Bright Hope has found a new friend. I’d like you to meet Water4. They’re an awesome organization with the mission to bring clean water to the extreme poor. Did you know 200 children die every minute from water-borne diseases? But with a $20 copyright-free pump that can be made in any country and hand drilling technology Water4 is beginning to change that statistic.

With kindred hearts for the extreme poor, Bright Hope and Water4 became quick friends and quickly found ways to work together. In Zambia, Samfya Community of Care Providers (SCCP) is using the technology to create jobs, drill wells and install pumps that will water the kitchen gardens being planted with Bright Hope’s micro loan. In Haiti, the $20 pump will be installed in hundreds of wells that were destroyed by the earthquake. Working together we are accomplishing powerful acts of love.

We’re always excited to connect with others working on behalf of the extreme poor. We are certain, day by day, we are making an impact in the lives of those living on less than $1 a day.

Thank you to all who came together for the incredibly successful Hope4Haiti Event!

 More than 1,300 people volunteered. Collectively we packed 270,864 meals.

Exceeding Our Goal!

You can still get involved by Clicking HERE!

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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!

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.

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