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Giving Thanks: Leamâs Story of Transformation in Cambodia
âI would like to give thanks to God and my parentsfor allowing me to participate with the [childrenâs] group.â said Leam, an 11-year-old boy in Cambodia. Just over a year ago, Leam was suffering with an unknown illness. Because of his health problems, he had difficulty concentrating in school and was teased by his classmates because of his decreasing size. One day, a friend stepped in to help. This friend had attended a World Relief childrenâs group where heâd learned valuable hygiene and health lessons, including the common problem of parasites. He told Leam that parasites could be making him sick, and invited Leam to join the childrenâs group to learn for himself. But Leam was hesitant. He knew the group was run by Christians â church volunteers â and he didnât want to be converted.
But curiosity got the best of Leam. When the childrenâs group volunteers returned to Leamâs village to do an educational puppet show the very next day, Leam watched from a safe distance on the road as children ran towards the meeting area, laughing and cheering all the way.
âAfter seeing this sight, my heart began to fill with joy,â Leam said. âI was encouraged by a teacher who came to me while I was standing on the pebble road. He smiled at me right away and invited me to see the puppet show. He gently spoke to me. So the heart of hatred has gone from my mind. I donât discriminate against Christianity anymore and I decided to join with them. I could learn a lot about disease, morality and forgiveness.â
One year later, the changes in Leamâs health and heart are still evident. He continues to use the health lessons he learned in the childrenâs group, like washing his hands, wearing shoes and sleeping under a mosquito net. Because of these changes, Leam is no longer sick and his familyâs medical costs have decreased. âI realized that my health is much better than before, and my mental health is also improved. I am now a great student in my class,â said Leam.
This incredible transformation would not have happened without the support of our partners who have stood with us as we empower people like Leam. So we, along with Leam, say thanks!
Empower a Hero: A Movement for Justice
If youâre reading this blog, youâre probably someone who longs to see justice triumph. You’re not comfortable to just sit back and wait for justice to happen. You are engaged in the work, confronting the great injustices that are plaguing the world today. Through your time, talent and financial support, you are doing the work of justice.
But to truly bring an end to injustice, we need to know what weâre up against. We have to get at the root of the problem â the parts of poverty that canât be fixed with money and food donations; the parts that rob dignity and community from our neighbors around the world.
At World Relief, we meet heroes everyday who have tremendous capacity to overcome the issues that surround them and threaten to steal their hope. But to do this, these men and women need more than a temporary solution, a one-time handout, they need to be empowered â equipped with knowledge and skills necessary to bring lasting change and the opportunities to write a new chapter for their communities.
Consider the story of Capitoline â a farmer from a rural district in Burundi where 90 percent of the population live on less than $2 a day. She believed her entire life would be dedicated to working the land in order to make a meager living, but once she received the training and tools to become a community health worker, she dedicated her life to confronting diseases like malaria, a preventable illness that impacts thousands of children under the age of five throughout her country each year. Not only has she treated 27 children with malaria, but sheâs also empowering other women with health education. These women then go out and have the same positive influence on their communities, creating a ripple effect that changes their lives and the lives of their children.
You can do something today to empowerfarmers like Capitoline so they are equipped to turn their vision into reality – using tools and training to become successful farmers, community health workers, pastors or parents who raise strong and healthy children.
Are you looking for a new way to make a difference in the most vulnerable places in the world? Take action today and Empower a Hero.
Visit empowerahero.org to join us in this movement.
Giving Thanks
It can be tempting to squeeze all of our thanksgiving into the time it takes to eat one meal on the fourth Thursday in November each year. But at World Relief, we meet men and women from around the world who are quick to give thanks as they witness transformation in their lives, their families and their entire communities.
Following their example, we give thanks today, long before the holiday officially begins later this month. We give thanks because we see Godâs hand moving powerfully through the local church, pushing back the darkness of injustice.
We give thanks because God uses each of us despite our brokenness to serve our neighbors here in the US and around the world.
