GIFT OF HOPE ANNUAL REPORT

Transcription

1 GIFT OF HOPE ANNUAL REPORT GOOD NEWS DELIVERING THE GIFT OF THE TO A HURTING WORLD Thank you for providing the Gift of Hope to 79,170 children at Christmas!

2 Gift of Hope : For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me. (Matthew 25:35-36 ESV) Sometimes hope is found in the most unlikely places:... A church-turned-shelter in eastern Ukraine filled with refugees displaced by a brutal conflict, forced to flee their homes and villages and suffering the emotional and physical trauma of war A dilapidated orphanage in Belarus where hundreds of children and youth with mental and physical disabilities desperately long to be loved and welcomed into a caring family A spiritually darkened city in Kyrgyzstan where increasingly radical Islamic pressure from the government and society has driven Christians into hiding An isolated village in rural Mongolia where the light of the gospel has not yet reached, even though the hearts of the people hunger for hope and meaning... This past Christmas season, the life-changing Good News of Jesus was joyously proclaimed to children in these very places through our Gift of Hope outreach. Transformed by the light of the gospel and the dedication of our School Without Walls students, leaders, and other volunteers and ministry partners, Eurasia s most hopeless locations became sites of beauty and redemption. Your prayers and support enabled us to distribute a total of 79,170 Gifts of Hope and 113,400 copies of Scripture to children in Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Azerbaijan. Each Gift of Hope box filed with toys, treats, warm mittens or socks, and a children s Bible represents God s love to a suffering child and offers an invitation to experience the hope of Jesus and the blessings of Christian community. Thank you for your special involvement in the Gift of Hope movement, which is transforming the hearts and lives of Eurasia s children. Rejoice with us at the work our partnership in the gospel is accomplishing in Eurasia, by God s grace. Thank you for making these stories of hope and redemption possible with your prayers and support! Gift of Hope Impact Summary: Gifts of Hope distributed in : 79,170 gifts distributed in Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Azerbaijan Number of Scripture pieces distributed: 113,400 Number of volunteers, helpers, and participants (including our School Without Walls students and leaders): 6,167 Number of cities, towns, and villages where Gift of Hope outreach took place: 487 Number of local churches and ministries involved: Number of events that took place: Estimated number of people reached apart from the children (parents, family members, caregivers, orphanage workers): 89,065

3 Maksim and Valentina s Story: Special Love for a Special Child A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34-35) Valentina and her sweet son Maksim live in Sedelnikova, Russia a small, rural town in Arctic Siberia without a single church. Maksim is 10 years old and has Down syndrome. There is extreme stigma toward special needs children in the post-soviet countries of Eurasia, and Valentina and her husband are used to most people ignoring or rejecting Maksim. They often struggle to care for their son s special needs without a strong community of support. So when some of our School Without Walls (SWW) students and leaders visited Valentina s village to share the gospel and copies of God s Word, they saw the needs of her family and the needs of other families with special needs children who have been rejected by society. A few months later, in November, our SWW leaders conducted a seminar to support mothers of children with disabilities. In a culture that cruelly rejects children with special needs, the love and care of our SWW leaders towards special needs children stands out as a living, breathing example of Christ s love. Valentina eagerly attended this unique seminar, where she was warmly welcomed and received an invitation for a special Gift of Hope Christmas event at a newly planted church in Tara (a town 70 kilometers away) on December 25. On Christmas Day, Valentina and Maksim traveled many miles in the frigid cold to the church, unsure of what they would encounter but filled with anticipation. This family had never been to church before, but they were so moved by the kindness of the SWW leaders that they longed to see them again. Here is what they experienced in Valentina s own words: My son Maksim has Down syndrome, and everywhere he goes he is used to watching the other children play games that he cannot participate in. This Gift of Hope event was the first time my son received special love and attention from people outside our family. The whole event was a celebration for children with special needs children just like Maksim. We felt so loved and accepted, and for the first time Maksim was able to play games with the other children to his heart s content. We had so much fun playing together, opening Maksim s Gift of Hope box, and watching the Christmas program. Thank you to everyone who showed love to my son. Please continue doing events like this one for special children like ours! Maksim, age 10 Thank you for helping us reach families like Valentina and Maksim s with the love of Jesus at Christmas! Because of your kindness, Maksim and Valentina heard the gospel message for the first time and are now eager to continue learning more about the Good News they saw on display in the actions of our School Without Walls students and leaders.

