Thanks to a microloan from World Concern, 34-year-old Damas Louis was able to buy a refrigerator and offer more products to customers of his small shop in Les Cayes, Haiti.
A microloan made a macro difference in Damas Louis’s life. The 34-year-old lives in Les Cayes, a town on Haiti’s southern coast. Life is tough here, and most people struggle to survive in a city plagued by poverty, unemployment and lack of infrastructure. Before receiving a loan, Damas scraped together a living by selling snacks and drinks in a tiny shop on an unpaved street.
“I wasn’t able to afford the things my customers wanted to buy, so they would go elsewhere,” he said.
With credit and support from a World Concern microloan, Damas was able to buy a refrigerator and additional inventory to sell, including cosmetic products. His business has nearly quadrupled, from about $24 in sales per day to $93 a day.
Things are definitely improving for Damas, who recently got married and is expecting his first child. He has ambitions to increase his income, eventually renting a larger space closer to a market and expanding his business even further.
This is a guest blog post by singer Jenny Simmons, who recently traveled to South Sudan with World Concern to see the great need in this country and witness the transformation taking place with the help of her supporters.
It is a simple memory—but one that haunts my mind.
The sound of rain coming for me.
Singer Jenny Simmons listens to one woman’s story in South Sudan as she traveled with World Concern earlier this month.
Last week in Lietnhom, South Sudan, I slept under a tin roof (one of the only tin roofs in the village; everything else is thatched) during one of the biggest thunderstorms I have ever heard in my life. The rain sounded like an army. Constant, steady, violent, encroaching. Angry. All night long it pounded away at the roof like artillery fire.
It is odd to sit in my living room today and watch the soundless rain roll off my shingled roof.
Like most of South Sudan, there is no electricity in the village of Lietnhom. So when it is dark, it is very dark. And when bolts of lightning strike, they pierce the sky with an unbelievably cruel, taunting brightness.
It must be scary as a small child to live in a hut with a thatched roof and no electricity during a thunderstorm.
It is utter darkness. No sound of cars in the distance. No highways. No stadium lights or street lights or sirens. Can you even imagine that kind of darkness? That kind of silence?
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared.
I was.
In fact, the truth is,I was scared during much of my trip to South Sudan.
The people were kind beyond measure. They offered us the very best of every single thing they had. Their food. Their beds. Their friendship. Still, I found myself lying in bed each night praying several different prayers of desperation.
“Lord, please send a UN helicopter to come get me.”
“God, if you’re gonna end the world somehow, someway—tonight would be a perfect night for you to go ahead and do that.”
“God I will do anything—I will serve you anywhere—if you will please, please just deliver me from this place.”
It is with great shame that I confess: My solution, as I interacted with people living in extreme poverty, was to beg God to put an end to the world. Or at the very least, send in a special UN convoy to rescue me from latrines, mosquito nets, cold showers, no electricity and the really scary thunderstorm in the black of night that rattled the tin roof above my head like an army, coming to pillage.
Just because I spent a few days in the bush of South Sudan doesn’t make me a saint or a hero or even a humanitarian. I’m not. I straight up spent most of my time praying for the apocalypse just so I would not have to pee in another bush on the side of a dirt road. Is that really end-of-the-world worthy? I think not.
If you make any conclusion about me based on my trip to South Sudan, conclude this: I am scared and selfish.
Jenny embraces and prays for a child in South Sudan.
Scared to eat food that comes out of a tin shack with mud floors and barefoot women. Scared to eat the chicken on my plate (because I swear he was just roaming around my bedroom window a few minutes ago). Scared to use the latrines, convinced that the horrific smell has created some sort of critter that will come out and eat me. Scared to sleep in pitch black darkness. Scared to hold a baby that may not live to be a little girl. Scared to hug a momma who has to bury that little girl. Scared to look at both of them in the eyes and imagine it being me and my little girl. Scared to love them and see them as people … because what if I go home and forget about their stories? Forget their cries for help?
“No milk. No milk,” the momma shows me her breasts, drooping and empty, “You take her.” And she tries to hand me her four-month-old baby.
Scared to look her in the eyes—scared that seeing her as human means I must act.
Scared that the problem is too big to be solved.
Scared that the only solution is death.
At the end of the day, I was just scared.
And selfish.
