This week at Bright Hope, finishing touches were made to allow 1,400 children to be fed in the slums of Mathare Valley in Nairobi, Kenya. Henry Chu, one of our project specialist here at Bright Hope, helped in facilitating this project. Read more details about it by clicking here!
If someone offered a truckload of anything you wanted and delivered it to your front door at no cost to you, what would be on your “wish list?”
Maybe you’d ask for a houseful of new furniture, new appliances or a newly remodeled kitchen. For the poor around the world, their wish list is quite different. For many, it’s a simple request for the most important gift of all… their very own Bible. Some would rather have this gift before any shipment of food, clothing or even shelter. Because our focus in serving the poor has always been care of the body, mind and spirit, Bibles have always been included in our Med Pack and Hope Pack gift boxes to children and families. We’re told that they are one of the most treasured items received.
For a poor mother in a rural village, basic medical supplies are what she most wants to see on that truck. Things as simple as a band aid or antibiotic cream could mean the difference between life and death for one of her children. For the doctors and nurses trying to provide basic medical care, life-saving medical supplies and equipment are the most desirable items. This past March, our partner in Zambia, Africa, joyfully celebrated the shipment of an entire year’s worth of medicine, including much-needed malaria medication for distribution through a hospital in Samfya. These supplies will help an estimated 40,000 people in the area at a cost per treatment of 31 cents!
The best news of all?
The total cost for shipping over one million dollars of donated medicine was only $12,500! These supplies are now being distributed to grateful families in the region. For a teacher who is barely earning a living wage and often doesn’t have access to simple items such as pencils and paper, imagine watching hundreds of textbooks, computers, school supplies and even food for your students appearing from the truck. For a hungry child, we are sending entire containers of nutritious food to our partners for only the cost of shipping. These shipments are providing tens of thousands of nutritious meals to hungry children per year.
For the children we serve, we’re not only helping to feed hungry bodies, but hungry minds as well. Bright Hope was recently able to ship a million dollars of textbooks to school children in Zambia — for a total cost of $10,000!
Your help with our shipments of food, shoes, computers, bicycles, Bibles, textbooks and gardening tools will continue to pour out blessings to tens of thousands of people in need. Plans are now under way to ship a container to the Philippines with all the contents for an entire medical clinic, including new equipment and supplies obtained at a drastically reduced cost. This new clinic will be associated with the local church. Christian doctors will provide the kind of basic care that has been needed for a very long time in this impoverished community.
However, we need your help. We can purchase all the contents for this clinic, rent the facility and ship it for a total cost of $57,600. Please help today. Every donation of any size will help us accomplish this goal. The impact of your gift will be multiplied tenfold through our Relief en Route container shipments.
For more information about this project or to make a donation, click here.
On May 16th, 2009 in the towns of Hoffman Estates, Springfield, West Chicago and Woodstock were overtaken by individuals ready to make a difference in this world.
Records were set when 1347 people participated in the 5K Run/3K Walk. Current estimates show that through this event there was $104,626 raised in a bold effort to change the future for orphans and vulnerable children through out the world. For more information on how you can still donate to the race and to see the Race Results go to: www.runforhungrychildren.org.
If you attended the race click below to participate in our 11 question survey!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=p1Fi75XgN_2bhNJtVCzXUYRg_3d_3d
Big things happen every day at the Bright Hope Headquarters. Going forward, we will be posting the significant movements in how we are striving to help the poor, weekly.
Get ready- next year’s race is set for: May 15th, 2010!
At Bright Hope, we partner with people we call “Extreme Heroes” — people who are willing to put their lives on the line to share the Gospel, serve the poor and stand beside the most rejected, marginalized people in the world. These are the people you directly support when you partner with us.
Juana Choque Copa is a young single woman in Bolivia who left her well-paying job in the city to return to her grandparents’ home village “in the middle of nowhere,” so she could share the love and hope of Jesus Christ with the 200 people living there. She has single-handedly established a church, feeding center, educational opportunities and community services to help the people in need.
Jephthe Lucien, our partner in Haiti, grew up in this severely impoverished country but refuses to leave it behind. Every day, he and his wife stand up to the challenge of overseeing their network of 23 churches. He fights for funding to feed and educate the hungry and malnourished children in these church communities. Jephthe battles daily against this country’s overwhelming poverty and despair. Yet he never gives up.
Then there is our partner in North India. He tells me that his life has been seriously threatened nine times, because he dares to stand up to religious extremists who wage war against his pastor training centers. Yet, he continues to proclaim the Gospel to crowds of people, hold Bible training classes and visit with his pastors in the rural villages.
