first steps news 2017 New Years Edition First Steps: Gifts of Kindness

Soybeans are shipped from Canada to to make soymilk. One cup of soymilk costs just 3 cents, including shipping. news Donate $______towards soybeans. 2017 New Years Edition

Pale morning This year, we look forward to maintaining A $50 donation to the micronutrient Sprinkles program provides 18 months of sachets for a sunshine streams our existing programs and to further baby (6 to 24 months) and 9 months of sachets for a pregnant and nursing mother. A lack of through the establishing our new ones in Kangwon nutrients in the diet impacts growth and brain development. Sprinkles prevents rickets and lowers frosted windows and Ryanggang provinces. We strive to the rates of diarrhea and pneumonia, the leading causes of death in children under 2 years of age. of an unheated improve the health of young children and kindergarten pregnant or breastfeeding mothers who Donate $ ______towards micronutrient Sprinkles. in Tongchon as face chronic malnutrition due to poor hungry children dietary diversity. We are continuing to 20-litre stainless-steel milk cans are vital for storing and transporting soymilk huddle close make arrangements for shipments into together in these new areas. However, due to recent from production centres to the children we serve. They cost $100 each. their warmest restructuring in the central government in Donate $ ______towards milk cans. jackets, eagerly , we anticipate we’ll be slowing sipping cups the pace of our work while our new of hot soymilk. Meanwhile, in a nearby partner gains an understanding of how Thanks be to apartment, a new mother adds the First Steps carries out its work. We are finishing touch to her toddler’s bowl of thankful for what God is accomplishing The VitaGoat is powered by combustible fuel (wood, coal, etc.). It processes gruel, a sachet of micronutrient Sprinkles through this ministry and wait prayerfully soybeans directly into nutrient-rich soymilk and provides about 1,500 cups of God for His full of vitamins and minerals to help on the Lord for His continued guidance. soymilk per day to hungry children. The main difference from the VitaCow is that indescribable her child grow strong and healthy. It’s the VitaGoat runs without electricity. The cost of a VitaGoat is $4000. scenes like these­—and each day tens Thank you again for partnering with First Donate $ _____ towards a VitaGoat. gift. of thousands of similar scenes—that Steps. We recognize prayers and gifts 2 Corinthians 9:15 have become a reality in daycares, are from the heart and made through kindergartens, orphanages and homes of sacrifice. Your support is making a world VitaCows process soybeans directly into soymilk providing children with a warm new mothers in North Korea thanks to of difference in North Korea, touching and protein-rich drink. The VitaCow is powered by electricity and can produce 2000 your heartfelt prayers and generosity. lives and improving the health of mothers cups of soymilk per day to feed hungry children. The cost of the VitaCow is $7000. and young children. May you be greatly Donate $ _____ towards a VitaCow. Blessings to you in 2017 on behalf of encouraged. Thanks be to God for His First Steps and all those you are helping. indescribable gift, our Lord Jesus Christ. Together, for more than 15 years, it has name been our mission to deliver vital nutrition Susan Ritchie address to the undernourished and vulnerable, Executive Director, focusing on daily reaching more than city prov. postal code 100,000 young children with our soymilk phone email program and on reaching thousands of Please make cheques payable to First Steps Health Society and forward to: 3260 West 5th Ave. Vancouver, B.C. V6K 1V4 Canada pregnant women and their newborns with BIN: 821724036 RR0001. Gifts are acknowledged with an official receipt for income tax purposes. For further information contact us at 604.732.0195 or visit our website at www.firststepscanada.org our micronutrient Sprinkles program. Please Recycle or Pass Along. Contact us at [email protected] to receive First Steps Newsletter by email.

facebook.com/firststepsorg @firststepsorg firststepsorg First Steps is a Christian humanitarian organization reaching out to children in DPR Korea. first steps news 2017 New Years Edition Highlights of the Past Year As 2017 dawns, let’s review some of what we accomplished in 2016

1 We made four visits to monitor the delivery 2 We delivered 7.2 million sachets of Sprinkles, 3 We started a Sprinkles program and a soymilk 4 We responded to an emergency appeal for help in of various shipments and to check in with our 200 tonnes of soybeans, 32 tonnes of food items program in Ryanggang province (Hyesan city and after more than 100,000 partners and beneficiaries at the many locations (dried soup mix, dried apple chips, etc.), three new Samjiyon county), a remote and difficult to access people lost their homes to flooding in the wake where we serve. We give special thanks to our VitaGoat soymilk machines and water-bottling part of the country’s mountainous north-central of Lionrock at the end of the summer. It partners for their unflagging cooperation and equipment, as well as the relief items listed in region. It’s an area previously unserved by any non- was North Korea’s greatest environmental disaster support. highlight number four. government organizations and has the greatest since the end of the Korean War. To date First nutritional needs in the county. Steps has delivered 25 tonnes of nutritious food items (soybean oil, fortified corn flour, soybean paste and bean meat) and 17,060 square-metres Stories from different perspectives of our North Korea visits in 2016 of steel roofing material to help rebuild daycares, kindergartens and clinics in Yonsa, one of the Spring Visit Reflection Summer Visit Reflection Fall Visit flood-devastated areas. by Phil Schafran by Trevor Carter During the fall, the First Steps team women could be sheltered from the cold and The spring visit was my first to the This trip to North Korea brought to visited Yonsa and Musan, two counties quickly receive care. This was made possible DPRK since 2014. It was good to light for me the extent of malnutrition in North Hamgyong Province that had through the incredible outpouring of support meet beneficiaries of the expanded in the country. The first real evidence been devastated by . that followed the appeal (First Steps’ first Sprinkles program in Munchon, a city I saw of the effects of malnutrition The road we travelled on was washed emergency appeal since 2011). about a half-hour north of Wonsan. was in Samjiyon where First Steps out in places. Locals cheerfully came Our team visited two poli-clinics that recently began partnering to provide out to help extricate our vehicle on Winter Visit have just begun receiving micronutrient micronutrient Sprinkles and soymilk. several occasions when we got stuck In December, the First Steps team met our Sprinkles. We met Cho Kum-Hya and After meeting with doctors at the Eup in the rubble left by the flooding. Most new counterparts for the first time. Due to her 13-month-old twins as well as Kim clinic, we met some of the mothers, houses in villages we passed had been winter weather conditions, a visit to the flood- Won-Suk and her eight-month-old son babies and pregnant women who are inundated by debris or completely affected regions was postponed. However, the Song Jong-Hyon. They were all happy receiving Sprinkles. One mother, toting washed away. Later we learned that team received positive communications on the to be receiving Sprinkles. I look forward her toddler, was accompanied by her more than 35,000 homes in the flood supplies that had arrived. We were told that the roofing that had been delivered was being to seeing the impact Sprinkles will have older daughter, who we discovered zone had been damaged or destroyed. 5 We also launched a Sprinkles program in Munchon placed on kindergartens, schools and clinics. city, Kangwon province, on the east coast. on this community. was actually 10 years old but looked First Steps was able to deliver Sprinkles, First Steps looks forward to visiting once the so much younger. It was clear that she nutritious food items and some roads are less treacherous to see first-hand had suffered the stunting effects of medicines. Following the visit, First the impact of the amazing response to this malnutrition. We trust that with the help Steps helped supply corrugated steel disaster. and prayers of First Steps, her newest roofing for daycares, kindergartens and sibling will not suffer a similar fate. clinics to ensure children and pregnant