January Newsletter- Happy 2022!
We Celebrate HOPE!
Honor a woman in your life
(mother, sister, wife, daughter or friend)
with the gift of dignity for a young woman in Kenya.
Donors Made a Difference- We raised $2,500 dollars in 2021,
we need to raise $1,000 more in 2022 (thus helping 40 more girls!)

For a one-time donation of $25.00 young women receive sanitary supplies for an entire year, along with 2 pairs of underwear. Exploited and endangered, consequences include increased pregnancy and HIV infection as girls seek money whatever way they can to meet the basic need for sanitary supplies.

Social worker Glorie Gitonga says, "With great joy we extend our sincere appreciation to all who supported the poor school-going girls in our HIV & AIDS program. Below are images taken recently during the sanitary supplies distribution."
Our Pigs for Pastors Program in Rwanda Successful!!

Imagine being a pastor in Rwanda but your income is so low, especially during COVID-19, that you cannot buy $8 a year per person health insurance to protect your family from illness. Thanks to Center donors in 2021 the "Pigs for Pastors" program was successfully completed with 65 pigs distributed. Income earned will provide families of typically 5 persons to get needed income for insurance, food, and school fees/supplies.

Rev. Marc Baliyanga recently wrote saying, 

"We thank God for keeping all of us alive during this time of the pandemic. . . Three of the first 19 pigs have already reproduced. We are very, very grateful . . . the Pigs Project is creating hope in the life of our pastors. We regularly pray for you." 

Thank you for giving to this program.
Ronny Muriira (above) and
Susan Wakeli (below)
Graduation Celebrations for Ronny Muriira and Susan Wakeli!

Two of the thirty post-secondary AIDS orphans being funded through the Center for Health and Hope graduated in December. Students are studying in Kenya, Rwanda, and India.

Susan Wakeli finished a four-year business/economics course with honors. Her scholarship funds had been supported by long-time Center donors. Each year, the donors gave money to the Center at Christmas in honor of their five grandchildren.  

Ronny Muriira completed a degree in education at Chuka University thanks to funding from donors to the Ann Fort Kenya Fund. He had started college without Center support and was forced to stop since he could not pay the fees.  

Funding a post-secondary scholarship that includes tuition, room & board, fees, and books usually costs about $4,000 and covers all four years!  Maybe you (or your church) will want to consider making such an investment in a young person's life! Let us know, by contacting Don Messer at globalaids@gmail.com or 303 877 1955.
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Generosity of Park Hill Members Highlights Christmas
Incredible generosity by Park Hill United Methodists in Denver highlighted the 2021 Christmas season! In addition to regular vital church support, mission-minded members contributed over $15,000 to various programs managed through the Center for Health and Hope.

Thanks to the dynamic and visionary leadership of Pastors Nathan Adams & Laura Rainwater, among the projects sponsored by Park Hill donors were support for:

  • Half-year salary of Park Hill’s new missionary, former Bishop Catherine Mutua, who now directs the Methodist Drug Treatment Center in Meru, Kenya
  • Operating funds to improve the Kenya Drug Treatment Center
  • Ten Kenya AIDS orphans for a year
  • Goats and sheep for women living with HIV in Rwanda
  • Sanitary supplies for destitute young women in Kenya
  • Tutoring impoverished young girls in India
  • Care & support of women and children living with HIV in India.

Persons sent gifts in various ways to the Church and Center. Executive Director, Dr. Don Messer, declares: “Thank you for your opening your hearts to the world’s marginalized and stigmatized again this Christmas!”

Pastor Nathan Adams with Former Bishop Catherine Mutua
It Takes A Village in Colorado: 
Help Provide Prevention and Care During Freezing Cold Months
AIDS continues to impact persons in the United States--about 1.2 million are living with HIV. There is no vaccine or cure, but prevention options have increased. No longer are condoms the only possibility, as PrEP is an excellent but expensive medication to stop transmission. Proper treatment also ensures the disease is not spread. Regular testing remains imperative!

The Center for Health and Hope financially supports a partner organization in Aurora, Colorado: 
It Takes A Village. The above photo shows Center Director Don Messer presenting a check to It Takes A Village Director, Imani Latif and her staff.

As cold weather and snow dominate our state, Center donors help provide short-term housing for African-American HIV positive homeless people and those recently released from incarceration. You can join us in making sure they are not left out in the freezing cold this month!
We Are Building 3 Houses in Kenya- Wow!
Construction has begun on the first of three homes being built for families living with HIV in Maua, Kenya.  Donors have provided $3,000 to cover total costs per house! Would you like to build a home in your own name or in loving memory of someone else in 2022?

Children whose parents have died from AIDS now struggle for survival, as they most often live with a grandmother who typically lacks adequate housing and resources for food and care.  

Stanley Gitari, who supervises the building projects, reports that in the area served by Maua Methodist Hospital, there are more than 45,000 orphans and vulnerable children. 

The $3,000 given per house covers more than just building supplies. Gitari indicates that, "Helping a grandmother by providing an AIDS orphan house provides a safe place for children to live and allows enrollment in school where they receive clothing, food, and life skills for the future."
Reaching Out To The Outcast in Sri Lanka
The island nation of Sri Lanka appears to be an idyllic paradise in the Pacific Ocean, but the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened economic poverty for the poorest of the poor--the women and men (and their children) who are often the most despised, stigmatized, marginalized, and victimized in society: commercial sex workers.

Rather than choice, for most of these outcast persons it is a matter of "survival sex." But with tourism nearly non-existent, inflation, and unemployment rising, life is incredibly difficult. Thanks to Center donors, partners in Sri Lanka distributed necessary food essentials at Christmas to 95 families.

Want to support this mission?