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News
| Monday, May 21, 2012
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The Oasis: Marching Onward in 2012
On 16 March, the Oasis received 925 people celebrating Family Day. It was a good chance for all the families' members to spend the day together, enjoying the place, the fresh, clean air and also the varied programme. This included a praise and worship time, led by Brother Maher Fayez with his praise team, a sermon about the family, presented by Dr. Shaddy George, and Christian films. The programme also included fun times with games and a small amusement park for the children, and an exhibition offering different products for sale such as cooked food, some of the Oasis products, women's accessories and Bibles and Christian books. There was also a special programme for children.
In February 2012, we started a project to raise buffaloes in the Oasis. We started with 9 buffaloes as a pioneer project, dreaming to expand it after evaluating it by the end of the year.
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During March 2012, the loans ministry distributed 36 loans totalling EGP 84,000 (approximately USD 14,000) in 4 villages in the Minya governorate. Visits were also made to families which had previously taken loans for microenterprise, and the team was very encouraged with the results. Following are two of these cases:
Hala from Kambouha village in Minya is married with 4 children. Her husband is a casual labourer on a daily wage. Since they do not have a stable income and cannot meet the family’s basic needs, Hala has to work to help support the family. She took a loan from Think and Do and started sewing big plastic sacks and selling them. The microenterprise succeeded and generates a reasonable income, which enables her to assist her husband in meeting their family's needs.
Marlene is single, from a poor family. She has 6 brothers and sisters. Her father has a simple clerical job with a low salary which does not enable him to cover his family's basic needs. Marlene learnt sewing to help support the family. She had to travel to a certain place to make the finishing of the clothes she sewed. She was dreaming for a long time of getting a machine for finishing. When she heard about Think and Do, she asked for a loan, and she bought that machine. When we visited her, she expressed her happiness and said that the machine is saving her time and effort and has led to an increase in the number of customers, which increased her income.
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During the children's ministry among the different churches we found out that there is a great need, especially in Upper Egypt, for tools which could facilitate the ministry among children such as attractive visual aids, masks, presents, different curricula, and training courses for the Sunday school teachers. So, we opened a centre in Tema in the Sohag governorate to provide the children's teachers in the poor villages with all that they need in their ministry.
The centre is planning to held different training courses, to develop the skills of children's teachers through specialized speakers.
One of the teachers testified saying: "My brother and I are serving in the Sunday school in our church. We were searching for more than 2 years for a place to get masks to use in our ministry. When we heard about the centre we visited it and bought 4 masks. We are very happy and encouraged with the idea of the centre."
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| Want to know more? |
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| Read our latest Annual Reports and Newsletters. |
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