We give thanks because we see the church breaking down the cycle of poverty, despair and injustice and replacing it with a new pattern of thanksgiving, restoration and hope.
As you prepare for this season of thanksgiving, we pray you will see the blessings around you, in your own city and in places across the globe. This month, rejoice with us as we think about our brothers and sisters throughout the world who give thanks for the transformation theyâve experienced because of God and His church.
This month we will be featuring stories of thanksgiving: meet a young boy whose health and eternal life were forever changed, a woman whose struggling marriage was strengthened, a mother whose precious child was saved from a deadly disease, and a farmer whose despair was converted to hope.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. â Colossians 3:17
World Savings Day – Savings Means Life
As many people around the globe celebrate World Savings Day this week, weâre reminded of the financial challenges billions are facing. According to a survey done by Bankrate, in the United States alone, only about one-fourth of the population has enough money saved to pay their bills for six months. So what do you do when this lack of savings is exacerbated by war, disease or the death of your parents and thereâs very little, if anything, to save? Martha is an orphan. Sheâs young â just in her twenties. She takes care of her younger sister in a village in Rwandaâs Western Province. As a young woman who struggled to make life work, she battled loneliness and isolation as she fought to make ends meet. But that changed when she got involved in a World Relief Savings for Life group.
Since 2008, Savings for Life has been empowering the vulnerable in communities who lack access to basic financial services to do savings and loan activities. Group members meet weekly to save small amounts for a period of 9-12 months, while also having access to loans from these group funds throughout the savings cycle. At the end of the cycle, they share out, receiving back all their savings plus what they received as interest on the loans taken.
When World Relief started Savings for Life in Marthaâs community in Rwanda, she skeptically decided to join. If nothing else, she thought that maybe this would be a way for her to be able to afford some of the things she and her sister needed to get by. Martha was a faithful member of the group and saved a little at a time each week. By the end of nine months, she had saved an impressive 50,000 Rwandan Francs (about $70) and was able to buy a goat that would not only provide for some immediate needs, but would also lead to other economic opportunities for her and the community. Goat milk provide beneficial nutrients, but goat babies can be sold or given to neighbors, multiplying the benefits for many.
And there was an added benefit from this group that empowered Martha more than she thought possible â it gave her a sense of community. Marthaâs group became like family and she no longer felt lonely and isolated; now she had a place where she belonged and was supported. When asked about the impact the Savings for Life group had on her life, Martha explains, âI am happy to be among the members of this savings group that has helped relieve me from my loneliness. I praise God who brought World Relief to our area.â
Celebrating World Food Day: Fighting Famine in South Sudan
As the tall maize grows in her fenced-in yard in South Sudan, Rebecca prepares cornmeal while her elderly mother and four youngest children play alongside. Thankful for this harvest and the food it provides her large family, she contemplates what the next few months might bring, especially in light of the major food crisis in her country.
Rebecca is a farmer, trained by World Reliefâs agricultural experts in crop diversification and resource management. Proudly pointing to her crops, she explains that because the rains had been good, she expects a better crop than last year. But this came at a hard price. In January, Rebecca had seven cows, but the fighting from the countryâs civil war closed off the markets, and the food supply was low from last seasonâs drought. Sheâd sold a cow to get bags of maize as starter seeds, but as the months of fighting went on, more was needed. As a widow and sole breadwinner for her family of 9, she had to risk the 16-hour walk once a month to trade a cow for food to feed her family. February, March, April, May, and June dragged by and before she knew it, she had only one cow left. Rebecca hoped her harvest would come quickly.
âAnd then the raindrops started,â Rebecca said. The rains that nourished the crops would guarantee a good late-summer harvest. At the same time, World Relief distributed a corn and soy bean blend to the most vulnerable in the area and will continue this monthly for the rest of the year to avert the predicted famine.