Though the country was beautiful and the people I met were amazing… the truth is, I couldn’t get home fast enough. When I got to Washington, D.C. my dad picked me up from the airport. I asked if we could go straight to a restaurant for breakfast. I scarfed down croissants and muffins. A latte. In a pastry shop that serves the up and up of Washington, D.C. elites. From there I went straight to the store and bought a new outfit. A razor. Body scrub. Face wash. I showered for nearly an hour. An entire hour of wasted water and gas. And then, we went out to eat again for Mexican food. I ordered $10 table-side guacamole. By the time I caught my flight back to Nashville I had spent more money in half a day than the families I had just been with, spend in a year.
And the spending and eating and gluttony on all levels was cathartic. A sort of cleansing of the poverty via a frenzy of money spending. It was like something in me needed to spend money. Needed to consume. Needed to re-ground myself in wealth and comfort as quickly as possible.
And that speaks to my own selfishness. My own poverty.
An unhealthy dependence on the things of this world to make me feel comfortable and happy.
So now you know the truth. I am just a girl. Mostly scared. Mostly selfish. Entirely out of her element in the small village of Lietnhom, South Sudan. Praying, begging for some end-of-the-world moment, simply so I could be delivered from my own discomfort.
Joined by a village choir in South Sudan, singer Jenny Simmons sings “Amazing Grace” during a small concert in the village of Lietnhom.
Poverty does that to us. It makes us uncomfortable. And if we can just get to the center lane, so we don’t have to pull up right next to the homeless person on the corner and look them in the eyes, we have saved ourselves the discomfort of having to know and having to act.
The truth is, my trip to South Sudan with World Concern was one of the hardest trips of my entire life. And I feel like a baby saying that because my teammates joyously snapped pictures, conducted interviews, pooped in latrines without complaint and ate the poor little pet chickens without hesitation. But for me, it was hard. It was hard on my body and soul. It was an affront to every single way of life I have ever known.
South Sudan was hard for me.
We are all a little scared to stare poverty in the face. And we should be.
Poverty displays the very essence of our brokenness as people. Those living in it and the rest of us … avoiding it. We both operate out of poverty.
Jesus came to alleviate poverty. He didn’t avoid it. In fact, in the New Testament, many times Jesus went out of his way—literally, through different villages and cities in order to stare the broken, hurting, poor, widowed, ostracized people in the eyes. He looked poverty in the face, in order to give hope. Other times, he went out of his way to teach those with wealth what it truly looked like to follow him. To give away possessions, and more importantly, to be willing to follow His lead even when it meant personal comfort would be diminished. He knew that people were either impoverished in their spirit or in their possessions. A lack of faith or a lack of bread were the same in His eyes—and he sought to shine new life into both kinds of people.
We go where God sends us. To the least of these. And the truth is: we’re mostly too scared and too selfish to do this on our own. But God walks us through our greatest fears.
So at the end of the day, I do not stand here a proud girl, telling you of all the amazing things I did to serve the poor.
I stand here as a girl who prayed for a UN helicopter to come rescue me. And instead, found a Savior who gave me strength, comfort and overflowing power and love to stare poverty in the face and at the end of the day—to sleep through the storm.
Skillet is one of Seattle’s beloved food trucks. They’ll be at the Mobile Food Fight for Hunger on Aug. 19.
I don’t know what it is but I’ve been drawn to food trucks for the last few years like a moth to a flame, as they say. Maybe it’s the excitement of discovering something new, or just the fact that I love good food. Regardless, all I know is there is a special place in my heart for food trucks. Even when traveling, I always research where to find new street food.
It seems like this growing passion is taking place in the hearts of other Seattleites too. Some might even say Seattle is having a food truck revolution. I say, it’s about time! So many awesome trucks are popping up around the greater Seattle area showcasing their delicious curbside offerings.
So I’m sitting at my computer at World Concern one day making myself hungry thinking about how much I love food trucks. I started thinking about ways these roving restaurants on wheels could do more than just fill bellies in Seattle. Then followed a genius idea: what if we invited some of the best food trucks in Seattle to World Concern and raise money to fight global hunger?! Beautiful! Two things that are very dear to my heart have united: helping the poor and food trucks!
Off the Rez will bring the unique flavor of Native American food to the Mobile Food Fight for Hunger on Aug. 19.
The Mobile Food Fight for Hunger was born, and now you have the opportunity to taste some of the best food trucks in Seattle right here at World Concern on Aug. 19. Plus, there will be zero guilt about all this eating because you’ll be helping feed hungry people in places like South Sudan, Chad and Somalia. Ten percent of the proceeds from the Mobile Food Fight for Hunger will help fight hunger through World Concern’s sustainable agricultural programs.
