Dear Friends,
Mike and Cindy Edson have been caring for abandoned children and young people in Uzbekistan for many years. The Transition Center they began and oversee is home to young men and women with special needs who have been rejected by their society. These young men and women are cared for and receive vocational training in order to support themselves. Now Mike and Cindy have an opportunity to help even more young men and women.
Here is Mike and Cindy’s Story:
Before coming to Central Asia we spent 12 years on the Indian subcontinent doing evangelism, working in slums and leper colonies. We had seen serious human suffering, but when we went to an orphanage for special needs children, we were not expecting the degree of suffering we found. As we entered foul smelling rooms full of miserable, screaming children, lying in their own waste, I leaned against the wall gagging and weeping.
Cindy began working at this wretched place. I couldn’t sleep at night because she was crying about the suffering and death she saw. I couldn’t go back for a long time.
I thought, if ever there was a hopeless situation, this was surely it. But I was wrong! God brought hope and life. The children had never experienced love, never seen anyone smile at them. The only names they knew were curse words. Reaching out to comfort them was difficult. They would scream in terror. Adult hands had beaten and punished them, and they could not associate hands with love and comfort. How love changed them! The children learned their names, began to smile and return the love they received from Cindy and the local Christian sisters who worked with her. It was a MIRACLE, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The Muslim staff told Cindy, “We used to call the place where you and the sisters are working, ‘the place of death’ now we call it ‘the place of life.’”
But we faced a serious problem. At the age of 17, every special needs orphan is sent to an adult institution. In our experience, most live about two years. There is nothing for them but despair. Cindy cried every time a van load of our 17-year-olds left the orphanage for the adult institution.
The orphans would fall at her feet and beg her not to send them away. But there was nothing she could do. The orphans cried out to God for a place where they could live and not die, and he heard them!
One day in 2006, as Cindy was driving to the orphanage, an American couple called her. They had a massive 2-story, run-down old Soviet kindergarten building. They said, “We were going to sell this building for $100,000.00, but every time we pray about it, we see your face. Can we give you the building?”
Shortly after this, I was blacklisted and for over 5 years had to live outside the country. In my absence Cindy and the team began to renovate the building, which became the Transition Center—a place where 17-year-old orphans can live, where they can continue their studies and learn socialization and vocational skills. They share apartments on the second floor and work together to keep their residence clean, plan their meals, and share the responsibility of cooking and cleaning up. Downstairs are classes and workshops.
At first, government officials wanted nothing to do with this wonderful facility because we were Christians and Americans. Others wanted to discredit us so they could take the building. However, by the grace of God, after the wife of a very powerful person arranged to get 15 special needs students into the Transition Center, we came to be seen as a model for the rest of the country.
The students have made incredible progress. They create beautiful artwork and crafts, which we can sell as fast as they make them. A presidential advisor even took some of our young adults’ artwork and crafts to China to give as gifts during his official visit.
Over the years, there have been many battles, but God has seen us through all of them.
Remarkably, the government is now asking us to take additional special needs students.
However, to do this, we need to renovate and furnish the remaining four upstairs apartments.
Please help us help Mike and Cindy with this urgent need.
Sincerely,
Alec D. Brooks