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Fourteen and Grass in Her Hair.

She came running up the hill toward us in her school uniform dress, the sun low and glowing behind her.

She got to us, panting, smiling, grass in her hair.

“Woah girlfriend, take a second. Take a breather,” we said as we welcomed her and all giggled together. I picked the grass out of her hair, she caught her breath.

Angel was her name. She was 14 and smiley and eager to chat with us. I hadn’t met a personality like hers yet in this context; most recipients I interview are a little shy at first…understandable. Not to mention, Angel was a Scholarships for Teen Moms recipient, which means she was likely abused when she conceived. Even more reason to be shy about an interview, but she wasn’t.

She and I sat down and talked, and she shared her story with me as casually as if she was telling me what she had for lunch that day: she was 12 and working her mom’s maize stand. A local man came by and raped her. She had gotten to know him as a customer before the event. He’s in jail now for what he did. She went to Wakisa during her pregnancy, had her baby, and later received a scholarship from The Hope Venture to go back to school. Again, she’s only 14.

I sat there, shocked. At her story, at how able she was sharing it with me. I asked her how school was going, and she told me she was the dorm captain, class monitor, and overall school prefect. She loved leadership, the discipline of it. Being somebody her peers could go to. She had such a bubbly personality for all that she had been through, and she wasn’t letting her circumstances stop her potential.

We wrapped up and went back to the group. We heard cheering at the bottom of the hill and wondered what it was. It was a soccer game. Her soccer game. Her team was playing and she took a break to come talk with us. That’s why she had grass in her hair. She was 14 and a mom and playing in a soccer game. In her dress, at school.

It’s sometimes so hard for me to wrap my head around our recipients’ stories. But it makes me that much more grateful for The Hope Venture and the work our partners do to make sure recipients’ stories don’t end at the heartbreak. To make sure they get to play soccer in a dress at school as a mom.

Two Dreams.

Big dreams often come from the most humble beginnings. Dreams for a better future, a bigger impact, and a greater purpose—the kind of dreams that can feel impossible when you go at it alone. This is a story of two dreams, and how despite the odds, they found courage and hope to keep chasing after them.

This is Timothy.

Timothy is a thoughtful and hardworking man who was born and raised in India. In pursuit of a better life for his family, he moved to Bangladesh with his wife Christina, and together they sought to start anew with better opportunities for their three children. Timothy had big dreams for what possibilities could be waiting for them in a new country, despite all the challenges of starting over. He found rich community in a local church, and would gather together with other believers every Sunday to worship and praise God. But as a day laborer, even his best wages weren’t enough to make ends meet. As he toiled tirelessly to provide, Timothy struggled to believe his biggest dream would ever come true—the dream that his children would have a better life than he did.

Now, let me introduce you to Honok.

Honok is a kind and friendly young boy, who grew up in a small Telugu community in Bangladesh. He loves studying math and science, and playing cricket every afternoon with his friends. Even by 3rd grade, Honok already had big dreams for his future, his biggest aspiration being to help people. Honok dreamed of combining his love for science and people to one day become a nurse, so he could serve and care for those who are hurting. 

But Honok came from a poor family. His parents were immigrants, who struggled every year with the fees needed to keep him and his two sisters in school. As much as he loved his classes, Honok knew he couldn’t become a nurse on a 3rd grade education alone. It was going to take years of hard work, finances and academic investment. Without help, Honok would be forced to drop out of school to find menial jobs not requiring much skill or training. Still just a small boy, he needed the help of others who believed in him and saw the potential in who he could become, willing to advocate on his behalf. 

He needed his father, Timothy. 

Knowing it would be nearly impossible for Honok to continue his education on his limited income alone, Timothy sought help. He reached out to The Hope Venture for assistance through the Backpack Project. He knew his son’s education was his responsibility, and even when inflated expenses had depleted his income to almost nothing, there was still hope. 

This past year, Honok received a new backpack, filled with an exercise book, geometry box, pencils, and everything he needed to stay in school for a full year. But more than just a backpack, Honok was gifted one more year to chase after his dream—one year closer to the education needed to become a nurse. And Timothy got one step closer to his dream, too.  As a father who would do anything to see his children succeed and have a better future, this backpack brought them both one step closer to their dreams.

A blessing in Mathare.

I was sitting at a coffee shop with a friend, days before I flew out to travel overseas with The Hope Venture, sharing what I was excited about and what I was anticipating. I told her I was nervous about the hard stories I was going to hear throughout our travels. You see, I was going to be on a team of four women visiting The Hope Venture’s projects, and my job was to interview people who had been impacted by the projects and document their stories. It was a dream role for me, but also one that I was preparing to be hard on my heart.

Sitting at the table, my friend listened intently and then responded. “Carli, my prayer for you is that the people you meet and the stories you hear would actually be healing for you, instead of hurtful to your heart.”

