Children Assistance Friendship Foundation
Paynesville, Liberia
by James Burnette, executive director,
Chris & Deb Hindal Foundation Academy
The Children Assistance Friendship Foundation was started four years ago (in 2004) to help children who lost their parents during the civil war in Liberia, West Africa. A civil war is a war between people in the same country. Many adults died during the war, and their children became orphans.
The Children Assistance Friendship Foundation has an orphanage and a school near a large city in Liberia. About forty children stay there, and over eighty other children live with Christian families. The foundation cares about the orphans’ spiritual needs (salvation and being like Jesus) and physical needs (food, water, home, rest, clothes).
Anito’s Story
Psalm 68:5 says that God is the Father of children who don’t have a father. In Liberia, a little girl named Anito (a-KNEE-toe) was only two months old when her father died. When he became sick, he went to a medical clinic to get help. But medical clinics in Liberia don’t have lots of wonderful machines, medicines, doctors, and nurses like clinics and hospitals have in other countries. Anito’s father did not get well.
Anito’s mother was too poor to take care of her baby, so she put Anito in a box and hid her in the jungle. Someone found Anito. The foundation found a new mother for her, one who knows and loves Jesus. When Anito is older, the foundation will help her attend school. It costs only $1 a day to give Anito the food and care she needs. It costs about $30 a month to take care of Anito, and about $400 a year. The people of Liberia are poor because of the war. So they need help from other Christians to help take care of orphans like Anito.