Archives For community

Home » community

If you’ve ever stayed in a vacation rental or hotel, you know the challenge of trying to open an unfamiliar front door. There are key locksets, deadbolts, pin pads, chain locks, card readers—usually with multiple layers of security in place. Maybe you key in the right code, but an engaged deadbolt keeps the door from budging. 

At HOPE International, we see poverty a bit like a locked door. Families are standing at the door and working hard to open it—but it takes unlocking not just one but multiple latches to make it possible to enter. 

Continue Reading…

For six years, Valentin worked and pastored from Italy while his wife, children, and home church remained in Moldova.  

“The children grew up and grew up without me,” he says. “And the second thing was the church, and everything I did was done remotely [as the pastor].” He pauses. “It was a very hard time for me.” 

Valentin’s situation is a familiar one in Moldova, where many family members face the difficult choice to move abroad for work and send money home to provide for their families. In 2025, these types of payments back home to family members, known as personal remittances, made up 9.4% of Moldova’s GDP—compared to a world average of 0.8% that same year, according to the World Bank. 

Continue Reading…

In 2024, Diaconía—HOPE International’s partner in Paraguay—asked the entrepreneurs they serve a simple question: What do you need most?

The answer was surprising. Instead of pointing to business loans or training, clients repeated again and again that they needed access to capital to build or improve their homes. In Paraguay, it’s common for homes to be made from temporary materials and lack the space or stability to safely support family life and a growing business.

Diaconía—rooted in their desire to share the Gospel by meeting the practical needs of the people they serve—listened. And by August 2025, they were ready to respond.

Continue Reading…

Edgar Dela Cruz lived for many years in Manila, Philippines without a home, without work, and without a way to provide for himself. 

“When we were on the streets, life was really hard—if we had nothing to eat, I ended up stealing,” he says. Sometimes, he recalls, he and others living without a home were arrested, despite not breaking any laws. 

Through it all, he held on to an unwavering hope that God would lead him to a brighter tomorrow.  

“We had nothing to hold on to except the Word of God,” Edgar shares. “That is what we held on to, believing that our lives would get better and we had nothing to fear.”  

By the grace of God, his life was about to flourish beyond what he could have ever imagined.   Continue Reading…

By Alisa Hoober, HOPE Board Member

Earlier this year, I had the incredible opportunity to visit HOPE International’s work in Zambia.

I’ve traveled and seen poverty before, but being with my children changed how I related to those I met. It was a blessing to visit with our whole family, especially with my three young daughters.

At home, we pray for HOPE and support their work—but showing our children HOPE in action was something I won’t forget. Continue Reading…

Imagine your lunch break being interrupted by bombs exploding in the next town over. Hearing of war coming closer on the news. Realizing that to remain safe, you and your family need to leave your home. Packing up your car and waiting in traffic for hours. Living in another family’s house for months, not knowing if you’ll ever make it back home.  

This is the reality for millions of Ukrainian men, women, and children today. Two years after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United Nations Refugee Agency, or UNHCR, estimates that there are now 3.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Ukraine. 

Many in eastern Ukraine fled west, now living as IDPs with Ukrainian host families. As the war continues, they’ve had to adjust to being far from home with no end date. It hasn’t been an easy road.  

Yet even amid loss and adjusting to a new life, these families are displaying determination, community-mindedness, and generosity. And at HOPE International, we’re dedicated to walking with Ukraine’s men and women—as we have been since 1997. 
Continue Reading…