My jaw dropped. It was profound, opposite of how I was thinking, and such a picture of the hope we try to bring as an organization. Not only that, but it was also a bigger picture of the hope found in Jesus. It was the idea that people are not stuck in their circumstances, bound by a dead end, with their identity cemented as a hard, heavy story. But instead, that there is hope and light and opportunity… there is healing ahead. I loved her response. I tucked it away in my heart and went overseas.

Fast forward a few weeks and I was in Mathare, Kenya, the second-largest slum in the country, located in the capital city. We were visiting one of our student sponsorship projects there, and I was with a group on our way to one of the students’ houses to interview her. Her name was Yvonne, and she could light up a room with her eyes and smile. Yvonne stood out to me and I was excited to get to know her more.

It was about a 40 minute walk through Mathare to get to her house, filled with climbing steep hills, shimmying down narrow passageways, and rounding unexpected corners. Finally, we climbed our last hill and got to Yvonne’s house, positioned so high up you could look out and see the community of Mathare as a whole.

We entered the small house behind us, and her grandma was there welcoming us with chai tea and open arms. I sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Yvonne on the loveseat, and the others crowded into the room and onto the remaining furniture.

Yvonne was 16, the second of five kids, and had lived with her loving, wise grandmother since she was young, along with the rest of her siblings. Her parents weren’t in the picture, and when I asked if she wanted to talk about it, she shook her head no.

I asked Yvonne what life was like before she got sponsored. “Life was challenging,” she replied in her beautiful Kenyan accent. Yvonne’s grandma didn’t work, and therefore couldn’t provide the necessary fees for school. Yvonne spent most of her time at home, and would have to play catch-up whenever she did return to school… a tough cycle that’s not very conducive to learning.

She remembered Fanuel, The Hope Venture’s trusted local partner, calling her and some of the other students to the church on just a normal day—but didn’t tell them why. When they got there, Fanuel told them that they had all been sponsored by The Hope Venture, and she said to me, “I was so, so happy.” Sweet tears filled her eyes as she shared the story. It’s a big deal to be sponsored and the burden of school fees to be lifted.

I asked her what her dreams were now that she was sponsored, and she said after she finishes school, she’d like to go to university to study accounting AND law. She dreams of taking her family to another level and wants to build them a mansion one day, with dark purple walls and red flowers outside.

We were needing to wrap up our conversation and I asked if there was anything else she wanted to say about her story that would make her feel known. She responded, “I would just like to say thank you, because you’ve proven to me that I can achieve my dreams, impact the community at large and also change other children from families like mine. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Just because you come from a poor family doesn’t mean you can’t achieve your dreams.”

Wow. Suddenly I was the one with tears in my eyes. She was right, and I felt like my heart had just been blessed by her. The conversation with my friend at the coffee shop rushed to the forefront of my mind: “Carli, my prayer for you is that the people you meet and the stories you hear would actually be healing for you, instead of hurtful to your heart.” I felt like Yvonne was an answer to that prayer. Here she was, in one of the largest slums in Kenya, in poverty, and yet was living in a house on a hill overlooking that slum, with dreams for a big career, getting her family out, and helping other people like her. She wasn’t stuck, she was on the move. It was such a picture of hope and healing, and it spilled out from her and impacted me. Beautiful.

Cultivating life through the soil.

Stella first came into contact with Wakisa Ministries when she was only 17. 

She had a newborn son. Her options were limited. 

She knew that she would no longer be able to return to school and receive a formal education, meaning that chances of future employment were slim and she would have few means to support herself or her child. There was little hope in her life, and it would have been easy for her to give up and accept the meager cards that life had dealt her.

But Stella has a fire in her. In her previous vocational training through Wakisa Ministries, she displayed an eagerness to learn and grow despite her circumstances. When the opportunity to be sponsored through the Agricultural Skills Training Program at Agromax opened up, she readily took it. 

Through the Agromax program, The Hope Venture and Wakisa Ministries hope to replace the cycle of poverty and pain with a cycle of cultivation. We believe that by investing in and teaching young mothers how to first cultivate the earth, they can successfully cultivate others — affecting change in whole communities and helping to sow hope where there once was none.

Throughout the agricultural skills training program, Stella has displayed strength and determination, as well as exhibited the keen desire to always improve her skills. She has been able to receive counseling and support from Wakisa Ministries staff, which has further enabled her to excel in her studies. Not only did her firm persistence help her to graduate from Agromax earlier this year, it has also given her the opportunity to intern in the same program — during which she will be provided with shelter, clothing, and food for her and her son. Now 21, Stella will be responsible for operating over ten greenhouses after her internship is complete.

