As we reflect on love this month, due to Valentine’s Day coming up, we want to share with you what showing love looks like in a whole new realm. Imagine you are a child who was raised in severe poverty, never knowing if your family would eat that day. School fees are out of the question, but a family friend …
An Exciting Addition in Liberia
I want to introduce you to our new staff member in Liberia, Steve Pasinski. Steve is leading our amazing Liberian team of nationals and we are super excited to have him work with us, as his huge heart for the Liberian people is evident to everyone he comes into contact with. Steve makes everyone around him feel cared for, accepted and …
A Rousing Success
Is it abuse if it’s one of your classmates that is touching you? What if the person who is touching you is your father? Will the police arrest him? What if your mother knows it’s going on but is doing nothing? What kind of help will you get if you call the hotline and tell them you’re being abused? These …
The Signs of Freedom
The Signs of Freedom What does freedom look like for a child who has never before had the luxury of such a thing? I was caught by surprise with what this looks like on my recent trip to Benin. At the orphanage, safe home that we founded, where I also stay when on my visits, I love being able …
Miracles In Various Shapes and Sizes
Over the last few months we have been able to be a part of an incredible miracle story that has been unfolding before our eyes. A little four-year-old boy, who we met in August. His story was a tragic one of abuse and severe neglect. He could not walk due to a negligent surgery from an infection that should have …
Break the Silence
By Stefan Lako, Programs Director Sitting in the Kendeja Hotel lobby in Monrovia, Liberia, talking with local anti-trafficking workers, I began to lose hope listening to the overwhelming statistics on the number of children trafficked and abused across the country. These problems were not only devastating and widespread; the local Liberian government also lacked the resources to address them in …
Unexpected Encounters
By Rebecca Pratt, President & Co-Founder While in Liberia this last month, a 22 year old single mom with a four month old baby girl showed up at our office door. She asked me to please take her baby because her breast milk was all dried up, due to a lack of money to buy food for herself. She said …
Child Development: Strong Bodies, Minds, and Hearts
By Deb Dezutter Two small groups of children gather around open Bibles, their hands are up and ready to go when the next scripture is called. Crowded around them, their friends are cheering them on. The girls are winning and this is the last round. As the next verse is called chaos ensues—paper shuffling, giggling, dust flying. A boy jumps …
Mary: Mother to Many
By Deb Dezutter It was a hot, sticky day, just before Christmas last year. Children were running around, screams of delight could be heard—sounds of celebration. Our staff had just made the much-anticipated Christmas bundle delivery. I sat back a little from the group taking it all in, which is when I saw Ma Mary. She had been given a …