Dear sponsor and dear reader,
How are you, your family and friends doing in Belgium? I hope that each one of you is doing well throughout this corona time. Myself, I am doing very well despite the current situation and I am happy to say that God has protected me from the outbreak of Covid 19, through and until today. It has not affected me and I am still alive and in good health. The only problem it caused were the fights between my parents that took away the peace at home. When Covid started my father stopped working, he worked as a cook in a school that is now closed. My mother sells matooke and went outside the district to look for it. All kinds of misunderstandings and situations caused their relationship to be affected, and to this day my father and mother are unable to bring their relationship back to the way it was. They got married in 2019, and I pray that they may be united again and also that they may come to know Him, I hope it will be so. Covid has also brought more hunger to our country and I am so thankful that even though it was not always easy and without danger, they did not let us down and brought everything we needed, beyond my expectations!
Not long ago my mother got sick with malaria and was bedridden for 3 days but even after that she was too weak to start selling matooke again. She is the only one trying to work and provide the income for the family, so what would happen to us if we had no help from Koinonia ministries. I hope and pray that she gets better again soon.
What I like is drumming and singing gospel songs with my friends. I also like to read books. I love school but because of Covid, I had to finish my whole last year at home. I was really bored and started reading more books, but the desire to go to school remains. The school is open for some candidate students but not for everyone. I hope they will open this year and I can go back. It is not easy for me because I am getting older and wasting a lot of time now because of the Covid situation. Meanwhile I am 19 and only in the 3rd high school, without Covid I would be in the 4th high school.
I had many friends but dropped some because many of them were not okay and had a bad influence on me, they took me down bad roads, especially last year. I have a lot less ‘friends’ now but the right ones.
My future plans are: I want to study and become a civil engineer, but also an international Gospel singer. In the beginning I actually wanted to become a judge but I changed my mind. My major setback in this long Covid ‘vacation’ period was that I deteriorated spiritually, as I mentioned, the bad friends had misled me and I was in bad shape spiritually. My faith got me back on top and now I go to a nearby church in our village and get to play drums and sing, a lot has changed for and about me and I thank God for that.
What I hope now is: that I can go to school soon to finish my studies, that Covid will stop and we will be able to interact again in a normal way. I have hope that things will go well for me, and that I will be able to build a house for my family. My parents had a small house of their own but because of the heavy loans they had, the house was taken away from them. So now they have to pay house rent which is not easy, now that my father is not working anymore and it is hard for my mother to bear this alone. This is another reason why I want to graduate and find a good job with which I can help my parents, and build a house for them so they can have a better life. I hope that my parents’ relationship will be restored, because it has a big impact on the children who are at home, it is hard to find stability when your parents don’t live that together.
I hope that later I can also help children who are in the same situation that I was in when I was living on the streets.
My big worry is that my parents will leave me alone because of the conflict situation they have between them and I would relapse back to my old life. But then I think of today and where I came from, God and the good friends I have now. Drumming and singing in church with friends makes me so happy and I see my dreams slowly coming true.
When I think of my life before and today, I see a big change and I thank God for those who, through the project of Koinonia, have helped me to become the person I am today. Greetings to everyone but especially to my sponsor, I love you dear sponsor and pray for you and hope you pray for me too. I bless you with protection, peace and joy.
To you I am your beloved son, to the others,
Joseph.
