A God sized Surprise

A couple of years ago I heard of a disease called Noma.

Noma is an infection that is caused by ulcers in the mouth. If the condition is detected in the early stage, progression can be prevented with the use of mild antibiotics, proper hygiene, and immediate nutritional rehabilitation. If left untreated, as happens in most cases, the ulcers progress to Noma at an alarming pace. The next stage is extremely painful when the cheeks or lips begin to swell and the victim's general condition deteriorates. Within a few days, the swelling increases and a blackish furrow appears and the gangrenous process sets in and, after the scab falls away and a gaping hole is left in the face. It is estimated that the mortality rate reaches up to an alarming 90%. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 140,000 new cases of Noma occur each year and of these, a mere 10% survive. That means that 126,000 die each year, mainly in sub-Saharan countries such as Burkina Faso.

After learning about this and what it takes to prevent this disease in children I decided that I wanted to make one of my primary projects for Burkina, toothbrushes. I started out on my hall asking for toothbrush donations and throughout the semester my hall probably gave about 50. Randomly I heard that my brother dorm wanted to be invovled with this toothbrush drive also and so I made powerpoints, announcments, flyers, anything to get our 2 halls motivated. As the end of the year was creeping in (and when I say end I mean 2 days until it was all over) I was settling with the idea that we would be lucky to take over a couple hundrded toothbrushes. Well that night as I was coming back to the dorm after one last dinner I walked in my room and was shocked to see 5 huge boxes piled in the middle. As I walked closer I noticed that they said toothbrushes, my brother dorm had collected enough money to buy 5,000 toothbrushes! In that moment I was humbled and amazed. I was so quick to settle with a minimal amount only for God to do something beyond my greatest dreams. There are a couple of different venues to go with all of these brushes, one could be to the local dentist who helps out inthe needy sections of town and the other is to Compassion, which these toothbrushes would provide for every single child in the program plus more. So obviously I am thoroughly excited to see where these will be distributed and trust that God has a magnificant plan for His glory to be made known through this collection. Now all we have to figure out is how to get them all to Africa :) (that should be an adventure).