How Your Gift Changes Lives

Medhanit Dole is a wife and mom to three. When we met her, she shared with heaviness that only two out of her three children lived with her.

Medhanit’s 8 year old son had left home due to poverty and was working as a house servant for another family. This usually includes cooking, cleaning, and looking after the homeowner’s younger children. She shared that she desperately wanted him to come back home but she didn’t know how to provide for all of her children.

The team listened and our hearts broke for Medhanit. None of us would ever have to make the kind of decision that she did, in hopes of her child surviving. Through tears, a trip member was stirred to sponsor Medhanit and her family, assuring her that she could bring her child back home and that they would have their basic needs, such as food, met.

These are the moments that our purpose becomes clear. “But if anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:17-18

A couple of days later our team flew back to the States. It wasn’t long before we received a picture of Medhanit and her family, once standing heavy with sadness, now smiling ear to ear as her son had returned home. This is the kind of difference your gifts are making.