Despite her current success, Stella still has hopes and aspirations that reach far into the future. Not only does she dream of being able to run her own farm one day, she hopes to eventually return to her hometown of Entebbe to teach agriculture to other members of her community. She wishes to help to restore hope to hurting young mothers just as hope has been restored to her — to empower other women as she has been empowered.

Stella is living proof that sponsorship through the Agromax program does not only affect change in the life of one young mother. It has empowered her to create a better life for her, her child, and her family. It has empowered her to transform from a woman who had the desire to flourish but was never given the opportunity to, into a woman who now has the ability to cultivate hope in the lives of those around her. 

More than just a job.

Just when I get used to the work we do at The Hope Venture and think of it as a regular job, I get hit with the story of someone overseas whose life has been changed because of our work. And it becomes real again.

It becomes not just going to a job and scheduling social media posts. Not just attending meetings and answering Slack messages. It becomes an urgent, life saving, life giving mission to be part of something greater than myself. A mission to help my neighbor overseas, because there’s a person out there, and she needs my help, and my efforts matter. They really do count. They really do change things.

I came across Ivy Shilalo’s story, and it made me have this moment of realization. It boiled my world down from being overwhelmed by the masses to focusing on the one. Here’s the story of Ivy:

She’s 18-years-old, from Narok, Kenya, and is in Form 3, which translates to being a junior in high school.

She’s the third of six kids. 

Her dad left when she was young, and her mom owned a school, but sold it to pay school fees to another institution.

Before she was sponsored, Ivy was in and out of school. To try and help with that, she worked at a hotel, but it closed at 10pm and it was too dangerous for her to be out that late.

Then she found Nasha Ministries, the organization in Kenya that The Hope Venture partners with to sponsor high school students. When she found out she was getting sponsored, she said that she knew her dreams were going to be accomplished. Now she’s studying business and English, her two favorite subjects in school.

She knows Jesus, and she praises Him. She says, “He has made the impossible, possible. He has always been there. When we were hungry, He provided.” She says that Jesus and Nasha changed her life, and it feels like they have given her hope.

She found encouragement and refreshment at The Hope Venture summer camp this year. She found hope in places where she thought, “this thing can’t happen.” She says she feels the dignity that we as an organization talk about.

Let me say that again. I want this to be made real for you, like it was made real for me. She says she feels the dignity that we talk about. Our mission statement is, “We’re on an adventure to bring hope and dignity to the most disadvantaged people in the world.” As a staff member on the marketing team, that saying is etched into my mind. I can spit it out on command and say it in my sleep. But man, it’s not just a well-crafted line of marketing copy. It’s what we do. It’s who we are. And the mission statement comes out of that, not just something that feels and sounds good. And for a real human to say that she feels that, wow. That’s what we do. It’s not “normal” work. It’s not just clocking in and out of a job. We get to reach across the world and link arms with someone like Ivy, and walk with her along her journey. Side by side, human to human, together. And you can do that too when you partner with The Hope Venture and donate to a project. It supports real lives and creates real change. We get to do that, and I just think it’s the coolest thing.

Fighting for an education and the hope of a better future.

I think there’s something really special about the projects The Hope Venture does. Who knew a goat could bring security to a family, a backpack hope to a student, and an agriculture program purpose to a young mother. The needs these projects meet seem simple, but really, they’re life-changing.

Meet Gloria. She’s currently eighteen, the mother of one, living with her grandma, and about to begin her dream of farming her own plot of land. However, her life wasn’t always this way. It was through pain, loss, and a prayer that she got to where she is now.

Her story starts with being an orphan, becoming pregnant, losing her closest friends, and being asked by her grandma to move out and find another home. On the brink of Gloria being homeless, her uncle stepped in and took her to Wakisa Ministries, a center and safehaven for pregnant women in Uganda.

Gloria was welcomed there and taught a skill; tailoring. It seems simple, but she excelled at the craft and even sewed Vivian, Wakisa Ministries Director, a dress. When Gloria returned home from Wakisa, now as a mother with her one-year-old son, she had dreams of being able to attend school and receive training and education, but she knew there was no way that could happen, given her circumstances. Gloria prayed about it, and boy did God come through for His daughter.

Gloria was able to interview at Agromax, a partner with The Hope Venture that provides a 6-month agriculture program for women, and was accepted into the school in 2020. She’s been learning incredible skills, like how to treat soil, use fertilizers, and she’s even growing her very own tomatoes and sweet peppers in the school’s greenhouse. She’s been taken in and given a skill that will be able to sustain her and her little one. She’s been treated with respect. She’s been given a shot at a beautiful future for her and her child.

And what’s even better, Gloria’s uncle has a ¼ acre of land that he plans to let her farm a small portion of once she’s done in the Agromax program. She’ll be able to live out her dreams now, and with her tailoring and agriculture skills, the sky’s her limit.