Ready for School! | A Back-to-School Giveaway

Many times it doesn't feel 'fair' that we are on the front lines while you, our ministry partners, are so far away.

Sure it's sometimes hard living away from family and friends, missing out on pumpkin spice lattes, and winter snow (just ask Reni on this last point), but it doesn't feel 'fair' that you miss out on some of the blessings we get to experience as your representatives.

I'm talking about having the privilege and joy of giving that bag of food, praying with baby Believers as they practice praying in public for the first time, worshiping in a congregation of first-generation Christians, of having water fights with kids who've never held a water gun before... It's an experience we long to share with others and these blog posts are an attempt to do that.

This past month we once again had the privilege of delivering needed supplies, donated by others who may likely never step foot in this country, much less meet the recipients of their gifts.

This past summer our VIA intern, Hannah S, partnered the children of her home church in Rehobeth, Massachusetts to raise funds to buy school supplies for the children of a neighboring village.  

They raised so much that we were able to buy supplies for THREE villages of grade-school-aged kids!

Rather than just give each child a sack of goodies, we decided on a re-usable plastic box which could be purposed for just about anything.

Each box contained everything from pens, pencils, and erasers to rulers, notebooks, colored pencils, scissors, glue sticks, tape, sharpeners and stickers.

I dare you not to smile at the photo below... 

Photo credit (above) Jan Graves

A few days later we were up in Darshen... (photo credit for all Darshen pics:  Jan Graves)

Because of the fewer number of kids in the Darshen school, we were able to also purchase them backpacks -- a necessity as many of them need their arms free for balancing up precarious mountain trails to reach their school -- the highest point in the village!  And in the winter, they now each bring a bundle of firewood each day to heat their three classrooms...

These are just a portion of the students who received boxes...
With extra funds we were able to help some older students (who don't have a need so much for glue sticks and colored pencils) to purchase school books.

Friends from Community Covenant church -- Faleminderit Shume!  (Thank you very much!)