Project Stories

Simpler ways to water access.

Getting a glass of water to drink is simple. Grab a clean glass from the cupboard, take about three steps over to the sink (or maybe even to the fridge with its filtered water dispenser), turn on the faucet, and wait a few seconds for the glass to fill up. Voilà! A refreshing, clean glass of cold water. So simple.

But what if it wasn’t simple? It certainly isn’t for Wycliffe and his family in Oletukat, Kenya. They have no water in their home. They have to walk four kilometers (that’s roughly 5,400 steps!) to the nearest water source, and sometimes up to eight kilometers – just to get some water. This isn’t just a small inconvenience either – this means no water for drinking, cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes, showering, flushing toilets, and no water for animals or plants either. Wycliffe and his family spend so much time walking to a water source each day, and the water available to them isn’t even clean. Plus, they use containers to collect water that are used both by humans and animals, which contaminates the water even more. This leads to many water borne diseases which are constantly infecting the family, like cholera, dysentery, and amebiasis. Then, due to the nature of these diseases, the family has to make more frequent trips to the toilet. However, without access to a toilet, Wycliffe’s family often has to resort to using the bushes nearby for this purpose. Then the waste just sits there, and others can be exposed to it when they go to use the bushes, and the spread of disease multiplies. As a result, everyone in the family gets sick and they have to make frequent trips to the doctor to get medications and care, which gets very costly.

Wycliffe faces these water and sanitation issues daily, and has to try to lead his family through it. He is a husband and a father to six kids. Three kids are in elementary school, two are in preschool, and one is too young for school. Wycliffe also serves his parents by caring for them on top of caring for his own family. To earn some income and get some food for his family, Wycliffe tries to do some small scale farming. The farming operations do alright, but drought often plagues the community too.

Wycliffe was trying to serve his family well, but all these water issues couldn’t be solved by Wycliffe on his own. What a daunting task! However, Wycliffe and his family were able to take part in a project with The Hope Venture, through a connection with our partner, Nasha Ministries, Wycliffe and his family were able to move towards some solutions. Through the project with The Hope Venture, a water source has been brought nearer to their community in Oletukat. Wycliffe and his family were able to get a toilet. They also got sanitation training. The combination of these things led to diseases being far less common in their household, which also meant fewer trips to the doctor and fewer expenses because of doctor bills. The family has much more time for other things, since they don’t have to spend so much time walking to and from the water source. And now, when they collect water, they can have access to cleaner, more sanitary water.

The benefits of this project haven’t just stayed within Wycliffe’s family. They open their home and toilet to many people in their community, so they also can have a safe and sanitary experience. Not only do they open up their resources to others, but they are constantly educating others in their community about sanitation practices.

Now so many people in the community want to get toilets installed for their homes too. Overall, with more and more toilets and sanitation education happening in the community, there is less disease occurring in the community as a whole, and people are healthier. People have a lot more time on their hands too, since the water is closer to them. Kids can go to school since they don’t have to worry about fetching water each day. Wycliffe’s family, and the community as a whole, hope for continued improvements, including more toilets and more sanitation, which leads to healthier communities.

Jovial… Yeah. That’s her!!

I don’t know about you, but for me, “jovial” is not a word that is commonly used in the vocabulary of people around me. If someone asked me for the definition of jovial, I would probably have to tell them that I didn’t know. I could try to make a guess of what it means if someone used it in a sentence for me. But, basically, I’m telling you that I wouldn’t know what jovial means. But then I came across the word when reading information sent to us from our partner, Fanuel, who helps direct our student sponsorship program in Mathare, one of the poorest regions in the world, home to a collection of slums in Nairobi, Kenya. This information was about a girl in the region named Abigael.

I was reading Abigael’s bio. From the instant I read that “Abigael is a jovial girl,” I became intrigued with this word and what it meant about Abigael. I knew the word must mean something positive about her, but I didn’t know exactly what. So I did some digging. I took a visit to dictionary.com, where jovial was defined as “endowed with or characterized by a hearty, joyous humor or a spirit of good-fellowship.” Synonyms for jovial include cheery, jolly, pleasant, delightful, companionable, lighthearted, and good-natured.

