When the pandemic shut-down created additional challenges to find enough food to supply the orphanage at Cu Chi in southern Vietnam, Conscience International’s local teams found a unique way to make it happen. They went to a rice granary which had just harvested the field and asked if they could buy rice directly from them. On hearing it was for an orphanage, the granary agreed but it still had to be dried, ground, packed and delivered.
The orphanage staff and teenagers who lived there went to work. They dried the rice in the sun, ground it from its shell, and packed it up with the boys handling the heavy lifting. Then they went to the vegetable, fish, and meat dealers who, because of the pandemic shut-downs, were unable to sell their products to large buyers. They not only sold what was needed to the orphanage but helped in the processing.
On Sunday the team prepared free meals not only for the orphanage but for the villagers as well. Care teams visited every house of the poor and gave away relief packages along with words of encouragement to raise hopes. News of the generosity soon spread and others came to receive free gifts of food—some had lost jobs, others had closed their stores, young people had left home, drifting from place to place trying to live. More than 50 packs a week were distributed to more than 200 families in the village with another 100 packs supplying the needs of the orphanage.
During the process, twelve new children were welcomed to the orphanage –most children of single mothers, with no birth certificates, no education, or coming from homes of grandparents who are too old to care for them. They had to be taught how to eat the food provided, practice communication skills, and get involved in daily activities. Their teeth needed major repair and Doctor Lien went to work on that. School uniforms, books, and tuition fees had to be found.
When some staff members who had returned to their homes in the mountains could not return to the orphanage due to the lock-down, old clothes, school supplies, snacks and candies for the children were sent for distribution to the mountain kids. And there were new births--- two female pigs gave birth to two swarms of crowded piglets—another blessing!
And then the floods came.
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