This harvest and the food supplies should feed Rebeccaâs family until January 2015. In a continued effort to fight the food shortage, World Relief will also distribute vegetable seeds (groundnuts, eggplant, sesame, tomatoes), which will provide a nutritional supplement and be an income generator during the winter months. But with ongoing fighting and what the UN describes as the âworst food crisis in the worldâ, significant challenges remain for Rebecca, her family and millions of others in South Sudan. Even though Rebecca isnât sure what the outcome will be, her faith gives her hope, âEverything is in Godâs hands,â she says.
Thatâs why World Relief stands with the people of South Sudan as we celebrate World Food Day and continue to empower many to fight famine on the frontlines.
Celebrating World Food Day: Farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo Fighting Hunger
When fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) reached Vivianeâs village, she and her children were forced to flee from their home and into a camp with many other internally displaced people . The camp was crowded with others who also sought refuge from the ongoing violence. Unfortunately, without employment or reliable access to food, they all were at greater risk of suffering from food shortage and hunger.
When Viviane was finally able to return to her home, the extreme challenges of everyday living remained. âWe came home with no seeds or farming tools and no money to buy these things,â Viviane said. Although she had the desire to provide for her family in a sustainable way, the violence and displacement left Viviane without the means to begin rebuilding her life.
âBut God sent World Relief to help our [farmersâ group] by providing Irish potato seeds, vegetable seeds and farming tools,â said Viviane. In farmersâ groups in the DRC, World Relief equips farmers with tools to begin family farms and the necessary training to make their harvests successful. Farmers are trained in crop diversification, resource management and other ways to increase the productivity of their land.
Vivianeâs yields have indeed grown as a result of the support she received when she returned home even though devastation from instability and armed conflict are still felt in large areas of eastern DRC. This year alone, she harvested over 1900 pounds of potatoes, more than four times more than last year! A portion of her earnings will go towards her childrenâs school fees and to buy other supplies for her family. Next year, Viviane plans to rent a larger plot of land so she can grow even more potatoes.
Because of Vivianeâs agricultural skills, she and her family have been able to overcome many of the challenges related to hunger and malnutrition. Viviane has also planted a vegetable garden outside of her home that adds essential vitamins and nutrients to her familyâs diet. âThis is the first time my family is able to eat three meals a day,â Viviane said, âI praise God for this. May our Lord Jesus bless you all who have helped us during this time and for helping us find a solution for feeding our families.â
Throughout the month of October weâre celebrating World Food Day with farmers like Viviane who are empowered to lead their families out of poverty through agricultural training and development. In DRC, World Relief is empowering local churches and farmers to work together and earn a greater income from their crops. By participating in farmers groups, some of the DRCâs most vulnerable are empowered to sustainably support their families and local economies while laying the building blocks for peace in the midst of the destruction of conflict.
Three Reasons for Waging Peace, Guest Blog by Lynne Hybels
In the early 90s a horrible war took place in Eastern Europe as the former Yugoslavia crumbled. It was a vicious war, complete with ethnic cleansing and atrocious crimes against humanity. Soldiers would enter a village, rape all the women, and take away all the men and boys over thirteen. Most of them never returned alive; many ended up in the mass graves. Twice during that war I traveled with a humanitarian organization to Croatia and Bosnia. We visited refugee centers filled with middle-class women just like me who had lost everything: jobs, husbands, homes, their planned-for future. We visited schools where social workers tried to help kids who had watched their parents die when shells landed in their homes; they suffered so severely from post-traumatic stress that they sat all day staring blankly while they silently chewed their fingernails, trapped in their own little world of horror and pain. We walked through the rubble of entire neighborhoods, stumbling over the scattered reminders of daily life: a broken teacup, a scuffed shoe, a tattered doll.
It was the first time I had seen war up close and I was stunned by what human beings do to one another.
But it wasnât the last time I saw war. Years later I walked through the villages of Eastern Congo, where the deadliest war since WW II has claimed almost 6 million lives, and where rape as a weapon of war has brutally violated tens of thousands of women and girlsâwomen and girls with whom I wept.