This was striking to me. Jovial was the only word used to directly describe Abigael’s demeanor. Abigael, being described as jovial – cheery, pleasant and joyous – even when I knew that Abigael came from one of the most disadvantaged situations in the world was astonishing. In Mathare, where she lives, the living conditions are horrible. The sewage system is poor, with waste flowing down the streets, there’s garbage everywhere, and families live crammed into shanty houses, which are built from materials like wood and mud. Not many kids who grow up in the slums are able to get an education, because their families don’t have money to pay for school fees. This means they can’t get a good job later on in life, and they will likely also have to raise their own kids in the slums.

Abigael grew up in a family of five with a single mother taking care of all of them. Her mother had a small business selling tea, which brought in some income for the family, but not a lot. It was hard to pay for food, and especially for school fees. Her mom would often have to go borrow food from a nearby shop just so they could survive.

These circumstances are the reality of Abigael’s life.

And yet, she is still described as jovial. Jolly. Delightful. Lighthearted.

Abigael aspires to become a surgeon. She wants to save lives, especially the lives of those in her community. She hopes that VineYard, a hospital in Kenya, will start a branch location of the hospital in Mathare, so that she can work there. She wants to inspire her community and transform it through her work as a surgeon and through all she is able to accomplish. She doesn’t want her community to stay as it is. She wants improvement.

Abigael’s aspirations and her jovial personality were inspiring in and of themselves. But yet again, we are brought back to the circumstances of her life. Abigael wasn’t able to attend school because of the financial circumstances of her family. This meant there would be no way for her to even have the opportunity to work towards her goals. Without a high school education, there is no college education, and no medical school.

However, Abigael connected with our partner, Fanuel, who was able to help her get a student sponsorship. This sponsorship paid for all her school fees, and now, Abigael has access to an education. She is able to go to high school, which opens up opportunities for her to work towards going on to college, medical school, and becoming a surgeon.

After learning all of this about Abigael, I can see that “jovial” is a perfect word to describe her. I can see it in her desire to transform her community, in her incredible work ethic, and in her heart for caring for others as a surgeon someday. I can see that her hope comes from within her, rooted in her relationship with Jesus, so that not even her circumstances in life can take away her joy.

A scooter and a helping hand.

Beep beep! Watch out, Vaikunthan is coming through on his brand new scooter! He sits in splendor atop his two-wheeler, the sun reflecting off the shiny black steel, his hands gripping the handlebars that give him control of his journey. He weaves in and out of traffic as he rolls along the road in the Jawadhu Hills region in southern India. Vaikunthan is on his way to the wholesale market to buy some goods in bulk that he can turn around and sell in his small provision store that he runs in front of his home.

It’s a blessing that Vaikunthan can visit the market on his own, able to make his own business decisions about what to purchase, and then get it back to his own store on his own time. Vaikunthan hasn’t always been able to do this by himself.

A few years ago, Vaikunthan was collecting jackfruit to sell in his store. He climbed a tree to cut the fruit from the branches. While he was up in the tree, he lost his balance and fell. He endured fractures in both legs and severe nerve damage in both feet, losing all sensitivity in the lower portion of his legs. This accident resulted in a permanent handicap, leaving Vaikunthan unable to walk.

Because of this accident, Vaikunthan had to rely on others to go to the market for him so he could keep his provision store open. It was far too great of a distance for him to walk. While it was wonderful that people were helping him out, they saw it as an opportunity for their own gain as well. Vaikunthan would repeatedly get cheated during these business exchanges, with people taking advantage of his inability to watch what they may do with the product after purchasing it at the wholesale market and before delivering it (or just some of it) back to Vaikunthan for his store.

One day, Vaikunthan had a customer visit and shop at his store. Throughout his time shopping, Vaikunthan and Mr. Velu, the customer, got to talking. Mr. Velu heard about Vaikunthan’s accident, disability, and difficulties with getting goods for his store. Mr. Velu, a coordinator with The Hope Venture in Jawadhu Hills, was moved and wanted to help Vaikunthan find a solution. The Hope Venture has a project establishing community development centers in Jawadhu Hills, aiming to support the community, helping with needs that arise, and Mr. Velu takes part in aiding the community through that. Mr. Velu researched and figured out the process for getting a free vehicle through the government in their community. Mr. Velu helped Vaikunthan apply for the vehicle, and after a year, they were able to go get a two-wheeler together.

