Three years ago we began to distribute mosquito nets to Chapita Village. The people of the village greatly appreciate the work being done not only to improve the nutrition and health of the children, but by the latest gifts of treated mosquito nets during 2010. The first ones were distributed in January and February, during the rainy season of the year when malaria is prevalent.  The remainder of the distribution of 200 nets occurred in August.

Children receiving mosquito nets

        Special thanks goes to United Church of God youth in Portland, Oregon for their cherry picking fundraiser that provided $2000 towards this project.  Thanks! 

Dr. Sam Chilopora and his wife Esther established the LifeNets Orphan Care Centre in 2004 and have been helping hundreds and hundreds of orphans. 

See more stories at

• www.lifenets.org/balakaorphans
• www.lifenets.org/malawi 

        So far in 2010 we have had 34 matches and I would expect to have between 45 and 50 matches by the end of year based on current donation and request projections. 

Michael Kubik with newly donated wheelchairs

Matches came slowly in the first half of the year mostly due to the lack of donations, that has not been the case the last three months.  We had 14 donations in August, 15 in September, and 6 in October.  We have had the same amount of donations in the past three months as we had in the first seven months of the year. With the increase in donations, we expect to end with two very strong months.
 

While the numbers are not the same as 2009, we have received many heart warming emails thanking us for our service.

Here are several:

From a wheelchair recipient: 
Mike, I was able to pickup the chair with my daughter on Saturday afternoon. We took the wrong turn off in downtown Chicago, and it was pretty hairy for awhile, but with the GPS that my daughter had we were able to turn ourselves around and get to Glenview, and get the chair. Tom's father-in-law died on Friday so it was sad. The chair will be greatly used believe you me. I am calling the doctors  this morning for my needed surgeries. I appreciate everything that your organization does for people like myself. May God bless you.

                                                                                                            - Patti

From a donor:
Thank you for listing the chairs on your site.  I live in Burleson Texas and a lady from Denison called me yesterday regarding her paraplegic sister.  (the man from Arlington never called me)  The lady wants the chair and she and her husband were willing to buy a new battery if needed.  The girls current chair arms are being held together by rubber bands.  Thank you for connecting me with someone in need, your site is wonderful.   

       In the worst natural disaster to hit the Western Hemisphere, the Haiti earthquake of January 12, 2010 killed about 230,000, injured 300,000 and left more than 1,000,000 homeless.

        Whenever a disaster involving such losses strikes LifeNets is asked, "what are you doing to to help?" 

         LifeNets' primary mission is not disaster relief because we're not equipped to do such. We have, however, helped directly in the 911, Tsunami, and Katrina where we could knew of specific victims that we could help. Usually we direct donors to relief agencies such as Red Cross and the Salvation Army who help in that way. LifeNets mission is to help people get back on their feet and our policy is to help directly, not through another agency. 

         We did receive a few donations restricted for Haiti and decided to enquire if there was some way we could help directly. Haiti is a French-speaking area and there was no one we knew of personally who had suffered loss. There was no one in my United Church of God. 

        I turned to acquaintances in the Church of God (Seventh Day) and through my friend William Hicks, Director of Missions and the Disaster Relief Fund was able find out from how what they were doing.  In 2005 the Church of God (Seventh Day) helped LifeNets with a donation of more than $12,000 to rebuild in Sri Lanka after Tsunami.  See report.  He told me about a number of projects, one which was a rebuilding a school/church.  We told him that we would like to pass on our donation of $1000 for that.  He sent me an architectural drawing of the structure that they are wanting to build/rebuild.  You can read more about this story on our Website at http://lifenets.org/lnmisc/haiti2010/haiti10.htm  Below is a facade of the structure they are rebuilding.

        At our last meeting items of business included discussion of budget for year 2011. Our revenue has been very steady and we are proceeding confidently for the coming year. 

LifeNets Board of Directors

       Our largest single outlay for 2011 will be the construction costs of JohJan LifeNets School in Migori, Kenya.  That will be followed by our Developing Nations Scholarship Fund which has now grown to finance the scholarships of about 50 students around the world. 

        We really appreciate the support of our board of directors. In the photo from left:

Board members Don Turgeon, Cathy McClure, Beverly Kubik, chairman Tom Peine and secretary Sharon Swanson.  Other board members are Victor Kubik, Mark Rorem in San Francisco and Dr. John Wagner in Washington D.C.