More recently, I sat on a concrete floor in Jordan with Syrian refugee women whose empty eyes told the silent story of their losses and their grief. And in recent months I spent hours at my computer waiting for word from friends Iâve met during numerous trips to Israel and Palestineâfriends who suffered severely during this summerâs war in Gaza.
While I never consciously decided to hang out in war zones, thatâs where my path led and continues to lead. Along the way, Iâve learned three key lessons.
1. Violent conflict has the capacity to destroy everything, from the body of the tiniest baby to the infrastructure of an entire society.
Body, mind, soul, families, crops, wells, houses, schools, hospitals: all these can be ruined when the bullets fly and the bombs fall. In recent decades, many American Christians have become convinced that acts of compassion and the fight for justice are central to what it means to follow Jesus. Many churches are leading the way as agents of holistic transformation in communities throughout the world, living out the Kingdom of God in beautifully practical ways. Thatâs all good, but itâs not enoughâbecause it will all be undone if thereâs war. Violent conflict can turn the greatest of our good deeds into nothing. Our most earnest gains for justice can be lost. Where violence reigns poverty is a given, human trafficking flourishes, disease ravages, the displaced lose everything, hope dies. If we care about any of the great global tragedies, we must also care about waging peace.
2. What happens on the grassroots level matters more than we think.
I used to believe that the most significant dimension of peacemaking happened on the national or international level. The truth is that political powers can declare ceasefires and create temporary solutions, but they can only foster sustained peace when they build upon a foundation of grassroots peacemaking. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, violent rebel groups recruit fighters by capitalizing on tribal differences and small local conflicts. However, when local peace-buildersâpastors trained by World Relief in conflict resolutionâhelp build bridges between tribes and resolve local conflicts according to Biblical principles, the violent rebels are thwarted in their recruiting efforts; people who have experienced the fruit of reconciliation have little motivation to become fighters.
In a conflict as seemingly intractable as the one in the Holy Land, grassroots peacemakers are, even now, offering a path toward peace. My Israeli friend Robi and my Palestinian friend Bassam each lost a child to the conflict. Not wanting other families to suffer as they have suffered, they speak together in schools, churches, and civil organization in the Holy Land and throughout the world, representing a growing group of bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families who are committed to grieving together and then working together for reconciliation and peace. While political leaders bring nothing but disappointment to the Holy Land, people like Robi and Bassamâand hundreds of others like them, whose voices we donât hear on the nightly newsâare showing up day after day, slowly building bridges of empathy, understanding and friendship. I believe that learning from them and lifting up their voices is one of the most important things I can do for the sake of peace.
3. The call to peacemaking is a call to rigorous and costly discipleship.
Nothing has humbled me as much as spending time with true peacemakers. Time and again Iâve been chastisedâbrokenâby the gentle example of men and women for whom loving their enemies could literally cost them their lives. I look at them and I see how petty I am; how quick I am to pick sides and go for easy answers; how unlike Jesus I am.
John Paul Lederach wrote a book called Reconcile. In it he suggests that the main thing Jesus brought to his role as a peacemaker was his presence. There was something in his âpresenceââsomething in who he was and how he showed upâthat made the way of peace more likely. I think the âsomethingâ that was in Jesus is what the world needs to see in his followers today.
In the aftermath of the Gaza war, a friend from Bethlehem who has been engaged in nonviolence and reconciliation for many years, wrote this to me: âWhen all the dead are buried and the dust settles, a truer and deeper kind of peace needs to rise up from the rubble of the Holy Land.â Not a peace that depends on the decisions of politicians or that trips off the tongues of activists, but a peace that bubbles up from the spring of Godâs love as it fills usâas it pulls us beyond the limits of our own self-interest to a place where we can see the world as God sees it.
Seeing the world as God sees itâwhere even our enemy is a person made in the image of God for whom Christ diedâdoesnât come naturally to us. I think it only comes through a journey of transformation grounded in prayer and silence and deep immersion into the words and the way of Jesus. Then, and only then, can we see the world the way God sees it. Then, and only then, can we be free to #WagePeace.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9 Peacemaking is a Biblically-based, long-term strategy for preventing and addressing man made conflict. It directly addresses the tensions woven into the fabric of societies that often lead to conflict and violence.