Now Vaikunthan has a way to get around efficiently on his own. He can purchase goods for his store, allowing him to stay in control of his business and maximize his income. Every time he scoots around town, he can remember the provision he received that now gives him independence in his mobility.

Mac-n-cheese, a computer, and so much more…

I met Jacqueline on my first trip to Rwanda. The Hope Venture was exploring the idea of starting some Pilot Projects in the capital city of Kigali. We were outside the offices of Acts4Rwanda, where dozens of school children were gathering for a daily meal provided by the organization. Jacqueline was serving the younger children and I hopped in next to her to scoop up some food… I think maybe she was passing out some cookies and I was scooping mac-n-cheese?😊

Anyway, Jacqueline and I got to talk. She was friendly and had dreams of going to college. She had been sponsored by Acts4Rwanda up through high school but now wasn’t sure what was going to happen since their sponsorship ends after high school. Her housing was going to be a big challenge. And she needed a computer if she was going to continue in science. And tuition was of course on her mind. It was all daunting. Meanwhile though, kids were coming up to us wanting food and, well, all this money and college-dreams stuff would have to wait.

Our team came back home and started praying more about what to do.

For the year previous, we had been revamping our project strategy. We had worked with the same partners overseas since The Hope Venture had started. If we ever started something new, it was because someone like our partner Charlie in India would get his heart wrecked by some need, share it with me (Cynci), we’d talk in the clouds and a little on paper, pray, and go for it. We tried to document things or explain our reasoning, but honestly we were growing so fast that we got behind on the paperwork. It got harder and harder to understand what we were doing. Meanwhile we wanted to replicate some of it, or stop some of it, but we couldn’t articulate why. So for a whole year the staff questioned me, wrote things down, questioned me again, wrote more down, questioned Charlie, and all our partners, and started to document clearly what we were doing, where we were going, and how we could grow.

One huge change from that year was a goal to vett 20 new partners over the next five years. Ahhh! Talk about daunting! We had trusted partners, longtime friends who we worked with. How would we grow that trust with new people?

Well we had to try.

Covid had led to extreme poverty rising around the world for the first time in twenty years. People were hurting, hungry, and hopeless. Yet God’s hand was on us and He was using us to bring hope and dignity to some of the most disadvantaged people in the world. We longed to press into that even more and watch God bring His overwhelming love rushing over more and more souls.

So we set out to explore some new partnerships. We made a new Pilot Project strategy where we would start out small, make sure reporting requirements were met, grow it bit by bit, and over time, we’d have some new trusted partners. That’s why we were in Rwanda. One of our board members had a friend of a friend, and there we were.

We told Acts4Rwanda we couldn’t do much to start. That we’d have to start small. How small? Well it turned out that one scholarship would have to do.

Jacqueline.

Yep, Jacqueline was The Hope Venture’s first ever Pilot Project recipient.

We prayed and collaborated with Acts4Rwanda. They liked how we were having success with our college scholarships in Kenya. They were sponsoring kids through high school, just like we were in Kenya, but then had no way to help them after that. We created a thorough Project Plan document and got back to signing memorandums of understanding. We articulated clear reporting requirements and reviewed the project 6 months in. Then in 2022 we were able to add four more students, and just recently, our Projects Team approved them for 15 students in 2023!

Jacqueline’s dad was in a bad accident five years ago. Her mom was in jail for a couple years. Life’s been hard. But Acts4Rwanda has come alongside her and her siblings to help and now The Hope Venture is here too. God does see and know our burdens. He can bring people together from across the globe… to bring hope, to provide a computer and housing, to feel His love, even to get some mac-n-cheese and a cookie. ❤️

Deep love for others in her heart.

Feet pounding. Hearts racing. Breath gasping. Mary and her little brother are scrambling through the rugged terrain of Buloba, Uganda. This is no school playground or game of tag. They are being chased away from home by their abusive parents. Two children being cast out, yelled at, degraded, and forced to try and live life on their own.