Our heroes also defy the traditional definition of the word. They are the grandmothers in Kenya, living in 7×7 foot shacks in large, overcrowded slums. These elderly women struggle every day to provide for their young grandchildren, following the early deaths of their own children through diseases such as malaria and AIDS. And they are the children all over the globe who come to school in the hope that they may someday become doctors, engineers or teachers. They are the rural mothers and fathers who wake up every morning to farm the little piece of land they have, in their daily attempts to feed their families and hopefully have a little left over to sell.
Our ministry leaders and those they serve are our Extreme Heroes, and hopefully yours as well. They are our partners, in every sense of the word. We stand beside them in their battle to survive one more day. Giving them support, encouragement and resources is the driving force for everyone here at Bright Hope. It’s what ignites us, compels us and stirs us to reach out to you, our allies, to stand with us.
To learn more about our projects around the world and the people who make them possible, click here to visit our Project page and select a Country or Project Category.
Our North India partner is meeting new believers, discipling them in the Lord and training the ones who want to become pastors and teachers so they can spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to everyone they meet. This is how an entire nation will be transformed — through the sold-out lives of people excited by their faith.
Through the sacrificial work of our India partner and those they train, God is bringing Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists into full relationship with Jesus Christ. The stories of these transformations are happening every day.
Bright Hope is helping our India partner to build the pastor training center in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, in the capital of Lucknow. The land has been purchased and plans are under way to build the training center. It will replace the small six-room house that is now home to the groups of students who live in its very cramped quarters. Once this center is built, more teaching and training can take place. Hundreds of these trained pastors will go out into their home communities to serve the physical, economic and spiritual needs of their people.
This center will provide the foundation for these dedicated people to go out into the surrounding communities and meet the physical and economic needs of the people there — most of whom are destitute and in great need.
We’re committing to help build the center’s lecture hall, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and dorm rooms for men and women — a total of 6,754 square feet. This building will be basic and sparse, but a great blessing for the people who are giving their entire lives to serve others.
The cost per square foot is approximately $25. Your willingness to help now will change lives for eternity in India. How many square feet can you build?
To learn more about this project and make a donation, click here.
In developing countries, the opportunity to attend school means much more than classrooms and textbooks. First and foremost, it represents a glimpse at a future outside the grip of poverty. For many, it means clothing on their back and food in their stomachs, and most important, the chance to experience the love and saving power of Jesus Christ.
The majority of Bright Hope’s projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America include an educational component for children. This is vital in giving children hope and a sense of purpose for their lives. With your help, we are buying textbooks, paying for uniforms and school fees, supporting teacher’s salaries, building dormitories and classrooms, and opening up promising new possibilities for some of the poorest children in the world. These children are no different from our own, except for the opportunities they will or will not have. They have the same kinds of dreams for their future that any child has.
When we speak to them, they talk about becoming doctors, nurses, engineers and teachers. Through their schooling, they start to feel that they may one day accomplish something that will help them to break out of abject poverty and provide for their loved ones.
With your support of our work, we can continue to assist our partners, who frequently operate as the hub of the local school. Children in countries like Peru and Haiti are receiving a midday meal, often their only meal of the day. This meal is critical in keeping children alert enough to learn.
To give to the ongoing work of Bright Hope International, click here.
To watch the Bright Hope Channel on YouTube, click here.
The first thing Oscar planned to do was to put on his “arrow-proof” vest.
I’ve heard of a bullet-proof vest, but this was a new concept to me — a vest that would keep the sharp edges of arrows from penetrating the skin. I first heard about it through our partner in Peru — a man by the name of Oscar Tello who spends his days and nights reaching out to the “hidden” people of this country - those living in remote jungle villages.
Oscar needed a vest like this for his mission. He planned to take a 20 hour bus trip from the city of Lima, followed by a canoe trip, to the outskirts of a Peruvian village in the jungle region known as Pucallpa. The people here are members of the Shipibo tribe.
Oscar planned to slowly walk up to the outskirts of this village and place a gift of food, cooking tools or other useful items on the ground. Then, he’d carefully turn around and walk away, praying that an arrow didn’t follow him.
This is a very dangerous mission, and one that calls for extreme care. “The people in these villages are not only defensive of their homes” Oscar said, “but on the offense as well toward any stranger who approaches them.” But he was up to the task. He’s done it before.
If the villagers accepted Oscar’s first gift, he planned to present another one in a day or so. Once he had gained the trust of the villagers and they determined he meant no harm, they may allow him inside their village to speak with them.
Oscar’s goal in this entire process was this: to gain the trust of the people in this “hidden” village so he and his team could share the love and truth of Jesus Christ to people who have never even heard His name.
I just learned that this time, by God’s grace, just as Oscar was about to embark on this mission, he met up with a native man from inside the tribe. This man was able to bring Oscar and his team safely into the village.
