want to; so we ignore it. I'm not sure yet, how we could have done things differently, but we're relying on God to make our hearts teachable.

I do however want to make it abundantly clear that Childcare Worldwide had absolutely nothing to do with Jamil's actions. They are a very reputable organization that facilitates vibrant ministry all over the world. If you've sponsored a child through their organization or are considering doing so in the future, take that mission on with confidence that your money is going where it's supposed to. We have sponsored three children through another organization for several years and it's been such an enjoyable process for our whole family.