If she and her brother aren’t wanted by their own parents, why would anyone else want to take them in? How could Mary take care of her brother without a job, without an education, and without a way to finish school? While these questions were heavy on Mary’s mind and heart, she wouldn’t let them overtake her.

From here, Mary got a job as a maid. This would provide some income to support herself and her brother. Mary worked hard, and was delighted by the kindness of her employer when Mary’s success was also important to them. Mary couldn’t afford an education on her own, so her employer began paying for her school fees.

However, one day on her way to school, Mary was raped. Again, in another circumstance that Mary could not control, she was degraded and abandoned. When she gave birth to her son, Daniel, her employer didn’t want to associate with her anymore. So her employer cut her off and stopped paying for her school fees.

Mary was back to square one. She was abandoned once again, had no access to education, was out of a job, and now, this time, she had another precious life – her son Daniel – to care for too.

Fortunately, however, right before cutting her off, Mary’s employer brought her to Wakisa Ministries. Mary was able to get connected to our partner, Vivian. The project she was able to get connected to through Wakisa aims to help young mothers get an education through sponsoring them, supporting them along the way as these young girls take care of their children. Now Mary is attending school as the recipient of a student sponsorship.

Physical harm, emotional harm, pain, hurt, confusion, sorrow. These are repeated themes in Mary’s life. Even the people who should have loved and cared for Mary the most in her life, harmed her. Mary was unfairly met with hurt, abuse, and neglect instead of the love and care that should have been present in these relationships.

Yet Mary still has a love and care for people that runs so deeply within her.

Mary wants to finish school and become a lawyer to help victims of abuse like her get justice. 

She cares so deeply for the individual who sponsors her to go to school. In a letter to her sponsor, she repeatedly wrote how badly she wants and prays for God to bless her sponsor. She has never met the person funding her financially, yet cares enough to want abundant blessings for them.

Mary even wants to share her joys and loves in life with her sponsor. Poetry is an avenue that Mary uses to do just that. Through the precise language that takes form in patterns of rhythm and sound, Mary can share her life. Her story comes to life on the page, flowing with emotion, saturated with vulnerability. Through the arrangement of words, Mary offers a connection to her sponsor. She offers an inside look into her world – a world of joy and sharing – despite her hurt, and excitedly invites her sponsor into it all by writing a poem for them. 

Dignity in the passionate pursuit of learning new skills.

It’s all too often that we hear stories of people who are burnt out by their work. It’s not always even a story really, but it happens in our daily conversations with others! Maybe this is how you feel in your own job. Going to work seems like an inconvenience. You aren’t finding fulfillment in your work. It leaves you feeling exhausted, stressed, and so, so bored.

Well, this may be how many of us in the United States feel about our daily office jobs. But for Anita in Kethohalli village in southern India, her feelings towards work are much different.

Anita has a daughter, Sanjana, who is in seventh grade, and a son, Sudeep, who is in second grade. They all live together in Anita’s brother’s home. The home is a single room with a small kitchen. Anita’s brother’s family lives on the ground level of the room, while Anita, Sanjana, and Sudeep stay in a short mezzanine level right above. They climb a ladder to get up to the heightened level. Everyone shuffles around each other to navigate through the small home.

Anita had married a man named Ravi, but he abandoned her and their kids after a few years. Suddenly she became a single mom who had to provide for her two kids with no source of income. This was tolling on Anita. She cared for her children, but couldn’t provide any physical care for them. She had only completed schooling through tenth grade, and she had no job skills.

Anita’s friend Swetha recognized her situation and wanted to help. Swetha excitedly told her about The Hope Venture’s Vocational Training Center in Sugganahalli. She could complete a free eight month tailoring course! She could learn how to sew, and to design clothes for people to wear.

This sounded great to Anita. What an opportunity to get useful skills for a job! Except there was one problem: the tailoring course was held in the village of Sugganahalli, which was easily over an hour commute each day. Anita was determined to get the skills training, though. She found a bus route that could get her there and faithfully commuted each way through the hectic transportation system in Bangalore.

Anita was excited and determined to complete the training. Her devotion to commuting to the training center each day – despite the long journey – shows her passion and desire for learning and providing for her family.

