HOPE International is pleased to announce that our founder and board chair, Jeff Rutt, was presented the 2013 Epoch Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding work in the missions field. The award was presented to Jeff on October 28 at Atlanta’s historic Fox Theatre during the second annual Epoch Awards presentation.
The vision of Tim Abare of Adventures in Missions, the Epoch Awards honor those who are persistently tackling issues of poverty, sex trafficking, HIV/AIDS, the need for clean water, homelessness, and other concerns in today’s society.
At the end of February, eight members of the Mountville Mennonite Church middle school youth group set out to make a difference through a “Jump Rope for HOPE” jump-a-thon. The group was motivated by a visit to HOPE’s Pathways out of Poverty exhibit in the fall of 2012. Located at HOPE’s headquarters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Pathways provides a multisensory look at the stories of eight individuals living in poverty around the world and invites participants to respond. Continue Reading…
Each year, HOPE celebrates a client who demonstrates HOPE’s values of perseverance, compassion, character, and creativity with the Thurman Award. Established in honor of HOPE’s first CEO and his wife, the Thurman celebrates clients who have not only experienced change in their own lives but have also extended that transformation to others in their community. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be posting the stories of this year’s winner and four honorable mentions to the blog. Today we celebrate Mardy Cabalo from the Philippines, our 2013 Thurman Award winner.
When Mardy Conde Cabalo of the Philippines awakens each morning, she steps immediately into her roles of mother, business manager, and community leader. Left motherless at age 12, Mardy says she became “both father and mother” to her two siblings, taking on any odd jobs she could find to support them. When she later married and had four daughters of her own, Mardy employed this same hard work and determination, selling cosmetics, clothing, and shoes when her husband’s income wasn’t enough. But even with two salaries, Mardy despaired of sending her daughters to college. Continue Reading...
Each year, the Thurman Award, established in honor of HOPE’s first CEO and his wife, recognizes a client who demonstrates HOPE’s values of perseverance, compassion, strength of character, and creativity. This year we are pleased to celebrate John Njerere, a client from HOPE’s savings program in Zimbabwe, where we have partnered with Acta Non Verba Zimbabwe and Central Baptist Church since 2011. Watch John describe how the holistic training he received helped him move from beggar to provider and read his full story below.
In the ‘80s, John Njerere worked as an undersecretary in Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Higher Education. A promising up-and-comer, he quickly rose through the ranks, attaining in only nine months a position normally reserved for those with over a decade’s experience. But his success came at great cost: As the pressures mounted, John had a breakdown and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Because of the stigma attached to psychiatric problems in Africa, he lost all formal employment, and a man accustomed to high rank and great responsibility was forced to beg for his income. Although his wife traveled to South Africa seeking work, their family hovered on the brink of starvation. Continue Reading…