“After our initial visit, we spend time with the people, showing them unconditional love and acceptance,” Oscar explained. “Once they get used to seeing us, they begin to ask us why we are there, which leads to our talking about the love of Jesus Christ and His gift of eternal life.”
“You have to be willing to give your life if necessary,” Oscar stated matter-of-factly. “It will be worth it if the people learn about Jesus and the Bible.”
Last month, I told you about a “modern day Apostle Paul”, who took similar risks in a spiritually hostile place in India. Oscar is our “Modern Day Jim Elliot”, reaching out in a similar way to the unreached in Peru.
When asked what Oscar most wanted to share with you, the people of America, I thought he may want to appeal to us for financial support for his work in Peru. His answer surprised and humbled me…
“There are many tribes and villages here in Peru who need someone to come and serve them,” he said. “We all have something to give to God while we are alive. God has given us only a short time here on this earth, and we need to be willing to share greater levels of love and sacrifice toward others in the days we are given.”
Oscar, his wife and their six month old daughter Brianna plan to spend even more time living among the “hidden” people of Peru and sharing the Gospel with them. He and his team also help to meet basic needs for food, clean water, education and other daily essentials. With your help, together we can bring the Good News and physical aid to more families in these remote villages and towns.
To read more about the Segadores project in Peru and/or make a donation, click here.
To see additional Stories of the Month, visit the Bright Hope Channel on YouTube.
There is a group of roughly one hundred women, living in a remote jungle area in northern Uganda known as Apac. Most of these women are widowed. They’ve lost their husbands to war, disease or AIDS. Many ended up in a nearby refugee camp when they fled for their lives to avoid a violent rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army. Most of the women have children in need of food, clothing and shelter. They have very little opportunity to earn a daily living. Most live in small mud huts with roofs of thatched grass. And, in addition to these overwhelming challenges, most of the women are HIV-positive.
This group of women is served by Eagle’s Nest Ministries in Uganda. To read more about Eagle’s Nest and/or make a donation, click here.
To see additional Stories of the Month, visit the Bright Hope Channel on YouTube.
When my plane left Haiti in November of 2006 and landed in Florida, the first thing I did was press the knob that gave me all the clean drinking water I would ever desire. At home, I hugged my wife and wept as I told her about Haiti where children worked on one meal a day with little opportunity for an education, where there were broken wells, and houses made of sticks and mud. Yet, I had made many dear Haitian friends even with the Creole/ English language barrier.
I had recently retired from teaching high school and it had always been our my wife’s and my desire to find more avenues to use God’s gifts, talents and skills. When Mike Rutter from Bright Hope asked me to go to Haiti, I was excited about the opportunity. I had many soul searching questions including whether Bright Hope and individuals could make a difference in what to me seemed a hopeless situation.
One of the first things we did in the town of Pignon was to help deliver Hope Packs (small gift boxes) to the children. As a former teacher, I was deeply moved because all I saw were children with pencils and spiral notebooks. In Haiti, there were no textbooks, and the only tool the teacher had was a worn out blackboard and a piece of chalk. The children laughed with delight at receiving their Hope Packs, which contained school supplies, small toys, a tee shirt and even a Bible. Later, a rotary club sent a shipment of Creole/English picture dictionaries that thrilled the teachers.
As I toured the village, I met a man who was doing carpentry work and I handed him a donated hand tool. Delighted with the gift, he invited me into his tiny Haitian home to see some of his work and meet his family. There is no welfare system in Haiti and the people are looking for opportunities to improve their lives.
Our team stayed with Pastor Jephthe Lucien, Bright Hope’s Haiti partner. Pastor Jephthe is well respected in his church and among the villagers. He gave me the job of building school desks with the Haitian men. We communicated through pantomiming and laughter. As a result, God knitted our hearts together.
Another time, returning from a walk in the village, I encountered a woman coming back from a spring with a wheelbarrow full of water containers. I insisted on doing the job for her while she and her friends chattered and laughed to see an American man doing what in Haiti is women’s work. I’m inclined to agree with my wife who said, “Laughter like music is a universal language.”
On the last day I was there, Pastor Jephthe asked me if I would consider working with him to help build a trade school. I now have a vision that by partnering with Bright Hope, I can make a difference in what I had at first thought was a hopeless situation.
By: Larry Schuerr, Bright Hope Volunteer and Supporter
Below - Larry Pictured with some of the new friends he is seeking to help.
We shared with you the exciting news about how your generous support reached the people of Haiti following Tropical Storm Hanna. Bright Hope’s Haiti partner was at the Bright Hope headquarters recently and shared his experience with us.
