African Albino children need love, acceptance

Following the nationwide television special on the tragedies being faced by albino children in Tanzania, our organization, Every Child Ministries, has received many inquiries about our work with albino children in Africa. Praise God, we have also gained child sponsorships to enable several albino children to go to school!

As I think about the experience of Every Child Ministries in serving albino children, I realize that the first things albino children need are love and acceptance. They need to know that although they may look different than other children around them, they are valuable human beings like everyone else. It is easier for them to understand that God loves them when they know that others love them, too. Our gifts of sunglasses and sunscreen to protec their sensitive eyes and skin are just tokens to show them our love and acceptance by offering them something truly helpful to them.

The first two steps of our program for albino children are well underway. We have developed teaching for the children, their parents, their friends, and their schools, and begun distributing it by email. We've begun making contacts with albino children and their families and distributing the sunglasses and sunscreen. Our next step will be to place some media pieces to help move the public perception of albino children in a more positive direction. We realize that people's perceptions change slowly, so please pray for this effort!

Encouraged by one albino child

Our mission agency, Every Child Ministries, is in the midst of starting a new project to help albino children in Africa. The project is still in the preparation stages, but I was really encouraged that we have already helped one. A worker with another NGO (non-governmental organization) in Africa saw our ad asking for sunglasses to help the children because their eyes are super-sensitive to light. She had observed an albino child in one of their programs who always went around with his head down, but she didn't have a guess as to why he did this. When she read our ad about albino children, she immediately recognized his problem. Soon, he will have sunglasses to allow him to raise his head, and will come to our party for albino children. It will be his first chance to know that there are other children in the world who look like him.



Since this worker wrote, I've thought often of this child, and the whole scenario has been a special encouragement to me. I'm not sure why this one is so meaningful. ECM has helped hundreds of thousands of children, and I've listened to some of the worst horror stories possible and hugged some pretty undesirable looking kids. I've seen so much abysmal poverty and misery I can't even begin to describe it. Several times in my work I feel I have lifted the lid off of Hell itself and peered in to its awful pit. But I was encouraged by this one child. Maybe it's because he was a "bonus". We hadn't begun the program yet, but already the preparations had helped a child. I thought a lot about what it would be like to have a condition that no one understood--not even aid workers who were trying to help. That child must have felt pretty much alone. I pray that our explanation of his condition and our simple suggestions for helping him will REALLY help him to feel God's love. Thank you, Lord, for these little tokens of Your care for EVERY CHILD.



Learn more about albinism or albino children on our website at www.ecmafrica.org/albino.