Stories
More than income for her family
Uncertainty rocked Vanna Keo* after her husband accepted Christ. She had never met any Christians before, and now her husband was one. After Keo accepted Christ as well, their Muslim community turned against them and the family fell upon hard times.
At-risk children central to church’s Gospel task
… It begins in Wichita, where more than 600,000 people live in the metro area. [The church’s website says] “We believe church-planting can reach the darkest corners of our city for Christ. City Life is committed to … send out gospel-driven, city-focused people to declare and demonstrate the gospel to the people of our city.” At-risk children are a key part of that commitment, with at least 50 City Life members involved in various aspects of outreach to families in crisis; 15 families are either licensed for foster care or in the process of being licensed.
Don’t give up the fight against trafficking!
Zeina* has been on the streets of Hamburg, Germany, for several years. She came from Africa by way of Spain, where her children live and depend on her income for their schooling and livelihood. She longs for her children to have a better life than she has had and works hard to provide that for them. Her “work” has led her to the streets. As an uneducated foreigner, her options are limited. No others pay as well as the prostitute’s wage. Zeina wants out. She recognizes that this life is not a good one. But getting out is not as easy as it sounds.
Syria: The sounds of war echo in the children’s ears
With dirt on her face, the small girl shyly approached the crowd holding a pack of lighters for sale. Barely reaching the height of an adult’s waist, she glanced upward at passersby asking in Arabic if they would purchase one of her multicolored lighters. When asked how old she was, she responded shyly that she was 4.
Micro-business: Practical skills and life lessons in Tibet
Lujung Dhopa understands loneliness. Widowed at age 20 after her husband of six years died in a Himalayan snowstorm, the ethnic Tibetan woman had nowhere to turn. As one of the rare followers of Jesus — fewer than 2 percent of ethnic Tibetans identify themselves as Christian — Lujung felt God’s presence through the early days of her grief. “With my God, I cried to my God. I talked to my God. My God stayed with me,” she says.
‘Railway boys’ in India find a home
Life for boys living in India’s railway stations is a real-life “Hunger Games.” If they don’t fight, they’ll be killed. If they don’t find food and survive in this arena, they’ll starve on the train tracks.
LoveLoud in New Orleans
Sue Yocum thought the man was crazy. He had approached her in Washington Square Park during one of her daily strolls with her daughter, Lena, who was only seven months old. “Your baby is very pretty,” the man had said. The proud mother thanked him, but his next comment took her by surprise. “Can I buy her?” he asked.
True life transformation for impoverished girls
The small, ramshackle “home” sits just feet from the edge of railroad tracks. The house made of corrugated tin, bamboo, plastic tarps and wood is one small room shared by a family of six. The roof leaks when it rains and looks in danger of collapsing. But this home is all 10-year-old Farjana’s family can — barely — afford.
Syria refugee: ‘Here we are, dying from hunger …’
In Syria, Khalid* and his family were self-sufficient. Then war changed everything. Attacks on their village sent them fleeing to a neighboring country. The family walked day and night, in freezing cold and rain, for four days. They were welcomed in Jordan and given warm clothes, but they had no way to make new lives for themselves. “We fled from Syria so our women and children would be safe,” Khalid says, “and here we are, dying from hunger and lack of shelter.”
Life on Nairobi’s streets: Oscar’s story
A touching first-person account of being the hands and feet of Jesus to a street kid in Nairobi’s Riverside district.
Behind the lens in Thailand’s red light districts
A multimedia producer shares her personal account of what she felt, heard and witnessed as she traveled to one of the largest cities in Thailand to photograph women lured into the sex industry.
Jordan clinic brings healing, hope to refugees
When refugees discover the staff at Hope Clinic in Amman, Jordan, are going to treat them like human beings loved by God, they often say, “You are the only people who have ever treated us as something more than dogs.”
Sierra Leone: War Widows for Christ
Dirt works its way into the pores of calloused hands, pulling weeds on a three-acre hillside under a hot tropical sun. Day after day, the women work up and down this hillside, struggling to keep the weeds from choking out their crop. War widows work the hillside near their homes in Grafton, Sierra Leone. They are grubbing weeds from among the peanuts they planted, to improve the quality of their harvest. It is backbreaking work, but soon there will be peanuts to eat, peanuts to sell — and peanuts to plant next year.
‘Feminized poverty’ afflicts millions worldwide
How do you teach women who have no concept of what a germ is, about good health care practices? “If you don’t have an education where you understand that, for instance, bacteria and viruses and parasites that you cannot see are causing you to be ill … then it’s a big leap of faith for them to believe that,” said Vicki Grossmann, a primary care medical practitioner in Guatemala. This is but one challenge Southern Baptist health care workers face as they minister to women overseas. Another hurdle? Poverty … extreme poverty.
A touch of hope for India’s untouchables
A child died during the night. The next morning Auto T. Raja lays a clean white sheet on the floor of an empty room in the Children’s Hostel and places the frail, spent body on it. Little is known of this little one. Small for her age — maybe 3 — one of India’s throwaway people, she was found wandering the streets of Bangalore. No one knows who left her there — or why. No one claimed her then; there will be no one to claim her body now.
This mother gives away her children
Instead of receiving flowers on Mother’s Day last year, Susan Quaid* marked the day by giving away a child.
The good mother weeps
The good mothers are left to speak in whispers of the obscenities they witnessed. To repair a breach they cannot mend. To be the center for those who remain. To be the touchstone when those they love are jarred by the unexpected and when assurance is needed once again. To join with that good mother who walked with her Son to the foot of the cross.
A pastor’s dream comes true: Feeding his family
Paulus Maharaj* had a dream. It was a dream that brought him up close and personal to one of the dirtiest, smelliest jobs in the world — raising pigs. The smells of rotten, day-old food and festering animal waste would turn even the strongest of stomachs. But for Paulus and a handful of rural Indian pastors, they are the smells of progress, smells that mean their families and communities can better support themselves.
Safe house
Bowery Women’s Center provides a safe and secure environment where women coming out of abusive relationships, prostitution, or the chaos of substance abuse can come to know the love of Christ.”
Simple justice
In an age when corporate executives receive millions in bonuses from failing corporations that dump lesser-paid employees on the streets, it’s what the Occupy Washington demonstrators across town want … and children bundled into brothels in nations across the world …
Light of Hope shows beggar girls a life of freedom
Najia Khatun* knows what her life would be like without the Light of Hope Center in Bangladesh. She knows she would be hungry. She knows she would be uneducated. She knows she would be working long hours at a garment factory …
Time as money
TimeBanks bring together communities around mutual service.
Beating hunger in Ban Cam
A team of passionate community development workers makes a treacherous journey by motorbike each week …
Concrete purpose
Manhattan Bible Church is not a huge church, but the urban congregation has an outsized impact on its community.
Fatima’s story
When Fatima was 14, her stepmother took her to a “youth hostel” and left her there. It turned out to be a brothel. She ran away and a child protective worker found her at a train station. Fatima was placed in a Christian shelter, where she learned to read and sew, to sing and laugh — and didn’t go to bed hungry anymore.
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