Children Concerned News
July 2008 mission trip
Posted 6/23/2008
Hello,
July 3rd will bring Children Concerned back to Liberia, one year since our last time on country. Our mission is similar to last, as we will be going into villages and doing home construction. This year we will be working in Jacobs Town, the area of Our House. We will be working with the boys in furthering their hands on training skills, as we work together to transform the poor shacks and huts into livable homes for families. We will be meeting up with local missionaries to work in prison and street ministry, and will visit several orphanage homes caring for the needs of the children through construction and repairs to the home, and also simply spending time with the children and being a friend and companion to those who may have never experienced a mothers or fathers love.
We will be taking new schooling materials to the boys of Our House, as many of them are progressing in their studies and ready for advancing. We plan on assessing the needs and condition of the home and improving as we can with Director Bestman and the Children Concerned board in Liberia. The boys are doing well and are in good health after recent sickness from the turn of season from dry to rainy, and they have all just been to the doctors for malaria vaccinations and check-ups.
Please keep us in prayer for our safety and ability in our goals, and for Our House and all the boys, for their continual learning and growing. If you have a letter or small package for one of the boys, please send to:
Children Concerned
(boys name)
11973 Stage Rd
Akron NY 14001
Thank you,
Jack @
Children Concerned
Building homes half a world away
Posted 5/15/2008
This is an article that was published in the Tonawanda News, in North Tonawanda, N.Y.
Q&A: Building homes half a world away
By Dave Hill/hilld@gnnewspaper.com
The Tonawanda News
The plight of children in Liberia, Africa, may be lost on many people, but a small group of students at Tonawanda High School is well aware of the effects years of civil war have had on African children. These students have banded together to raise money for Children Concerned, a not-for-profit organization started by the Zackey family in Akron. Tom and Candy Zackey have nine birth children, plus nine they adopted from Africa. The Zackeys organize several trips to Liberia each year to build homes for orphans and families who have been torn apart.
Tonawanda senior Joshua Choate is one member of the group of Tonawanda students assisting Children Concerned in this cause. He joined LIBERIA — which stands for "Look Inside and Believe that Everyone can take Refuge In an African home" — through his girlfriend, Elisa Lorenz, who helped form it.
"The civil wars in Liberia have caused great distress among these people and (they) could use all the help they can possibly get," Choate wrote in a letter to the Tonawanda News. "That's why we are reaching out our hand to make a difference in this devastated place."
Presently, there are about eight students involved in LIBERIA, with more taking an interest. Choate spoke about the LIBERIA group on Sunday by phone from Rochester, where he was cheering on wrestling teammate Kyle McGregor at the state meet.
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Q: What was the impetus for forming LIBERIA?
A: Through church at St. Francis of Assisi, we go every year to the Harvest House in Buffalo for a confirmation retreat. The Children Concerned — they travel to Liberia at least three times a year — came in and talked to us and they shared their life story.
They came in to talk to us about the things that are happening over there. It touched us, and that's what really got us interested, and we've been talking to kids from Liberia. We've been sending letters and they've been responding. One kid sent me a necklace and a poster. It's very different talking to them and hearing their life stories, too. Just being pen pals with these kids, we wanted to help in any way we could.
•••
Q: That has to be quite eye-opening for you guys to hear what these kids are going through.
A: It is. It kind of scares us in a way and that's why we wanted to help them in building houses and keeping their families together.
•••
Q: How is LIBERIA helping?
A: When we talk to the next confirmation group at Harvest House, we actually plan on going there and presenting Children Concerned with a check to help them build houses. They've already built an orphanage and they have gotten plenty of kids adopted, but we're building houses for families for the kids who are too old to stay in the orphanages.
•••
Q: Is this going to be an ongoing fundraiser?
A: As of right now, yes. We're trying to really get bigger so we can turn it into more of an organization than just a fundraising group type of deal.
•••
Q: How can people in the community assist this cause?
A: They could help us out with the numerous fundraisers we do. We do bake sales (after each Mass April 20 and May 18 at St. Francis of Assisi), and we have a big dance coming up on April 26 from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Boys & Girls Club, and that's going to be open to any high school student. That's going to be our biggest (fundraiser) of the year so far. It's going to be $5 a kid or $7 a couple, and the dance's theme is a 'Sadie Hawkins,' which means that the girls ask the guys to go. And, of course, we're always looking for donations, too. We actually just reached our $1,000 goal this weekend at a bake sale at St. Francis of Assisi. So we're able to build a house now with that thousand dollars.
Contact reporter David J. Hill at 693-1000, ext. 115.
Children Concerned Rebuilding Liberia July 2007
Posted 12/14/2007
We have just completed the new video detailing the work we have begun with our boys at OUR HOUSE showing how we have taken the boys into their community and taught them how to rebuild a village home. The video also shows setting up OUR HOUSE when we just took possession of the property. It is a lovely, large house and the boys and director are so very happy there!
