Children for Children 2016

Today for #LIGHTtheWORLD the prompt is “Jesus Showed Gratitude and So Can You” (video over HERE)

But at least I got our opening act:

(Those fabulous girls did a pretty great little dance routine.)

We had dancing, piano, singing, and even a balance beam act.

It was so great to get to slow down and visit with all those great people following the concert…

…and it was pretty great to find out that we reached our goal.

Claire was the “chairman” this year and that girl of ours sure put in a LOT of work.

She emailed, texted, made numerous phone calls listened in on all the stories, and conducted that night.

Those other great kids shared some stories about the refugees we were helping intermingled amidst the talents.

And since so many wonderfully generous blog readers contributed as well, I wanted to share a few stories here on the blog.

I had the opportunity to be in a conference call with Lisa, the camp manager a few weeks ago and this swelling of love came over me for these people.  They are educated.  They are good.  They want to work.  Many have had to separate from their families in order to survive.  Many have suffered horrible atrocities at the hands of the Taliban.

And ALL of them need HOPE.

There is so much corruption in the government in Greece right now, and because of the March 20th agreement these people are in limbo.  But they are there because they were in danger in their own homeland.  Many have braved the unimaginable to get there.

Here are a couple of their stories (taken from Liz’s blog post….thank you Liz!):

Rishda owned a successful beauty salon in Afghanistan.  Many of her clients were brides preparing for their weddings. But the Taliban told her that makeup and hairstyling is not allowed as it leads women to do bad things and ordered her to close her store.  They bombed her house and the bomb exploded near her 7-month old baby, who later died from shrapnel wounds.  She still has shrapnel in her leg as a result.  Her husband was a Colonel in the military and worked with foreigners in that capacity. As a result, the Taliban threatened to kill him because he was working with so many non-muslims, so he must not be a committed muslim. So he left with the smugglers before she did, leaving many promises behind.  This meant that if she was going to escape, she would have to travel thousands of miles alone with 6 young children – ages 1-10.