During Summer of 2015 a small team from Orphan for a Day (OFAD) went to Swaziland with the goal of making video curriculum. We set out to honor the life experience gained by each orphan we had the opportunity to film.  Our goal was to transform these stories into video curriculum that will help Orphan for a Day participants understand the challenges faced by kids who are part of orphan headed households. These Swazi kids beautifully articulated lifetimes filled with incredible hardship and amazing hope. We can not wait for Orphan for a Day participants to hear these life changing stories!  Currently, we are in the editing process but we hope to have the videos ready for churches and schools to use in the next few months.

 

We are so excited to be gearing up for an official launch in Spring 2016!  Check out our Razoo fundraising campaign (link on the right) to help us get started.  Our goal is to take OFAD nation wide using video curriculum.  We want hundreds of thousands of youth in the United states to experience being an Orphan for a Day!

First you have to see

The weary woman

Creases snaking through parchment skin

Death stole her grown babies

Wailing infant tightly attached

Hungry screams

The widow and orphan

Their only provision each other

She bends plunging rags that resemble shirts

Into murky water

Again and again

 

First you have to see

The small black-eyed boy

Running the dusty roads to school

At night he cowers on a grass mat soaked in fear

In a final moment parents and protection were ripped away

He shakes tormented

Night after night

 

First you have to see

The teenage girl

Making tentative steps into womanhood

Now she is the parent

World decimated by death’s wrecking ball

Her little brother and sister

Quiet and glassy eyed

No food in the house

How will she provide

She is just a girl

Twelve is too young

 

First you have to see

The man on the road

Bloody

Bruised

Battered

Left for dead

 

First you have to see

Inches from brokenness

The person of influence passes by

Consumed with false responsibility

Places to go

People to see

He crossed to the other side

Leaving a man to die

 

First you have to see

He walked along the road

It would have been easy to miss

The victim deathly still

Cast aside

Buried alive

 

First you have to see

Each step

Closer

The halting gate of a broken man

Born the wrong race

Half-Breed

Trash

Worthless

How many times had he heard the names

 

First you have to see

He walked on

Hoping

Looking

Seeing the man cast aside

Broken

Bleeding

Alone

The Samaritan acted

Helping

Loving

Providing

 

Because first you have to see

 

by: Morgan McKeown © 2015

 

OFAD consists of ever-growing curriculum of games, tasks, and spiritual opportunities to develop the participants with the knowledge and understanding of what orphans all around the world go through on a daily basis.