Now she has a job doing tailoring work. She feels dignified as a woman, and proud of her craft. She is able to provide for her and her kids as a single mom. Anita can be excited to go to work each day. She doesn’t dread putting in the hours, creating new garments and things for people to wear, because the opportunity she has to go to work provides hope for the future for her family.

Finding home and belonging by meeting physical needs.

Kannur is a city in Southern India that is home to one of the largest quarries – a large open-pit mine. The mining work provides many people with employment opportunities. This attracts families to move into the city – making it their new home – hoping to get into the mines to work. 

One family that calls Kannur “home” is Meghala’s family. Meghala is currently in 8th grade and has a mom, dad, and two older brothers. Her dad was a quarry worker. He worked as a driver, transporting materials from the quarry. This work was difficult but Meghala’s dad did bring in some earnings from it. 

However, Meghala’s dad used a large portion of his income each day to fuel his drinking habits. His alcoholism ate away at the income for the family, making it tough to make ends meet for the rest of the family. Meghala did not like her father’s drinking habits, especially as it jeopardized her abilities to eat regular, sustaining meals or to attend school.

Eventually, the quarry that Meghala’s father worked for was shut down due to pollution policies, leaving the family without a source of income at all. Meghala’s mother then picked up a few jobs working as a house maid, just hoping to make ends meet.

Finding stability seemed like a lost dream from Meghala.

Then she began attending The Hope Venture’s Feeding Center in Kannur. Through this center, Meghala could get fed one nutritious meal every day. She also took a computer course which gave her basic computer education. Using this base of knowledge, she could expand her academic potential by taking courses on computers, learning independently, taking courses that couldn’t otherwise be taught in the physical classroom.

Now Meghala has at least one sustainable and reliable meal each day, which gives her strength as she continues to grow. It also helps her to focus on other things, like her education, instead of an empty stomach. Meghala also is being built up and encouraged by the staff at the Feeding Center, and Meghala is growing in her confidence in herself and her abilities as she learns new skills.

Yes, Meghala’s physical needs were met, but it goes much further than that. In a mining town in Southern India, Meghala was able to find her home. Not only the place where she lives, but she found a place that she belongs. The Feeding Center showed her she belongs. That she is worth investing in. That she has dignity.

The overflow of joy onto others around him.

For Shadrack, family is really important. Shadrack grew up with three sisters and five brothers in the village of Oletukat just outside of Narok, Kenya. Shadrack’s father passed away when Shadrack was only three years old, leaving all nine kids under the care of a single mother. His mother doesn’t work, and they just have a few goats to rely on for milk production.

Shadrack and his siblings often go out to find work for the day, hoping to earn enough to get some food. Each night, they come back home, excited to share with one another everything that they earned for the day. His family comes together, singing and full of joy for what they have.

In the midst of this, Shadrack’s family struggled to pay the fees needed to keep him in school. Thankfully Shadrack was able to get connected to our partner, Nasha, and we were able to get him sponsored. Through this he was able to leave behind the stress of school fees and focus on his studies, helping him excel in his classes and graduate high school.

However, even with the accomplishment of a high school diploma, Shadrack couldn’t fulfill his dreams of a professional career. More education would be necessary. Shadrack knew from his high school experience that he had a natural talent in mathematics, and would like to use it in a future career. Yet getting a job in this field would require an expensive education, one that seemed out of reach for Shadrack.

But after Shadrack graduated high school, our partner Nasha told him about our College Scholarship fund. He applied and was accepted. Now he could pursue higher education by attending college. Shadrack got accepted to Mount Kenya University in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, and is currently working towards earning his Bachelor of Science in Statistics degree. He hopes to go into a career in data analytics.

Shadrack found joy in getting an education. But Shadrack’s joy flows beyond his own education. Shadrack has been helped through the means of education and wants to use his opportunities to help others in return, specifically other kids who are going through tough situations like he was. He is getting involved in community service projects, and each day, he is working towards earning his college degree so he can come back to his family and help provide for his mother and siblings.

Shadrack sees all of the people he helps as his family. With the importance of family rooted deep inside him, he is passionate about caring for all people and helping them succeed as well, whether it actually be his immediate family, or just people he is helping in his community through volunteering with service projects. These are all people Shadrack wants to share joy and hope with.