A Personal Easter Story of Resurrection from Disease by Lenka Schmidt: Sometimes we do not fully realize how much we love someone until we almost lose them. At first, for our family the corona virus seemed like some distant disease somewhere far away. Then suddenly it landed close to our doorstep! The first serious case was my 80-year-old aunt in a nursing home who, thank God, overcame it! Then my very nice aunt Iva got it, but unfortunately, she did not survive it. This was followed by the infection of my brother’s entire family, and eventually my parents. The battle intensified. How much we prayed! My brother’s family gradually got over the sickness; with my parents, it was worse. My father had to go to the hospital because he could not breathe properly anymore. He was in the early stage of pneumonia. He still looked good, ate alone, walked around…
CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. …It is forgetting self and finding time for others and the true values in life. – Thomas S. Monson One of the miracles of Christmas is that even in a modern society, where you often find yourself seemingly besieged by rampant materialism, the true meaning of Christmas is never entirely lost. Even nonbelievers are moved by the symbolism of an innocent child who represents humanity’s hope and who came to earth to invite each person to reach out to God and to one another. – Ronan Keane The Love Chapter – a Christmas Version If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another decorator. If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals…
ADH celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. It has been an exciting journey that took us from Guinea in the year 2000 (photo 1), at the time when Lenka was working in Nigeria (photo 2), through Zambia in 2001 (photo 3), to Cameroon in 2002/2003 (photo 4), and then to the DR Congo, starting in mid-2003 (photo 5), shortly after the big war there. Due to health reasons, we had to spend more than one year in South Africa in 2005/2006 (photo 6), after which we returned to Congo in 2007 (photo 7). In 2011, we shifted the focus of our work to the countryside where the need is much bigger than in the city. From 2011-2016 we built and supported our first school in the interior in Mushapo (photos 8-11). During this time, more than 2000 pupils (photo 12 & 13) received free education in our school, unheard of…