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World Relief Cambodia: Orn Raim’s New Purpose
Orn-Raim
âMy name is Orn Raim, [and I am] 54 years old. Iâm living in Tropaing Chor village, Chamna Leu commune, Kampong Svay district, Kampong Thom province, [Cambodia].
“I am a widow with 5 sons. Iâve been voted to be a vice village leader. Iâve been with this position for many years, so I know very well about my community. Our community was in trouble which made me and all leaders to be discouraged and about to give up our work because there were many arguments, domestic violence, gangs, land arguments, alcoholism, gambling, cheating, drug addiction, swindling and no forgiveness.
“Now we have help from World Relief who sent their staff into our community to teach us about violence, illegal migration, drug use and sexual abuse to women or children. We (community leaders) also teach these lessons in every official meeting or general meeting for encouraging and empowering people in our community. Now Iâm so glad to see change among those issues. My people are changed and awakened by not wasting their time with alcohol but making money instead. They love, give value, forgive and accept one another much more than before. From our own observation in the community, we see that violence to women and children is reduced by 90% comparing with the previous result.
“Our purpose is to bring joy for community. Thank you very much, World Relief, for taking interest in our daily lives and community by equipping, teaching and bringing the great Light for us to see and understand the core issues in our community.â
Dr. Issam Smeir, a Peacemaker for Syrian Refugees
Syria Story Photo
Dr. Issam Smeir, originally from Jordan, works at World Relief DuPage counseling refugees being resettled in the United States, many of whom have fled violence or conflict and are severely traumatized.
As one of the few Arab-speaking experts providing specific treatment for survivors of trauma, Dr. Smeir has a passion for training counselors in the Middle East and North Africa on ways to effectively treat victims of traumaâespecially refugees. While refugees living in camps receive housing, water and food, professional help to deal with emotional pain is scarce. Syrian refugees without financial resources end up in refugee camps where the violence and trauma continues. Dr. Smeir traveled to his home country to train local mental health workers serving inside the camps in 2013 and 2014.
Dr. Smeir teaches counselors techniques to help refugees process their trauma and understand what is happening to their bodies, minds and psyches. Because of the trauma they have experienced, it is difficult for refugees to trust others, which can lead to tensions between host communities and the refugees who must now live together. According to Dr. Smeir, helping refugees heal from the hidden wounds of war is important to fostering peace because, âyou cannot have peace with others until you have peace within yourself.â In his work, he has seen that when individuals are able to heal emotionally and psychologically, it not only impacts themselves, but their families and communities. âSeeing someone smile for the first time, who has not smiled in a very long time because of what theyâve been throughâthat is why I do what I do.â
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9 Peacemaking is a Biblically-based, long-term strategy for preventing and addressing man made conflict. It directly addresses the tensions woven into the fabric of societies that often lead to conflict and violence.
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Allahrakha, a Peacemaker in Pakistan
Allahrakha served as a local peacemaker working with World Relief Germany (formerly PartnerAid) in Pakistan. He helped bring together different tribal groups so they can work together on development projects.
Allahrakha was overseeing restoration projects after a damaging flood in 2010 when he noticed two tribal groups under his supervision were caught in a serious conflict. The two groups did not support intermarriage between two individuals from their respective regions. This led to honor killings in both tribes, worsening the tensions that already existed between them.
Allahrakha saw that the conflict was hurting both relationships within the community and delaying important development projects â projects that could not be completed unless the tribes worked together. He used his knowledge of local culture and his understanding of peace making to bring the groups together and lead them to reconciliation. Only after this process were the groups able to resume their work rebuilding their community together.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9 Peacemaking is a Biblically-based, long-term strategy for preventing and addressing man made conflict. It directly addresses the tensions woven into the fabric of societies that often lead to conflict and violence.
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