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We don't know where to start. Every project Horizons Foundation is involved in is showing wonderful results. It's all TRULY AMAZING. First of all, we have just returned from an exciting and eye-opening trip to Moldova and the Ukraine. As you may recall, Charlotte and Al took their entire extended family, except for one little guy, on this trip. As always, the expenses for this trip were personal expenses paid for by the Lockhart's and NOT paid for by donations to Horizons Foundation. Upon our arrival in Moldova, we were greeted by our good friends, Calvin Klaus and Rev. Doru Cerdei at the Chisinau airport. It took us over an hour to get our visas, but we were very glad the Moldavian's have instituted the system of allowing air travelers to purchase their visa upon their arrival in the country. Some of our children were surprised when Al handed over $75 for each person over 13 years old, to enter the country. It was an expensive welcome mat. Our friends had reserved an over the road Scandia bus and all 20 of our family loaded up along with our 37 pieces of checked luggage, 20 pieces of carryon luggage, 3 strollers and 1 portable chair for Al's mother. We were escorted to our boutique hotel and would highly recommend the Flowers Hotel in Chisinau, Moldova. We made this hotel our headquarters while in Chisinau, and due to the number of rooms we required, our hosts negotiated a discount from their normal reasonable rates. The next morning, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the big bus came and took us all to church. Al told the church audience that whenever we come to Moldova, we feel right at home with their love and friendship. The church is called the Philadelphia Church, and it and two others were started in Moldova 11 years ago. Since that time, the attendees of these three churches have started 323 churches in Moldova. They have a deep passion and commitment to reach the citizens of Moldova. Last year, Al and Charlotte delivered some TV cameras to this church so they could begin to broadcast their message across Moldova. This is the same church that is our partner in the Bethany Christian Center, the orphanage Horizons Foundation helped start in 1999. Please pray with us that "leaders of 10 and leaders of 100" will be attracted to this work. Rev Doru and the other leaders currently have excellent staff members - they just need more leaders in order to expand their efforts in Moldova. F! uture expansion of the orphanage, church work and seminary will only be accomplished as more and more leaders are brought into this work! After church, Al and Charlotte were asked to cut the ribbon for the grand opening of a large church operated retail store, which supplies books, music, knickknacks, sodas, pastries and bread (from the bakery at the orphanage), and sells shoes (from the shoe making business at the orphanage). We had the privilege of seeing that the initial vision of 1997 is now a reality. That afternoon and evening our family took the opportunity to visit the orphanage. Over 80 children now live on this property on the outskirts of Chisinau. Most of these children are former street children or abused/neglected children placed in these homes by the government of Moldova. All 10 houses have been rehabbed and each house has almost 1800 square feet of living space for each family. Nine of the 10 are currently occupied and a parent-couple have been identified to become house parents of the 10th house. The small farm on part of the 15 acres is functioning well, with milk cows providing all the milk needed for all the children. Many pigs and chickens are being raised to provide a meat source for the children. All the house mothers have canned 100's of jars of vegetables for the winter. They're ready! The 15 acres seemed very quiet and roomy; as it was snowing and cold outside. All the children were inside where it was warm. We split our family into three groups in order not to bring 20 visitors into houses already having as many as 14 living there. Our oldest daughter, Cassendra Dearing dressed as a clown and gave a one woman puppet show at almost every home. She had a lamb for a puppet and gave the children the story of how a Shepard had lost one of his 100 sheep. She went to great extents showing the kids how the Shepard looked high and low for the missing sheep and His great joy when the lamb was found. It was a great object lesson and the kids really relate to puppets in Eastern Europe! We were then able to pass out small gifts to each child including a small orange teddy bear and a special gift to each set of house parents. It was a great time of interaction and warm friendship with the families. On the orphanage grounds the bakery operation is ramping up. Since implementing a branding program for the bread, sales have improved almost 40% when comparing year over year results. The brand is called 'Red Ribbon Bread' and each loaf has a red ribbon tied around the packaging to seal the sack holding the bread. The bakery needs a commercial shrink-wrap machine to insure sealed freshness ($2200 plus shipping). Steps are underway to bring additional professional management to this bakery, as it brings profits of about 1/6th of the monthly operating costs of the orphanage (unless a truck breaks down and takes most of the profit for the month to get it running again) and while this is good, we know it can be improved with professional management. As you know, our goal remains that the combined profits of the bakery and the shoe making business will contribute 100% of the funds needed to support the orphanage. Happily, the shoe business has been profitable all year and even though it's still in the first year of operation, it too is contributing its profits to the orphanage. Both businesses combined support about 20% of the operating costs of the orphanage as of October, 2005. While in Moldova, some of our family traveled to Belti to see Calvin Klaus and his work with the at-risk-children, church and seminary there. We were able to visit the day program for the at-risk-children (those children not in school due to parental problems of alcohol or drug abuse.) The children respond to music very well. In fact, as a child learns how to play an instrument, that success can carry over into other areas of their lives. For the first time in their life, many realize that they can do something well. It's a great builder of self-esteem.  