International Orphans and Vulnerable Children Fund

Gerald* and Eunice* serve the Lord as home missionaries and church planters among their people group in East Africa.

As they shared their lives with their church and community, God laid on their hearts a burden for three orphaned children without other family to raise them.

The struggle was how to provide for these foster children in addition to their own.

But that’s where your generosity stepped in! Your gifts to this ministry helped purchase two bulls for Gerald and Eunice’s family. These bulls help the family plow and harvest their fields.

Now, in addition to their church planting, Gerald and Eunice can provide for the family God called them to raise.

By providing these bulls to the family, you enabled them to pay for school fees, supplies, and uniforms so all the children could attend school, and you ensured the family could continue providing education for the children in the future!

In 2024, your gifts assisted 87 orphaned and vulnerable children, as families—some relate, some not—obediently followed God’s call to care for them.

Some of your gifts meet immediate needs, such as food, medical care, and school-related expenses. Other gifts, like the bulls for Gerald and Eunice, invest in long-term solutions, so families can continue caring for children as they grow.

Your generosity enables local churches and long-term workers to walk alongside these families, restoring, strengthening, and equipping them to reflect God’s design.

Philippians 2:4 reminds us, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” We are grateful for your gifts, prayers, and encouragement as we partner to care for orphans and vulnerable children and families in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Please continue joining us in prayer:

• Praise God for the obedience of Gerald and Eunice. Pray for their church planting ministry to thrive as they raise their extended family.
• Ask the Lord to direct every investment in a vulnerable family, so these children thrive and feel loved by their Heavenly Father and others around them.
• Pray that we can effectively equip local churches to walk alongside and encourage these families of orphaned and vulnerable children, to ensure each has a safe and loving family and home.

Thank you for your “partnership in the gospel” as we, together, share the love of Christ with children and families here in Sub-Saharan Africa.

*Names changed

The AIDS Orphan Help Fund has helped thousands of children across Sub-Saharan Africa since 2012 through your generous giving. During the last eleven years, we have raised $134,377 to help the most vulnerable members of society gain stability, education, food, clothing, shelter, and, most importantly, the love of their Heavenly Father. Your faithfulness and obedience to give as God directed your heart have made an irreplaceable impact in the lives of these African children. Thank you! Your prayers and gifts make a significant difference.

Opportunities Abound. Being an orphan in Africa is hard. Whether in a child-headed household (where older children look after younger ones) or being cared for by a destitute single mother, an elderly relative or neighbor, or a local pastor’s family, orphans are the least likely of all African children to attend school, eat sufficiently, or access medical care. Local resources are spread too thin to take extra children into account.

Orphans fall into two categories in Africa: an orphan is a “single” orphan (one parent is absent, most often the bread-winning father) or a “double” orphan (both parents are absent). Your generosity provides resources for these under-served children, enabling them to be cared for in a home with family or friends without burdening the family with their care. Your partnership has even provided cows for milk and chickens for eggs, helping the family generate income to pay the extra expenses!

Your gift helped Sarah*. In Uganda, one child, Sarah*, excelled in school last year. She would not be able to attend school without help from the Orphans Help Fund. The lady caring for her and other orphans is an elderly, never-married woman with no children who helps village children at risk. This lady works as a maid to care for other people’s children.  She teaches them the Bible and struggles to feed, clothe and educate them. She is such a loving example of God’s grace.  This fund helps her to support kids like Sarah*, in Uganda today!

Please join us in prayer:

• Pray for protection for orphaned children in Africa, as they are often exploited.
• Pray for churches in Africa to realize how strategic orphan care is to the future of the Church and the nations of Africa!
• Pray these precious children would know they have not been forgotten by our heavenly Father, and pray that they will choose to be adopted into His family eternally.

Thank you for your generosity and prayers. Because the specter of AIDS no longer looms menacingly over the continent, we are shifting our focus to assist orphans and children whose lives are torn apart by war, famine, violence, disease, and family issues that currently tear apart families across Africa. To undertake this ministry for the next three years, we set a new goal of $130,000. Please prayerfully consider making a gift to our ministry, renamed the Sub-Sahara Africa Orphans Help Fund.

Because of your faithful gifts, this fund had been meeting the physical and spiritual needs of AIDS orphans for more than 20 years. The demand is great because there are so many in desperate need all over the African continent.

COVID Response
The COVID pandemic has put huge limitations on personnel, ministry partners, and societal systems in general here in Africa. As our long-term workers get back to their fields of service now that COVID restrictions are lifting, we anticipate many upcoming requests to use the AIDS Orphans Help Fund. We have increased our goal to $300,000 to meet this growing need.

We praise the Lord for your generosity in meeting the needs of orphans across Sub-Saharan Africa.