By Norma Dittman
Murray County News staff writer
House of Hope Orphanage, Yambio, South Sudan, is expected to open in December of this year, according to Rob and Paula Lutz, Fulda. They have been instrumental in getting the orphanage started.
“This has been an ongoing project for three years with Evangelical Lutheran Church of South Sudan leadership, ministers, and the South Sudanese government. They are in desperate need of an orphanage there due to disease, fighting, and war,” Rob Lutz stated. “They fight diseases like AIDS, malaria, typhoid, and rabies. Then with the fighting, kids get left alone in their culture. In their culture, family does try to take care of their own, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. That is why there is such a great need for orphanages.”
Building of the House of Hope Orphanage began three years ago. Lutz helped in laying the foundation of the buildings. “It’s all done by hand,” he explained.
Construction workers go out into the bush and find the stones to help form the foundation. All the cement used is mixed on the ground, by hand, and then transferred. House of Hope Orphanage is inside a compound wherein the living quarters contain bedrooms and a kitchen and dining facility. Workers constructed a concrete wall all the way around the orphanage to ensure security. At the front gate is a security office that will be staffed twenty-four hours per day.
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