So get on this bandwagon of awesomeness and join us as we make a difference in the world through this delicious event!
The following story was relayed by one of our fieldworkers, Jane Gunningham, who is currently serving in South Sudan.
Marco (right, in cap) serves at a World Concern seed fair in Kuajok, South Sudan. He says that God, who cares for all, provides what he needs.
Marco and his wife live in a recent “housing development” near Kuajok, South Sudan, for returnees from Sudan. The first time he met our staff, he told us that his dream is to have the car that drives in the field (a tractor) so he can have a very big farm.
Marco and his wife joined our rent-to-own program and received a bicycle and some pots, pans and chairs, since they had nothing of their own. Shortly after beginning to use the bicycle for work as a messenger/delivery man, Marco’s house burned down in a suspicious fire. All of their hard earned assets were lost, but Marco’s first words were praise to God that none of his precious children were lost in the flames. “Things may be restored,” he said, “but lost life is final.”
When we suggested that World Concern reschedule his payments, he refused, saying that a debt is a debt. We offered him temporary work at the seed fairs, and he has proven to be utterly reliable, passionate about serving the poor, and uncomplaining no matter what we ask of him.
I know his finances are precarious, and there are days his family does not have enough to eat, but Marco affirms that God, who cares for all, provides what he needs.
I was deeply touched one day, when he asked to sweep the spilled seeds from the bed of the truck so he had sorghum to take to his wife. He had been handing out seeds all day to others, knowing that at home his wife had run out of food. As he carried the small bag of grain home, he said to me, “Look: God does not forget the faithful.”
Whether you’re passionate about bringing clean water to thirsty African villages, or want to ensure children living in poverty get an education for a better future, personal fundraising is a trend that enables you to make a bigger impact.
It’s pretty simple: Ask friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances to donate to your cause. You can do this by dedicating your birthday for a cause, or designating an anniversary or other special day. Instead of gifts for yourself, you ask for donations to your cause.
You can also do this by participating in an event. Right now, hundreds of people are successfully raising money to help protect children from slavery by participating in the Free Them 5k Fun Run to Stop Human Trafficking. Last year, top fundraisers brought in more than $1,500 each in donations for a cause that’s near to their hearts.
Whatever your passion, here are some tips for increasing your impact with donations from others.
Ask! You’ll be amazed at how willing people are to give if they’re asked. Some of us have received donations from unexpected Facebook friends or others, despite having little contact with them recently. You never know who’s just looking for an opportunity to give.
Explain why you’re doing this. When you share from your heart, others will relate. If you’re a parent and issues like child trafficking touch your heart, tell other moms and dads about why you care.
Carrie Yu, a Seattle mom of two young children, explains why she participates in the Free Them 5k. “As a parent, it’s heart-breaking to think about. I can’t imagine having to make the decision to sell a child into slavery in order to survive,” she said. “I can’t go into the mission field, but I can run for this cause. I can raise money. This is something I can do right now where I am in my life.”
Kids at Trinity Family Fellowship in Yakima, Wash., held a bake sale and raised more than $1,100 for World Concern.
Use your talents to raise funds. Lorene Jansson sells cinnamon rolls at her office as way to boost her fundraising. Last year, she was a top fundraiser for the 5k. This year, she started selling hand-made beaded jewelry as well. “You take your passion, whatever it is, and apply it to what you want to do,” suggests Lorene. “It’s inspiring to see so many like-minded people wanting to do something about trafficking.”
Find out if your company matches donations. This is a super simple way to double your impact immediately and effortlessly. If you’re not sure if your company will match your donations, use our online tool to find out, or ask your HR department.
Spread the word. Use Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, email, snail mail, or casual conversation to tell others what you’re doing. Be yourself and have fun with it. People will respond if they see the real you coming through. As someone who has never been a runner, all I had to do was tell my friends I was actually running and they showed their support by donating. Pretty cool!
My personal fundraising page tells more about why I'm helping fight human trafficking, but this Facebook post about the fact I'm actually running a 5k shocked my friends enough they showed their support with donations.
Sometimes we get asked, “Why do you help people in other countries instead of the poor right here at home in the U.S.?”
Good question and one I think is worth answering.
Every nonprofit has a mission – a calling they aim to fulfill through their work. There are more than a million nonprofits based in the U.S. Many help with domestic issues and serve people here, while others help internationally. Some do both.
