Holiday Giving: the Kibuye Feeding Program

(from Eric)

As we wrap up our time in the United States, several people have asked us about special needs for Kibuye during the holiday season.  Though you can give to many projects and missionaries that can be perused at serge.org (all of which are tax-deductible and will be used to a worthy cause), we'd like to highlight the Kibuye Feeding Program.

Burundi is arguably the hungriest country in the world per the Global Hunger Index.  They didn't have data to include Burundi in this year's ranking (though they have recently topped it), but they still note Burundi as the country with the highest rate of kids who don't reach the full height potential due to nutritional "stunting".  We learned early on that malnourished patients don't heal, and thus, in 2015, Kibuye became the 2nd hospital in Burundi to feed their patients, a move which, thanks to dedicated staff and generous donations, transformed our ability to bring health to our population.

Also included in the Feeding Program is a twice-weekly Busoma (the multigrain nutritional porridge manufactured on the hospital campus) distribution program for identified malnourished children in our community.

These programs combined cost about $6500 per month, which purchases about 20,000 patient meals and supports the nutrition of about 250 children and their families at home.  So, please pray for provision for this program and consider giving to it.

You can easily turn this gift into an alternative Christmas present by dedicating a gift to someone.  Here are a couple ways to put the numbers together:

• $8 feeds a hospitalized patient for a month
• $10 feeds a malnourished child in the community for a month
• $56 feeds the pediatric ward (and their moms) for a day (during the busy season)
• $135 feeds all the hospitalized patients and their caregivers for a day
• $312 feeds all the malnourished children with Busoma on a given day who come to the twice-weekly program
• $1700 feeds the pediatric ward (and their moms) for a month
• Be Creative and mix these numbers as you will!

Burundi Feeding Programs three logos: Serge/Hospital/Friends from Radio Friendly on Vimeo.