When Leonora Calipay’s children finished school and she came home to the Philippines, she knew there was something more to her life than retirement.
Leonora’s neighbor noticed her desire to do meaningful things in her free time, so she taught Leonora to sew rugs. With this new skill, Leonora started her own small rugmaking business. She hoped to empower her neighbors—especially the single mothers in her community—to make a living through the same craft.
Across the world, we see dedicated fathers reflecting our Heavenly Father’s love to their families. Praise God for shaping them into the fathers, husbands, and men that God has created them to be!
Yet, we also witness the challenges that material poverty poses when it comes to providing for their families, growing in their knowledge of Christ, finding Godly community, and grasping their God-given worth.
So, as fathers continue to invest in their businesses to better shepherd and provide for their families, we lift them up in prayer. This Father’s Day, we’re sharing four things we’re praying over the fathers across the HOPE network—and we invite you to join us. Continue Reading…
Reflecting on the last year, we’re amazed at how God has continued to show up throughout the HOPE network. Despite a myriad of challenges worldwide—political unrest, natural disasters, and an ongoing pandemic—God’s compassionate love has been evident to us, our partners, and those that we serve. Continue Reading…
In 2020, the HOPE network continued to serve men and women in the world’s underserved communities. And no part of HOPE’s work or operations was not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite all these challenges, we still felt God’s faithful love and compassion toward us, our partners, and the families we serve.
In the last year, we’ve shared a few of these stories of challenge and resilience, along with insights into HOPE’s work and the communities where we serve. We hope that you’ve been encouraged, challenged, and inspired in your own life to grow in faith and service to the Kingdom.
In case you missed any of these insightful and inspirational stories, here are our five most-read posts from 2020: Continue Reading…
When I heard that a whole generation of economic progress could be lost because of COVID-19, what might have been an abstract concept felt personal.
Like kids across the country, my first grader, Addi, spent this spring learning from home. One assignment had her interviewing a family member, and she chose her grandpa: my dad. She carefully printed questions in her notebook—using her best phonetic spelling—and as FaceTime connected, I settled in to hear the stories I remember hearing as a child: my dad and his brothers chasing each other across farm fields, dad knocking an aggressive farm goose senseless in self-defense, his exasperated mother shooing six boys out of her kitchen with a rolling pin—or whatever else was handy.
Addi and I giggled over several of these same stories, but hearing them as an adult, many were tinged with a sadness and struggle I hadn’t remembered. Like when my dad told Addi about his family’s two-seater outhouse, how the brothers competed to be first in line for a weekly bath so the tub water would still be clean, how glasses of water turned to ice on bedside tables in the wintertime, how his parents saved every bit of extra money to buy each boy a second-hand bicycle one Christmas, how they rarely visited a doctor, and how his parents buried their only daughter and a son before their fifth birthdays.
It dawned on me: Not in a faraway country or too long ago, my dad grew up in poverty. Continue Reading…
Over 2 billion people in the world live on $3.10 a day or less.
You’ve likely heard this stat, or something similar. But these statistics don’t tell the full story because $3.10 is just an average: Those living in poverty aren’t making that amount every day. Some days, they may earn $15, but most days, they’re more likely bringing in $0. Often operating their businesses in small communities and selling seasonal products or crops, these entrepreneurs cannot consistently rely on a certain amount of daily or even monthly income to cover expenses. Continue Reading…