We at World Concern feel a special calling to help those in the poorest, least developed and often hardest to reach places in the world. That’s our mission. We seek out places to serve where climate and geography, societal instability and scarce infrastructure create incredible challenges – both to the people living there, and in terms of reaching them with help.
The desolate road to the Somalia border -- one of the places we go to reach people in need.
One example of this is in our response to the Horn of Africa drought crisis. The most practical place to help would have probably been the refugee camps in eastern Kenya. But there were already many organizations responding within the camps. As we assessed the area and the situation, it became clear there was an added strain being put on communities surrounding the camps and near the Somalia border as tens of thousands of displaced people were arriving in these towns.
We saw an unmet need and made the decision to support these communities – with food, access to water, medical care and emergency supplies. Since August, we’ve fed thousands of people, many who had been walking for weeks in search of assistance. Some might not have survived the last leg of the journey to the camps. Others have settled in these communities – a better place to start a new life than a refugee camp.
These communities are dangerous places to work. They are under almost constant threat of attack by militia. On the Somalia side of the border, we are one of only a few organizations working there. But we see this as fulfilling our calling to reach people in desperate need in hard to reach places.
Muddy roads, like this one in Laos, make some of the villages we serve inaccessible by vehicle.
Some of the villages where we serve in Laos are cut off from society because of rain, mud, rivers and damaged roads. The people there have no way to access food or medical attention if needed.
Thanks to infrastructure, development and government assistance here in the U.S., communities are rarely cut off from aid, even in a disaster. We’re finding ways to reach people in remote parts of the world – because few others will.
In American culture, there is a an emphasis on helping ourselves before we help others. The self-help world tells us that taking care of our own needs first is as important as on our own oxygen mask on an airplane before assisting others. We secretly aim to make sure our own children have enough Christmas presents before giving to others in need. As Christians, we’re called to put the needs of others before our own (Phil. 2:3-4). This is not to say we shouldn’t support the needs of the poor here at home. But what would Jesus say about the idea of “helping our own” before reaching out to others?
Yesterday, a man walked into our headquarters office and said he wanted to make a donation. He ordered a few gift cards for goats from the Global Gift Guide, then proceeded to write a check—for $10,000.
A husband and father of two, he told us he had picked up a copy of the Global Gift Guide at an event and started pondering the tremendous needs of children and families living in poverty, and compared this to his own life. He was moved to tears. He and his family talked, prayed and decided to make this donation.
World Concern donors help transform the lives of those living in extreme poverty, offering hope for a better future.
Over the past few weeks, we at World Concern have been in an almost constant state of awe at God’s provision for our work through the generosity of others this holiday season. As a humanitarian organization responding to some of the worst disasters in the world, and working in some of the poorest, most difficult to reach places, we have the privilege of seeing the impact your donations are making every day in the lives of suffering people. We never take this for granted.
The gifts that have come in this past year – and particularly this week – have, quite honestly, blown us away. Large or small, they are heart-felt, God-led, powerfully meaningful gifts. Each one has a story behind it. We wanted to share a few of those with you.
After one of her Christmas tour shows, Addison Road lead singer Jenny Simmons had a 13-year-old girl named Kate approach her. She wanted to use her Christmas money to buy a goat in honor of her uncle Clint, a pastor who had been murdered in his own church by robbers. “Taking care of poor people was what he loved to do. I want to do as much as I can to keep his spirit alive. He would have loved buying a goat. This is the perfect present for me,” she said.
At church this past Sunday, a friend handed me a check made out to World Concern for $350 to buy animal gifts for poor children. I looked at her a little confused because the week before she had told me she was sad that she couldn’t buy any gifts from the Global Gift Guide this year. Her husband had been laid off from his job. I hugged her and told her I’d pray for him to find work.
But God touched their hearts that week and they felt led to give, even beyond their current means. “We talked it over, and this is what we want to do,” she said, handing me the check with a smile. More hugs.
It reminded me of the widow’s offering in Luke 21:1-4, where Jesus said, “All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
The gift is even greater when it’s given sacrificially.
We received an email from a college student saying he had accidentally donated more than he intended. No problem, we told him, we can refund the difference. But he sent another message saying that after praying about it, he had decided to leave the donation as is. “It’s a leap of faith,” he said, and was excited to see what God would do with it.
Earlier this week, a family of five with two special needs children donated an entire school for a village in Kenya. Because of this gift, children in this village will be blessed for generations.
Just this morning, a donor purchased a year’s education for two children and wrote this: “This is given in honor of my mother who died earlier this year. She was an amazing mother, spouse, teacher, and advocate for women and children. She had such a tremendous spark of life and hilarious view of the world. She gave of her gifts always, whether to family or to her students.”
