A couple stories from my trip

From Jaako's blog:

Name: Jaako Polkki
Location: Thunder Bay, Ontario, CA
I'm 9 years old. I want to help the children in Malawi. I pay alot of attention to poverty and I want to help them.

Poverty

Hey Guys,The poverty here is incredible, the need here is big. If you have a bike here, you are considered rich. I've bought 5 bikes so far and given 2 of them away already. All of the kids clothes have holes in them and some don't wear clothes and their shoes are not good at all. Not many kids even have shoe's. The have many cuts from falling down. And there are alot of disease here. It's hard to believe. Bye for now. Jaako



Hi everybody, this is Sue, Jaako's mom now. Jaako says it great when he says it is hard to believe. The need here is bigger than I ever imagined. We went to a small market place and handed out some candies and Bags of Hope to the children there and they were just amazed. At 2 other markets we started handing out gum and sweets and we were literally mobbed by the children. We were pushed back against the vehicles by the kids trying to grab the bag and crying Madam or Boy Please!!! Give me some!! It was horrific. All for candy. Every where we go we are asked for money. By all ages, not just the children. The market places are the worst. You try to buy from every one just so they can have a next meal!! I'm coming home with lots of African carvings and bowls!!!! But they all beg you to buy, some have not eaten that day and need a sale. Some of course use that to make the sale. You kind of get to know who is being sincere or not. The Malawians can't lie. If they are smiling big - they are not telling you the truth!!! Please pray for us as we try to help people. The need is so great and our funds are sooooo small in comparison - we hate being the ones to decide who gets and who doesn't. Sometimes God tells ones of us very strongly to buy something so we do. We bought 57 shoes for a small village because they were mostly bare footed there!!! Thanks for your prayers and support and can't wait to come home and share with all of you our pictures and stories. God Bless you!!!! Love, Sue


Thoughts about Malawi

Today we were at Starbucks and we bought a couple snacks and a coffee and a hot chocolate and we were joking around that the hot chocolate cost so much money and it only costs $1.35. So then when we started to think about it more we could have sent two children to school in Malawi and like just think about it, your coffee everyday can send a child to school. Just one little coffee, approximately a dollar can send a child to school and still have $.35 left. And $.65 can just buy a note book and a pencil and their salaries are only about $1.oo a day so they don't have the money to do that. To spend all their money that they get in one day to send their child to school so they just don't educate them. Just a few thoughts to think about. Thank-you very much for supporting me and my trip.Thank-you, Jaako.

Hi, Today I'm gonna talk about some cute little stories about things I saw in Malawi. One time this little boy was looking at us confused because we were white and we were just looking at him and all of a sudden we saw a yellow liquid coming out of his pants. And if you are wondering about what I am talking about, I'm talking about the boy peed. That happened alot to us where we saw little boys pee their pants and all these different kids would walk through it and sit in it and not even care. There were a couple of times where kids would look at us for about 5 minutes and all of a sudden would start crying if we came to them. All the younger kids were really scared that we were white. It made us sad that they felt so scared.I'm really missing being in Malawi. I can't wait until next time and I will write to you again next week. Jaako

Malawi

Hey Guys, Did you know that Malawi is the 2nd poorest country in Africa and 7th in the world? Did you know that in Sub-saharan Africa a child dies every 3 seconds? And Malawi is right in Sub-saharan Africa. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have HIV/Aids it's not very pleasant. Did you know that almost every child has lost one or both of there parents? They usually live with there grandparents if they have any. Not very many adults make it past the age of 37 or 38. And 43% of the children don't make it to the age of 5. That's why I really want to help these children. And I really want to help them with what they need. And just buy them what they want and just bless that country. They have such severe pain. I'm just so excited to go and help them. We are so lucky to live in Canada where there is medicine to help with all these diseases.Bye for now. Jaako