Sometimes I lay in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling, on my comfortable bed and think of the family living under the bridge. The thoughts slowly surface when I visit the four corners of my ceiling. It’s a big room. I have it all to myself. What does it feel like to come home to a four foot high space under a bridge? Does the father feel like a good provider? How does the mother make it feel like home?

It’s hard to grasp global poverty. What does it mean that 1,000,000,000 people live on less than $1 a day? What does it feel like to grow up in an urban slum? What does home look like?

In 2005 Jonas Bendiksen set out on a two year journey to document the life in the slums of four different cities: Nairobi, Kenya; Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Caracas, Venezuela. He returned and set about sharing his story. Along with a book and museum exhibition in D.C. he published a website called theplaceswelive.com.

I remember seeing it for the first time. It gripped my heart and stirred my soul, birthing a deep desire for justice. I sat and listened to the families tell their stories and panned around their home in disbelief. How could anyone live like this?

Glimpses of reality like this are why I’m involved with Bright Hope. The problem is enormous but when I remember the families I know it matters to them. Check it out for yourself.

Located in the heart of one of Santiago’s poorest communities our partner, Fuente de Vida Para Las Naciones (Foundation of Life for the Nations) is a light in the darkness. They have seen the love of Jesus heal the wounds of a suicidal father, break drug and alcohol addictions, restore marriages and reunite families.

The church, with a new outreach idea, came to Bright Hope for help. They were very excited and explained their vision for a community center. It would be a safe place where the abandon and hopeless could find love, acceptance and even a hot meal.  They would bring in the elderly, the teenage alcoholics and the drug addicts. They wanted to provide classes, skills training and entertainment. They wanted to provide an alternative, a place of warmth and unconditional love. They wanted to be the manifestation of Jesus’ love.

Today, we’re very happy to report the community center is receiving its final touches. Their dream is becoming reality! Bright Hope is proud to support their outreach to the poor and outcast. We also just heard their church has doubled in size since the earthquake. They truly are shining the light of Jesus. It’s an undeniable love! We’re proud to call Fuente de Vida our partner, for more information check out their profile.

Bright Hope is on the brink of unveiling a large campaign to help the poor.

This is like nothing we have ever done in the past - this is Run For Hungry Children BIG!

For a life changing experience make sure your calendar is cleared for October 22-25.

Keep checking in to Bright Hope’s Homepage and this blog for details.

On August 5th, Bright Hope Staff helped package, load and ship a container to Haiti. En route as we speak are: 100,000 meals for a school feeding program, notebooks and pencils for all 2,500 students and that is just for the students!

The schools (a total of 17 this year!) will receive chalkboard paint, a large supply of chalk, along with markers and crayons and that is just for the schools. 89 Bikes were added to the shipment as motivation for the Teachers. All of these gifts will greatly increase the quality of education the students will receive.

For pictures of the Haiti Shipment click here!

But the work isn’t finished yet. We still need help to pack 270,000 MORE meals to go to Haiti.

To be apart of an amazing experience clear your schedules for October 22-25.

Details to follow!

Collin Alto Baptist church has opened up to the community by adding over 20 new people to jamming project. The church was overwhelmed when the church filled up one Sunday morning with people interested in being part of the program.

In past, evangelistic efforts they had been happy with two to three visitors. This day they had over twenty, so needless to say the project has seen fruit in numerous ways… Click Here to Read More!

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.

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.

Bright Hope is reaching out to a group of people known as the Mapuche Indians, who live in a rural South American town in Chile.  Over the years, some have unfairly tried to characterize these families as “lazy and without initiative,” but Mark Lennox, Bright Hope’s Latin American Partnership Developer, told us the exact opposite after he visited this area.  He found a community of people (all centered around their local church) with a strong vision and an impressive start to two new job creation initiatives that are impacting over 600 people in the area.  All they lack are a few simple tools and materials to develop and expand their ventures.

The woman pictured here is Marta Cheque Marin.  She is 41 years old and lives in this community. While her husband finds work works wherever he can, Marta gets up every morning, puts on a pair of rubber boots to feed the chickens and pigs, cleans the house, prepares the family meals and works in their vegetable garden. “I work hard so my children have bus fare to go to school every day,” she said.  “Sometimes they need to buy a book, but I cannot help them with that.”

The families have beautiful fruit trees growing on their land.  “The fruit falls from our trees here, but we don’t have what we need to make the jam, so what we don’t eat just goes bad and we have to feed it to the pigs,” Marta said.  “If we had sugar, jam jars and a few other things, we could make and sell the jam.  This would help our children and improve our living conditions,” she concluded. The timing of this funding is very important, because the fruit is ripe for jam production each year in the months of November and December.

The Mapuche men have their own hope for a business enterprise as well:  First and foremost, they want to be able to stay in town with their families, but the need for work often drives them out to surrounding areas.  They are currently helping the women with the start-up jam business, but their vision is to develop a woodworking and furniture making enterprise using available wood in their area.  They have the wood but not enough tools and equipment to grow this enterprise enough so they can work locally and remain in their own homes.

Your gift will help propel this community toward their goal of getting their new enterprises established and strengthened.  These new ventures will strengthen the local church, the families and the entire community.

Click to hear learn more and make donation to this project

Dorsilien has four children and one two-year old grandchild.  Their youngest child Jesunie became very sick and the family had to spend most of their money on her medical expenses. 

“The help we are getting now shows me that I really find my family in the church,” he said.  “I was forced out of the community where I was living because gangsters came to my house and beat me in my head.  They stole everything I had.  Our main work is farming, but as you know, depending on farming can cause you to die of hunger as you wait for crops to grow and mature.  With our micro loan money, we bought seeds but as we wait for seed to produce, we have the rice to eat.”

“I call each bag of rice a “savior”, because it is saving our lives and those of our children.”

If you have spent any time on our website in recent months, it is likely that you will have seen our project called, ”Dirt Cookies.”  Because of drastically escalating food prices in Haiti, many of the country’s poor have resorted to eating cookies made of dirt as a way to manage their hunger pains until other food can be found or purchased.  In response to this crisis, Bright Hope started a relief and development project aimed at helping some of the poorest people in Pignon, Haiti.  A micro-loan was provided to 280 families to pay for seeds and gardening tools.  It is our hope that within three months, the gardens will be producing food for consumption.  While families wait for their gardens to grow, they receive bags of rice to sustain and nourish them.   Little did we know how much hope a simple bag of rice could bring to a struggling family.  

Andy is a unique boy and stands out among the rest of the boys in the Recreo program. We never see Andy smile among the rest of his peers who are always laughing and smiling. At first we thought he was a rebel and/or indifferent to everything around him, but as we have gotten to know him, we are slowly coming to realize the story behind this young boy’s angry face.

Even though it is hard for us to understand why he is so removed and indifferent, there is something about Andy that has caught our attention. Andy never misses a day of the program; he is always there on time and ready to get started. We also noticed that he strives to keep his personal life in order with his special way of writing in his notebooks.

At the end of the year, there is an award giving ceremony in order to motivate the kids. This year Andy was the winner of the “Best Attendance Award”. He won a soccer ball, which is one of the greatest gifts you can give to a boy who lives in a poor marginalized neighborhood. That day was the first time that we saw his smile, and found out what a beautiful smile he really has. His smile has impacted us and shown us the incredible transformation that is going on in Andy through the Recreo Program.