Liberia Mission trip June-July 2007
Posted 8/13/2007
This is a link to a video of our recent trip to Liberia.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2193799831639194815&pr=goog-sl
We were a team of 11 in number. Tom and Jack Zackey and Jack Lui from Buffalo, NY, with a group from Minnisota including Dan Gjerstad and his 11 year old son Ashton, and the DeVowe family, of David and his two sons Michael and Steven. Charlie Schutt from Idaho came and offered his construction expertise in many ways. The mission of our trip had many points; and suprisingly enough, we accomplished most of what we came for. During Toms last trip to Liberia, he met two children walking the beach down by thier guest house. Josephine and Tutu became close to Tom during their stay. He went to their house, a shack made of cardboard, rotten mats and leakng tin, and did what he could by getting some cement for the floor, so they could have a dry place to sleep and some new matting to temporarily keep out the heavy rain of the wet season. This trip, we decided to go in and even if we could only touch one family, we would do what we could to provide this family with a better place. The latter half of this video touches on that accomplishment. (Jack Liu was responsible for the excellent photography and equal excellence in video creating) The work on the house was difficult with the rain; our first 4 days in Liberia we could hardly go outside for the constant downpour, but once we got out and worked through a bit of weather and the sun shone brightly for several days after. We flipped this village house; taking it down in roof sections and wall partitions and then rebuild from footers in the red earth and shiny new tin for a roof. It was beautiful when it was done. The house was the object; but what we accomplished in the meanwhile was what made everything worth it. We gave this family of 9 a new place to stay; they would not stop smiling about it.
For a living, the father broke rock with a hammer for crushed rock, which he sold to a large cement company; if he worked long enough, his family had food for that evening. We made them beds; the children won't sleep on the dirt anymore, and the cockroches, insects, scorpions and lizards that ruled the matted walls of the house can't enter anymore. The older boys, those of Shepherd Village and some of My Fathers House older boys, were hired to work beside us; and we showed them basic construction, on how to use all the tools and what building a house consists of. They knew absolutely nothing before they came, but they left with a little money, a lot of knowledge, and the clean pride of accomplishment and seeing what they can do.
It was so much fun to work with them, and watch as they picked things up. Others on the team worked on the house at times, but took time everyday to talk with the people who had gathered to observe the unique spectacle of the team of Whites from America and local boys all coming together and work on this project. They sat with the children, shared the gospel with adults and teenagers, and quickly gave away the bibles brought with us.
There is a small, humble orphanage home, Amazing Grace, run by Pastor Diggs on 72nd street, tucked away from view. Nearly 70 orphans reside there, living in the country-wide poverty but with a special love from the director and his wife. We were able to meet one of thier needs, as we spent 2 days working on their boys dormatory, a single room with only a 6 foot roof. The bunkbeds were tight to the ceiling, and the roof leaked badly. We pulled the roof off, tagged two layers of block on the existing wall and replaced with a new tin roof. There are many of these small, unknown organizations such as Amazing Grace in corners all over Liberia, of Christian Men and Woman taking care of the homeless children in their own homes or small facilities. One of the hopes of Children Concerned is to help these unsung missionaries in their own homeland, and assist them in building improvement and support in the future.
The other goal of our trip, the legal end, went very well. We were able to officially extend Children Concerned's Non-for-Profit status into Liberia, taking care of that at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Besides being a non-taxable organization, we are also now fully accredited with the Ministry of Lands and Mines to hold land or buildings in the name of Children Concerned. If the Lord opens the way for a larger-scale operation, we are legally prepared. We also looked at a large parcel of land, beautiful property in Bensonville, a semi-rural area not far from Monrovia. If finances are available, we have targeted this land for a training center. We also met with Mrs. Vivian Cherue, Deputy Health Minister of Social Welfare, and the overseer of all orphanges under and second in command to Walter Gwenigale. We are currently following by writing a letter to Minister Gwenigale, seeking his approval. We have the full support of Mrs. Cherue, who is in favor of Children Concerned opening and operating a center of learning, a medical clinic, buildings for housing and all things necessary to house, feed, care for and teach hundreds of disadvantaged children. It would likely be a large center, able to hold many children, especially used as a temporary home for those children who are in the small orphanges throughout Liberia, and be a place to house them as we come in a rebuild their current living place. It would come full circle as we work alongside the young men of Liberia, teaching them a useful trade and building homes and reconstructing these poor orphanges, many of which are in danger of being shut down altogether by the Government for their terrible conditions.
Children Concerned opened a home, a house for 30 boys, most of them from Shepherd Village (which has recently been shut down altogether). We had orientation with the boys and administration and met with the land owner to discuss the finances and possible long-term rent. We left Liberia feeling very comfortable with the situation. The home is being directed by Pastor Bestman Todawiah, and he and his wife, Justina, and 2 sons will be the live-in administration. It is a very large, clean house with 7 bedrooms, 4 bathroom, and 4 fenced in acres of land, perfect for growing casavva, corn or other greens to help cut the cost of monthly food. We hope to work with these boys, teaching them academically, raising them in a godly enviroment and caring for their physical needs, and teach them the trade of construction, to work and better their country. We purchased all the needed items to get the home functional, including mattresses for 30, dishes, cookware, water containers for showering/bathroom, fixed some holes in the roof and roofed the outdoor generator room.
We met many people in government positions, and on our next trip, which may take place in September or October, have an opportunity to speak with Madame President on our venture. Please contine to pray for Children Concerned and the future of Liberia.
Jack @
Children Concerned