Home » Page 71

HOPE Intl

Jul 18 2013

HOPE Intl

 Staff / Travels Stories we love
, , ,

Unexpected generosity

I’m currently sitting on a plane, flying back from a week of experiencing Rwanda and all the beauty that is held in this land of a thousand hills. It has been a week of experiencing “beauty over poverty,” as my colleague Chris Horst describes it.

Behind Rwanda’s surface-level reputation for genocide and desolation is a thriving and ambitious country full of hard-working people and innovative ideas. Rwanda is blossoming; it is being restored. It is a beautiful thing to witness. In the folds of poverty, individuals are finding dignity. They are experiencing fullness of life. Continue Reading…

 permalink Leave a comment

HOPE Intl

Jul 17 2013

HOPE Intl

 News
, , , , ,

Jump rope for HOPE

Youth group jumping rope

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…

 permalink Leave a comment

HOPE Intl

Jul 10 2013

HOPE Intl

 Staff / Travels Stories we love
,

Journeying with our God

I am on a plane approaching Nashville after spending a day interacting with clients of Esperanza International—HOPE’s partner in the Dominican Republic—in their businesses, in their homes, and on their streets in the Dominican Republic.

Yesterday I found myself walking down a muddy road from a bank meeting where we listened to clients lifting their voices to God in worship and reading from Scripture. We made the commute to one client’s business. A 10-minute walk and we had arrived at Anita’s corner store. Anita called to her daughter to open the store as we approached and soon we were peering into the small part of her home that doubles as a shop where people on her street pick up snacks and cold drinks. She explained to us with a joy-filled smile how business had been that morning. The customers had just kept coming, buying bread and milk powder for their children’s breakfast. From 6:50 a.m. until she closed up to make her way to the loan meeting, she had served customer after customer. Continue Reading…

 permalink Leave a comment

HOPE Intl

Jun 24 2013

HOPE Intl

 Microfinance Photos / Media
, , ,

Filled with every blessing

When Tom Rakabopa and Central Baptist Church first reached out to families living in poverty in Harare, Zimbabwe, they distributed food and other items to fill the great needs they saw in their community. But as he saw some of the unintended consequences of this work, Tom began dreaming of ways they could transition to long-term development. That dream came true when a partnership with HOPE International helped Central Baptist Church begin savings and credit associations (SCAs) in their community, training groups of individuals to save their own money as a safety net in emergencies, to start or expand a business, and to pay routine expenses like school fees.

 

 

 permalink Leave a comment

Anna Stukenberg

Jun 24 2013

Anna Stukenberg

 Staff / Travels
, , ,

A HOPE family reunion

“A family reunion—that’s what this is,” I found myself thinking as I looked around the room filled with HOPE staff from around the world.

Having had the privilege of experiencing HOPE a month longer than the other interns, I knew that the culture was one defined by warmth, relationships, and a staunch consistency in practicing the biblical principles it preaches. But looking around me on the final day of the 2013 Leadership Summit, the week-long conference for international and domestic HOPE staff, I was blown away, yet again, by the heart of HOPE. Continue Reading…

 permalink Leave a comment

HOPE Intl

Jun 17 2013

HOPE Intl

 Stories we love
, ,

A full house

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 previous few weeks, we posted the stories of this year’s winner and four honorable mentions to the blog. Today we celebrate the final honorable mention, Lelah* from Central Asia.

In a cramped, 10-by-16-foot room in Central Asia, Lelah worked tirelessly to provide for not one family but three. After her husband’s two brothers died in wartime conflict, she took in her widowed sisters-in-law and their eight children, caring for them along with her own four children. When her husband’s chronic shaking and loss of muscle control left him unable to work, Lelah found herself the sole provider for 16 people.

Continue Reading…

 permalink Leave a comment