Children at Risk Category
12.23.2013
It’s been an incredible year here at Partners International Canada. Thanks to you, hundreds of thousands of people have been impacted across the world through our partner ministries. As we ramp up for all the exciting things planned for 2014, let’s take a look back at the top stories of 2013:
My name is Maria. I was born in Moldova. I was twenty years old when I offered to go to Turkey to work as a grocer. I took the offer because I had always dreamt of going to college and get married afterwards but never had enough money. An acquaintance of mine helped with the document process and the ticket. When I arrived I was grabbed by people I didn’t know. They pushed me into their car and took me away to the mountains. What happened to me there I cannot remember without tears and horror…
Leah Thapa was abandoned by her mother and father at a very early age. She is unaware of any family that she may have as she has no contact with blood relatives. Leah was brought to Duars Rural Development Program by a Pastor from a nearby village who knew of her very vulnerable situation. The Pastor knew the leader of Duars and the work that the ministry does. He knew that they not only ran a school for children called Cornerstone but they also had a small children’s home on the same property to provide care for abandoned and orphaned children just like Leah…
Tamsyn was driven by a desire to help those in need. She was struck by the reality that so many people in this world do not have clean water and that children have to walk for miles to get water that is unclean and full of disease. She thought that “if kids are walking to get water then why don’t we walk to raise money for water for them.” She put together a team and successfully raised money for a well in Nigeria and was able to visit later that year…
Large parts of the world where Partners International Canada (PI Canada) works in providing holistic mission service through locally-led Christian ministries have little to no idea of what the Christian message contains. They may have large biases against Christians, seeing the beliefs as foreign, dangerous or blasphemous. Yet, when obviously educated people choose to live in a rural context and raise their family and live out their marriage in front of their neighbours, walls are broken down…
50 years is a long time. And the world has changed. Is the model of holistic mission carried on by this organization still relevant? Since I have worked with PI Canada, 1 billion people have been added to the planet’s population. Most are found in non-Christian, underdeveloped places. Partnership is not only relevant, it is the only way to face the challenge. The power of partnership remains undiminished…
Photo credit: The Night Lights of Planet Earth, by woodleywonderworks / CC BY 2.0