The children have an excellent music teacher that composes music using a key board tied to a computer. He produces the written music score for the piano, guitar and drums, simply by listening to a song; replaying the song on his keyboard and then using his computer to print the sheet music for the children. This gentleman needs a faster computer to help in his work as it is a key method for communicating with the children-at-risk. Calvin continues to mentor the two co-pastors of this beautiful church, reaching out to the community and he also teaches at both seminaries, in Belti and in Chisinau (2 and ½ hours away). One of the highlights of the entire trip was when Al's 86 year old mother was able to see the library of 800 books that she had contributed to the seminary. These were books of sermons for the young pastors to study in order to help them minister more effectively. She had donated many hours in collecting "just the right authors for these young ministers." Not only had she collected the books, Al had asked her to develop a variety of indexes for these books, i.e., by author, by title, etc. Al had asked her to prepare these indexes on the computer, using Word software. When she started this effort she was 82 and had not used a computer. So, she went to computer school, learned to use Word, and then worked diligently preparing these indexes. When she had finished the first two indexes by author and book title, Al asked her to do a couple more indexes. The first was to go thru each book of sermons and identify the page number and scripture reference located on that page. So, ! for example, if a book had four scripture references in it, she would write down, page 22 - Matthew 12:1, page 37 - Proverbs 16:3, page 164 - John 3:16 and page 202 - Genesis 12:12. As you can see, this index took quite a while to go thru all 800 books. Then, for the final index, Al asked her to take all 800 books and proceed thru the Bible from Genesis thru Revelation and write down all the references from all the books for Genesis 1:1, then do the same for Genesis 1:2, then do the same for Genesis 1:3, and continue all the way thru the end of Revelation. She then produced a Word document that had all these references indexed verse by verse for all 800 books. This was a job that she worked months on. So, for her to go to Moldova, to see the books in the library was quite special. When she went into the library she randomly picked up one of the books off the shelf and began to comment to Calvin about the author. She told of some of the material in the book and told of some additional books written by the same author. She then told of several other authors who wrote books of a similar style. Everyone in that library knew that she knew these books and their authors very well! Later that day, she spoke to some of the seminary students and told them why she had collected the books for them. At the end of her short talk she was presented with five beautiful red long stemmed roses. It was a wonderful moment. Thank you, Calvin!!! While in Chisinau, Al and our son-in-law Brent Dearing gave a 4-hour seminar to many Christian businessmen and businesswomen. It was titled 'Doing Business by The Book.' Several suggestions on how to be a better businessperson were presented, giving the attendees an overview of suggestions from Investors Business Daily and Steven Covey's '7 Habits of Highly Successful People', followed by many references throughout the scriptures on how to conduct business God's way. This was followed briefly by some tips on investing and debt, giving and integrity. It was very well received. Immediately after the seminar, the entire family loaded into the big bus and was transported over to Odessa, Ukraine. There was some ice on the road, and it took 11 hours to go from the church in Chisinau to our hotel in Odessa, Ukraine. This included a 4 hour stop at the border, awaiting approval to leave Moldova and then enter Ukraine. All in all, a trip that could easily be made in the USA in 3 hours took 11 hours. We were a tired family checking into the hotel in Odessa. We started early the next morning and took the entire family to a state run orphanage, (they're called Internaut's in Ukraine). This appointment was coordinated by our partners in Odessa - World Hope International, Canada. They run the street children feeding program named First Steps and Hope House. Horizons Foundation has provided support for these programs since their inception. The staff at the state run orphanage does an excellent job of caring for the children in their care. Proof of this statement is based upon the fact that the children living at this particular Internaut do not run away. Normally, children run away from most all of the Internaut's in the Ukraine, preferring to live on the street rather than conform to the militaristic discipline of these state run orphanages. Our family had an excellent opportunity to interact with over 120 children at the Internaut. Our oldest daughter, Cassendra, again dressed as a clown and gave her puppet show, this time with! help from our next oldest daughter Christine. The Joan Geisen Ministries in St Louis had given us over 300 small orange teddy bears to distribute. These bears brought many smiles to the kids, as they received their new toy! We arrived at this Internaut exactly one year and one day from Ukraine's Orange Revolution. Do you remember watching TV last year as thousands demonstrated in Kiev for a proper counting of the votes for their new President? Remember how the now President of Ukraine had been poisoned with dioxin by his rivals? Remember how his face changed from a young man's face during the spring of 2004 to a pockmarked, sagging, aging face at the time of the