We made it to Zambia!

View the itinerary below, learn how it all began, or read
the story from the Courier News.

How it all began

	Rev. Linda met Ivy and her six grandsons in 2005. The boys lost their parents to AIDS and are being raised by their andmother. World Vision, through the One Life Revolution, has made it possible for Ivy to support her grandsons and send them to school.

In the fall of 2003 a small group of 8 junior high students were given a challenge… find a passion about something and go make a difference! After the fog cleared from their young faces they began to rise to the challenge! They looked at a variety of issues and organizations that seek to make a difference, but they were not moved to action until they watched a video about the effects of extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa. In the video they met children orphaned by AIDS, some living without any parent or relative in their home. Their struggle for survival and the depth of their grief transformed 8 junior high lives and changed the Bound Brook Presbyterian Church.

Here is how it happened:

• 2003-2004 The Junior High Youth Group joined World Vision’s One Life Revolution and raised $3,000 to build a home for a family affected by AIDS in Zambia.
  
• 2005 Because of the work of the junior high, Rev. Linda Owens, our youth pastor, was invited to travel with World Vision to Zambia to learn more about the need and to see the results of the One Life Revolution program.
  
• 2005-2006 When the Junior High Youth Group heard Linda’s stories and saw her pictures from Zambia, this group of now 12 students decided to do more! They committed themselves to educating the congregation and to raising $12,200 to build a well for a Zambian Village. That year they exceeded their wildest dreams. By June of 2006, far ahead of schedule, they had raised over $13,300, hosted Princess Zulu, an HIV/AIDS educator from Zambia who is herself HIV positive and encouraged the congregation to sponsor over 50 children from the Twachiyanda Area Development Project (ADP) of Zambia. The grand total of funds raised for HIV/AIDS ravaged Zambia that year was $35,000!

Now, we have the opportunity to see the difference we have made and to plan for what must be done next! In December World Vision invited 14 members of our church, 5 youth and 9 adults to travel to Twachiyanda to meet our sponsored children, see the difference a well has made in the life of a village and a home in the life of a family, and to learn what more must be done. We believe that this will be a life changing opportunity for those who go, but more than that we believe that this journey to Zambia will inspire us to dream bigger dreams and to do more.

We have come to love a people that we have never met, but whose stories have brought tears to our eyes and anguish to our hearts. They are very much a part of our church’s family and we are so excited to meet them face to face.

This is an expensive dream, but we believe it is necessary for us, for our youth and their parents and youth advisors to see the difference that has already been made so that we may be encouraged in our efforts to do more. Please consider helping us meet our goal of $30,000 that will enable us to travel to Zambia this August.

Become part of the One Life Revolution.
You have one life... do something!