Wow. To say we are humbled by the outpouring of love in these gifts is an understatement. Because of these gifts and so many others, we are able to freely give to those in need, reaching the farthest corners of the planet. What a blessing to witness love like this in action.
Thank you to everyone who has given a gift this year. Have a merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!
“When you are isolated, no one comes to help,” said David, a young farmer who lives in a rural village in Haiti. “World Concern is the first to support us this way.”
A young girl receives a baby goat at her school in rural Haiti.
“When the cows give birth, we pass the cow on to someone else, who becomes the owner of the cow,” he explained. “By selling the milk for income, parents can pay for food for their children, for school, and to take them to the hospital if they get sick.”
“It’s like heaven,” said Pierre, a farmer who received a cow from World Concern. “We could never afford a cow like this with our own money.”
At a nearby school in Les Cayes, children receive baby goats of their own. As part of the program, they’re trained how to care for and raise the goats, and are able to earn income from the goat milk. The income they earn helps them afford uniforms, supplies and tuition to stay in school.
With healthy animals to raise, kids and families in rural Haiti have hope for the future. Beaming smiles on the faces of the children as they receive their goat gifts are just one indication of the impact these gifts have on lives.
Bring hope and a smile to the face of someone struggling in poverty this Christmas. Your gift will make a lasting difference.
Joyce has a goal of learning to read and write, inspired by her business success and thanks to a savings group she participates in.
Joyce Awa Mavolo told her story with a pen in her hand, symbolic of her hopes for the future. The 30-year-old mother of six children owns a shop where she sells a variety of goods and handicrafts in Southern Sudan. For many years Joyce struggled to provide for her young family and keep them fed and clothed.
Things started to improve when Joyce joined a World Concern-sponsored women’s savings group. These groups of 15 to 25 women meet weekly, save $1 to $2 each week, then take turns loaning their collective savings out to individual members. This form of finance has virtually no overhead cost, providing a cheap form of credit to its members.
Joyce’s group provides her a safe place to store her money and access to small amounts of cash that she can use to buy items for her business in bulk, reducing her costs. It also saves her from having to make daily trips to suppliers, which for many women could take half the workday.
The opportunity has helped Joyce become more profitable in her business and be able to provide essential resources for her children. She can now make tuition payments for her oldest son who has recently started school.
“I like our group because the women respect each other. We help each other and we share activities and dream together,” said Joyce.
“I am still young, and all my life I had the desire to learn how to read and write. I watched others attend school, but I was not allowed to attend school while growing up because I was the only daughter and my family needed my help at home and in the fields,” recalled Joyce. “When I was alone I would pretend that I could write. I would hold a blade of grass between my fingers, and act as though I was writing with a pen in my hand. Now, I will be the first to enroll for adult literacy classes with World Concern.’’
Our staff in Chad have been teaching people living in refugee camps there how to grow sack gardens. It’s a great way to improve a family’s diet by adding fresh vegetables with less water needed than a typical garden.
Since spring is a time many people are thinking about gardening, we thought we’d share these instructions for growing your own sack garden! If you do, please share it with us! We’ll be sure to share how things are growing in Chad, too.
Our agronomists first learned about sack gardens from Manor House Agricultural Centre in Kenya, and we learned more about various container and urban gardening methods at ECHO Global Farm. These instructions have been pulled from Gardens From Health.
Materials needed to grow your own sack garden:
A burlap or plastic sack (we use discarded food aid sacks, which make perfect sack gardens, especially for symbolic reasons)
Soil mixed with organic compost
Rocks for irrigation
A cylindrical bucket or tin, open on both ends (we use seed tins or vegetable oil tins, but a coffee can would work well too)
Instructions:
1. Fill the bottom of the sack with soil mixed with organic compost. Fill the tin with rocks. This will serve as an irrigation channel.
2. Surround the tin with more soil, and slowly lift it up, so that the rocks remain.
3. Fill the tin with more rocks, and surround it again with soil. Repeat this until the sack is filled with a tower of rocks surrounded by soil.
4. Poke holes into the side of the sack an even distance apart.
5. Transplant seedlings into the sides of the sack.
6. You can try direct seeding beets, carrots or other vegetables or herbs in the top of the sack.
7. Enjoy your harvest!
For more information on how World Concern is improving nutrition in impoverished countries, please visit worldconcern.org/myconcern/hunger
