Out of Africa: Part 13 – Back in America

This will be the final entry on the Africa series. As I sign off on this for now, note the following:

Since returning from Africa, I have realized these facts:

I not only missed the finals of the baseball playoffs, but the entire World Series.

Fountain Park Church had two Hope Sundays on December 4 and 11. We sponsored about 45 children in the area where I visited. After the low administrative fee World Vision takes (less than 10% I think) that means over $17,000 will be going to this area annually from Fountain Park! So stinking cool!!!

We took up offerings for the area and received an additional $2,000 for the area.

I received my first letter from my sponsored child this week. I am in the process of sending him a letter as well.

The latest HIV facts:

* 4.9 million people were newly infected with HIV
* 3.1 million people died from complications of AIDS
* Sub-Saharan Africa – 25.8 million in 2005, up 3.6% from 2003
* South and Southeast Asia – 7.4 million in 2005, up 13.8% from 2003
* Latin America – 1.8 million in 2005, up 12.5% from 2003
* Eastern Europe and Central Asia – 1.6 million in 2005, up 33.3% from 2003
* North America – 1.2 million in 2005, up 9.1% from 2003
* East Asia – 870,000 in 2005, up 26.1% from 2003
* Western and Central Europe – 720,000 in 2005, up 2.9% from 2003
* North Africa and Middle East – 510,000 in 2005, up 2% from 2003
* Caribbean – 300,000 in 2005, no change from 2003
* Oceania – 74,000 in 2005, up 17.5% from 2003
(from UNAIDS/WHO AIDS Epidemic Update 2005)

A fact to put some things into perspective that I read in USA Today Friday, December 30, 2005 from National Park Service: Americans flush 6.8 billion gallons of water down toilets every day while 1.2 billion people in the world do not have access to clean water.