election? Orange flags were made and waved continuously by those who wanted the votes to be counted accurately. Or, they had an Orange hat or an Orange scarf or an Orange coat to signify their support of those camped out in the streets of Kiev. The country was swept by Orange everything. So, presenting these kids with an Orange teddy bear one day after the 1st anniversary was a major event. We also gave balloons, M&Ms, Tootsie Rolls and other candy to all the kids attending the puppet show. Then, after lunch we went to Hope House, the orphanage Horizons Foundation helped started in 2003 on the outskirts of Odessa. This home now has 14 living there counting the house parents Alla and Shasha. All the children are former street children. Al was able to interview Volva, a 17 year old boy who had been forced out of his mother's house when he was 6 years old. He left with his older brother and his younger sister. His older brother still lives on the street, sniffing glue and trying to stay warm at night. Or sometimes, when a great deal of glue has been sniffed, he just passes out anywhere on the street, oblivious to the cold. Volva was on the street for 7 years before he heard of First Steps, the street feeding program managed by our partners in downtown Odessa. He began to go to First Steps in order to get something to eat once a day, and to get a bath once a week. The staff recognized that he wanted to come off the street and Alla and Shasha opened their apartme! nt to him knowing that soon there would be a Hope House. During the last 4 years he has been living with Alla and Shasha, the last two of which have been at Hope House. Of course Volva received no schooling at all during the 7 years of his living on the street and has a great deal of catching up to do. Miraculously, Volva is alive and his brain is not fried from the glue. He is starting trade school where he will learn to be a gas and diesel mechanic. He is also an award winning cross country runner and soccer player, having been invited to become a member of a minor league soccer team. Thank God for this success! Since this was Al's birthday, all the kids at Hope House sang 'Happy birthday' to Al in English. Then we left Hope House, to go to First Steps where the street kids were eagerly awaiting our arrival. Someone had tipped them off that we were all going to go to McDonalds and they could have a full meal there! They sang for us and then we had the clown and puppet show. Cassendra performed more clown and puppet shows during this trip than she had her entire life. Then, the kids walked the 20 minutes to McDonalds and several of us rode the big bus to within three blocks. During the walk, some of the First Step supervisors, former street kids now rescued, watched the street kids and had to remove some glue bags from the boys walking to McDonalds. This event of eating at McDonalds was a really big deal, not only for these street kids but for McDonalds and our family. Street children are absolutely not allowed to eat in any restaurant in the Ukraine. In fact, our friends in Odessa had recently taken two street girls with them into a restaurant, and were asked to leave by the management. So, our friends had sought and received special permission from McDonalds to allow all these crazy Americans to eat with the street kids inside a McDonald's restaurant.  We created quite a stir at the McDonalds. Oh, the kids were very well behaved. A couple of boys downed two Big Macs, two sets of large fries and two large sodas in record time and everyone there enjoyed the little Orange bears Al handed out. However, the regular customers arriving at this McDonalds could not believe their eyes - there were over 60 street kids taking up a large portion of the 2nd floor dining room with all these Americans. We received many side glances, a few stares and a couple of frowns. The Ukrainians just could not believe that we would want to associate with the street kids. Obviously, we were rich Americans, because don't you know all Americans are rich and here were these crazy, rich Americans eating with dirty, smelly kids. At least that was the stereotyping that was going thru their heads. In fact, the kids were cleaned up, on their best behavior, and monitored closely by First Steps staff. They wanted to make sure that we didn't ruin our welcome at McDonalds. It was a very exhilarating evening! Wish you had been there with us!!! We had an exciting, fun filled time with all these orphans and street kids. What a wonderful work to be involved in. Click here to see more photos from our trip! We returned home just in time to get some wonderful news from Peru: the orphanage in Pacasmayo now has three children in it. On November 25, 2005 the first new children arrived with government approval. One was just 4 DAYS OLD, the other was 13 years old. Now, the floodgates are starting to open and many more children have been identified that will be arriving as soon as government approvals are complete. It's finally happening! Praise God, the children are coming. Seven more houses are being constructed on the 'outback mansano' that will be the new homes for at least 84 more kids, bringing the total accommodation to at least 108. Boy, when God kicks it in gear, it moves . . . quickly! We have been building and assisting our partner Go Ye Ministries for two years, having built the orphanage and helped with the stack of paperwork for all necessary approvals. Many, many months of delays and approvals, and more delays and approvals. Now the kids are coming. It feels like a dam has cracked wide open, and a trickle of water is turning into a steady stream coming right at the Pacasmayo orphanage in the form of many kids, and the only thing that was holding them back was the government's approval. The Microlending project is performing as planned. People are getting loans, making more money in their micro businesses, paying back their loans on time (100%), giving to churches, and giving to support the orphanage. It's working! It's growing! It's happening! We have some borrowers who have met every condition of their first loan of $300 and they have now been made a second loan of $600 for the next 6 months. We now have a full and part time staff of 5 at Association Horizons to meet the needs. We anticipate that as the number of borrowers increase, we will become more efficient in managing the loan portfolio. Over 100 borrowers have been assisted with small loans. The small loans are big enough to make a substantial difference in families' income. For example, one gentleman borrowed a little less than $300 to buy two sewing machines. These machines enabled him to have a business in the afternoon after he finished fishing in the Pacific, four hours each morning. From his fishing business, he was accustomed to earning about $115 per month to take care of his family of five. The sewing machines enabled him to earn an extra $116 per month. This loan enabled him to double his income, and he's already paid it back in full. That's the type of return on investment we like - a $300 loan, almost $700 in additional income for his family in six months; the loan repaid on-time with interest, and he's tithing to his church and the orphanage. In another example, one lady borrowed almost $300 to expand the inventory for her clothing sales business. During the last two years she has been going door-to-door selling new clothing. She has two children at home and this is just a part time job for her, one that she works at for about four hours per day. It's a lucrative part time job because before her loan she was earning about $120 per month. She increased her income to over $300 per month. She sells clothes, service and convenience, delivering new clothes to the door of her buyers. This loan has already been paid back in full and she is eligible to borrow $600 for the next 6 months. How's that for a return on investment - a $300 loan, over $1000 in additional income for her family in six months; the loan repaid on-time with interest, and she's tithing to her church and the orphanage. That's a definition of success! We have client after client whose lives have been improved due to acquiring a micro loan. We have church after church whose income has been increased due to these entrepreneurs doing as they promised and have given 10% of their profits to the church of their choice. And, the bottom line is that Association Horizons has been receiving a portion of these profits to donate to Go Ye Ministries to help support the orphanage. During 2006, we have many goals for the Microlending program.
Hopefully, this orphanage will be as successful as the one in Chisinau, Moldova. It's certainly being expanded dramatically - from a planned occupancy of 24 to the addition of 7 houses scheduled to be completed in early 2006, bringing the planned maximum occupancy to 108. FINAL THOUGHT --Last month, Charlotte and Al had the privilege of taking their entire family to Moldova and the Ukraine to see progress. However, while in the Ukraine, we verified one very disturbing fact about their state run orphanages: When the kids living in the state run orphanages turn 15, on their 15th birthday, they are given a coat, some clothes and walked to the front door of the orphanage and told to leave; their time at the orphanage is over. They have no support system for these kids and no further obligation to help them. They are on their own. Now many things are for sale in the Ukraine - including information. Brothel owners know the birth dates of the girls leaving the orphanage. As the girls leave the orphanage, they are given promises of good jobs, but of course many are taken straight to the brothels. This is a problem that Horizons Foundation must do something about. We need and want your help to do our best to save some of these girls from certain premature death at the hands of these brothel owners. The girls and young women in these Eastern European brothels are initially stripped of their identification papers, so they can't run away to get a job anywhere else. Then, they are continually abused, sold and mistreated until they become diseased. When the disease becomes obvious and they can not 'work', they disappear. From the perspective of a pimp or brothel owner, there is no better candidate for this dirty work. Who better than an orphaned girl? No one knows or cares what happens to her. God knows. He cares! This form of slavery must be stopped even though this is one of the most lucrative businesses the mafia has. Drugs can be sold only once, a woman can be sold over and over again. We feel compelled to create a safe house for these 15 year old girls. They must have a home where they can be taught honest marketable skills and social skills to develop morally. This must be a safe place where they can live until they are 21 or ready to enter the workforce as skilled laborers. Here again, we will teach English and computer skills - the skills necessary to get a high paying job in Eastern Europe. Before this trip, we had been asking God to open the eyes of our family to needs in Eastern Europe and in fact He opened our eyes to this crisis. One of our top priority projects for Horizons Foundation for 2006 will be to get our organization set up in the Ukraine to do this, then to buy/build and staff a home for these girls. Please ask God what He would have you do to help solve this problem, one girl at a time. Please write or email us if you want to become part of the solution for this insidious problem. This must change! THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT - YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN In His Service, Al and Charlotte Lockhart Horizons Foundation Donations may be sent to: PO Box 6022St Charles MO 63302 Al Lockhart Past Newsletters: 30 November 2003 31 December 2003 01 January 2004 01 February 2004 01 March 2004 01 April 2004 31 May 2004 30 June 2004 01 July 2004 01 August 2004 30 September 2004 31 October 2004 30 November 2004 31 December 2004 31 January 2005 28 February 2005 31 March 2005 02 May 2005 02 July 2005 31 August 2005 11 October 2005 18 December 2005 02 April 2006 30 June 2006 31 October 2006 |
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