4 Your Gifts at Work Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4-7) Gift of Hope Mission Trip to Moldova In January 2018, over the week of Orthodox Christmas (January 7), a group of Mission Eurasia staff and young Christians from the US traveled to Moldova to participate in the Gift of Hope outreach. It was incredible to see young American believers who were so inspired by the impact of Gift of Hope that they wanted to spend a week taking a hands-on role in distributing Gifts of Hope and sharing the love of Jesus alongside our Moldovan SWW students and leaders. Together they sang Christmas carols in Romanian, Russian, and English and placed Gifts of Hope in the hands of children in orphanages, churches, schools, and impoverished neighborhoods. Altogether, the team from the US working alongside our national leaders and volunteers distributed 1,500 Gifts of Hope in 12 villages during their trip. Thank you for sharing about Gift of Hope with your friends, neighbors, and family members: together, we are part of a movement that is inspiring Christians around the world to get involved in delivering the hope of Jesus to children across Eurasia! When we read about Heaven in the Bible, the imagery can seem abstract and far off from our present circumstances, but when we read John s vision of the throne surrounded by a multitude from every tribe, tongue, people and nation standing together, worshipping the Lamb, a bit of Heaven comes into focus. The four days I spent with a team of Moldovan and American youth delivering Gifts of Hope to children in the villages of Moldova were a brief glimpse of that future reality. What an honor to serve with these young people and witness the eagerness of the kids as they waited to receive their gifts and then to watch their delight and enthusiasm as they discovered what was inside! It was a precious and joyful time sharing Gifts of Hope and the truth of Christ in Moldova with many children and their parents. Please pray the seeds planted will take root and many of these children and families will join in the eternal worship of our King! Amy, Moldova mission trip participant from Minnesota Sharing God s Love with the Fatherless Much of our Gift of Hope outreach takes place in locations forgotten by the rest of society, particularly orphanages and group homes for children with disabilities. Jesus command to care for the little children is taken very seriously by our School Without Walls students and leaders. We see the image of God in the face of each orphaned and abandoned child we encounter, and the plight of each suffering child reminds us that we, too, are God s children, adopted into His family through Jesus. Several years ago, through a Gift of Hope outreach to an orphanage in Minsk, Belarus, our SWW students met Alexander, who was enthusiastically responsive to the gospel message and eagerly devoured the stories in the illustrated children s Bible he received. Much to their delight when they visited the orphanage again this Christmas, our SWW students heard Alexander now 14 years old retelling the Bible stories by heart to the younger children in the orphanage. Alexander was thrilled to see our SWW students again and talk about Jesus with them. Thank you for your generous and compassionate giving to our Gift of Hope outreach, which is inviting Eurasia s orphaned and abandoned children to experience the love of Christian community and a relationship with their Heavenly Father!

5 Your Gifts at Work A Christmas Miracle for Refugees in Eastern Ukraine Not only are the thousands of families displaced by the war in eastern Ukraine unable to buy Christmas gifts for their children, they are also unable to purchase basic necessities such as food, clothing, and firewood to heat their homes. That is why when our SWW students and leaders in eastern Ukraine deliver Gift of Hope boxes and Scripture at Christmas, they also bring nutritious food packs, clothing, and firewood to help these families safely make it through the harsh winter months. It is very difficult to feed a family of five in eastern Ukraine, shared Dmitry, one of the men our SWW students met during their Gift of Hope outreach. Most people here don t have enough money to buy basic necessities, and if one of our children gets sick, a trip to the pharmacy to buy medicine costs an entire month s income. In order to put food on the table, Dmitry decided his family wouldn t buy Christmas gifts this year, and his three children were devastated. They couldn t believe their eyes when our SWW students showed up at their house with armfuls of gifts, Scripture, food, and firewood for the family. Dmitry, his wife, and children were all eager to listen to the Christmas story, and they couldn t wait to continue learning more about Jesus through the copies of God s Word that we gave them. Thank you for helping us be the hands and feet of Jesus to refugees in eastern Ukraine through Gift of Hope! Changing Hearts of Stone: Gift of Hope Outreach to the Muslim Community Chechnya, located in Russia s North Caucasus, is a region where radical Islam is growing fast. As our School Without Walls (SWW) students prepared to host a Gift of Hope Christmas event in a village in Chechnya, they were approached by a group of Muslim village leaders who threatened their lives if they continued with the Christmas party. One of our SWW leaders bravely challenged them: Doesn t the Qur an say that Jesus is coming to judge the world? Don t you want to honor His birth? The Muslim leaders talked among themselves for a while, and then miraculously they apologized and agreed that they wanted to honor Jesus as a prophet, and they allowed the Christmas outreach to continue uninterrupted. In another village in Chechnya, three policemen interrupted one of our Gift of Hope events and tried to confiscate the Christian literature our SWW students were distributing. Our SWW students did not know what to do except pray that God would redeem the situation. When the police called the mayor of the town, the mayor ordered the police officers to stop bothering our SWW students. The mayor said that he was familiar with Gift of Hope and he knew that we only bring love, peace, and hope to the families we serve. The police officers had such a change of heart that instead of confiscating the Gifts of Hope and Scripture, they began to help our SWW students distribute them! Thank you for praying for our Gift of Hope outreach, particularly for our School Without Walls students and leaders who are braving many challenges to their faith in order to share the hope of Jesus with children at Christmas! After I met you, I told my family that I had talked with good people who believe in Jesus Christ and want to bring light, hope, and peace to others. At first, my family wasn t happy that I was spending time with Christians, but after you visited our home, brought us gifts, and told us the story of Jesus birth, my relatives acknowledged that I am making friends with the right kind of people, who truly share light, hope, and peace. Fatima, from Chechnya, Russia

6 Thank You for Your Special Role in Gift of Hope! As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God s varied grace in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 4:10-11) Thank you for helping us bring the hope of Jesus to places that look hopeless from a human perspective, but from a Kingdom perspective are ready for a rich gospel harvest. Thanks to your unique gifts financial support, prayer, enthusiasm, and partnership this Christmas, we watched firsthand as the gospel transformed the lives of thousands of children and families as they began a personal relationship with their Savior. 79,170 Gifts of Hope. 113,400 copies of God s Word. 89,065 parents, family members, and caregivers. This is the impact of Gift of Hope in And it is ever growing and expanding as the children and families touched by Gift of Hope share the Good News with others, and an unstoppable gospel movement spreads throughout Eurasia. Each Gift of Hope in the hands of each child tangibly represents God s love, the love of our School Without Walls students and leaders, and the love of our supporters who give generously so that each child in Eurasia can know true hope. Thank you for your role in our Gift of Hope outreach! When I first heard that Christians wanted to hold a Christmas event for our children, I didn t believe it. We live far away from major cities, and the roads around here are very dangerous. But then you came, led an excellent program, and distributed beautiful gifts, Scripture, and Christian DVDs to our children. I couldn t help but cry when I saw how happy they all were. So many of them were abandoned by their parents, but like you said, they are never alone, because Jesus loves them. Thank you! -Anzor, from Russia s North Caucasus