The Promise | April 2018

orphan’s promise newsletter | April 2018

your support is providing hope to children in Vietnam. for 2018, we’ve committed $112,000 to help the children in our projects.

giving hope. promising love.

let those who have ears to hear

by Drew Friedrich, Director of Marketing, Orphan’s Promise

Orphan’s Promise is working throughout the nation of Vietnam to give children living in difficult situations the opportunity to experience a full life. We currently have seven programs in that country, that minister to children who are struggling.

While this support allows children to remain with their own families or in foster or adoptive families, the truth is that there are children in situations requiring a group home setting. When this is the case, we want to ensure that the environments these children grow up in are safe and loving. At Promise House, children who have nowhere else to go find a new, larger family that allows them to properly grow and develop.

Throughout Vietnam, children with disabilities are often cast aside—and rarely receive the care or rehabilitation they need to thrive. For many families in this country, a severely disabled child creates a variety of problems because at least one parent—a potential wage earner—is required to stay home and care for the child full-time. No parent wants to think of their child as a burden, but many parents begin to lose hope, unable to imagine a life where they can make ends meet.

In response to this need, Orphan’s Promise supports two physical therapy centers, where families struggling to raise children with disabilities are able to receive free medical therapy, as well as support, training, and unconditional love and care.

In addition to the physical therapy center, we are also opening the door to education for deaf children in Vietnam.

For many of these kids, the world around them has been silent and strange for many years. Unable to connect with those around them, these children feel like outcasts in their own communities, but we know God has greater plans for them.

Through the deaf school, children are learning to communicate, to build relationships, to unlock their God-given potential and find their own unique voices. It’s amazing to watch as a child comes into the school—shy, quiet, and reserved—and slowly begins to open up, embracing their peers and realizing life has so much to offer!

One of the most challenging and frustrating truths about Vietnam and much of Asia—and really the world—is that human trafficking and sexual exploitation are rampant. Children have become commodities, bought and sold for pennies on the dollar.

Orphan’s Promise is providing a safe haven for victims of sexual abuse and exploitation. Through Hope House and Victory House, two Orphan’s Promise supported homes in Vietnam, young women are offered the chance to begin recovering and finding healing. As they do so, their hearts and lives are transformed by God’s love, and they are able to explore opportunities to get their lives back on the right track through educational opportunities and job skills training.

a life transformed by love

Fifteen-year-old Vi was born deaf, although it was a couple of years before her family realized this. She was later abandoned by her parents, and she hasn’t seen her mother for years.

Her father visits once a year during the Tet holiday.

Vi grew up unable to communicate with others—living not only in a lonely world of silence but one of anger and guilt, as well. Anger, because she was mentally capable yet unable to communicate well with others. Guilt, because she was the reason, or so she thought, for her parents’ divorce.

Thank God for grandparents! Vi’s grandparents are simple farmers making only $600 per year, but they took her in when her parents divorced. They’ve loved her as their own ever since.

your support helps kids like Vi thrive.

However, when Vi reached school age, there was a problem. Rural schools didn’t have sign language teachers for deaf students, so she couldn’t go to school.

The older Vi got, the more isolated, frustrated and angry she became.

Life changed for Vi when New Beginnings School for the Deaf—an Orphan’s Promise-supported program—opened.

New Beginnings serves deaf students in her village.

Oh, what a difference God’s love and one year make! Today, Vi is a different girl—much more patient and kind. She loves drawing and math. She can add and subtract four-digit numbers! She’s more peaceful. On her school field trip to “big–city Danang,” she ate eight large slices of pizza!

Her grandparents told us about the changes they’ve seen in their granddaughter: “Everyone sees a big change in Vi—in the way she acts.”

God changes lives! Love changes lives! God’s love, through you, changes lives! Vi is evidence! Thank you, Orphan’s Promise partners, for changing Vi’s life!

help us continue to change lives in Vietnam

give online: orphanspromise.org/hope-for-vietnam

’ If you’ve ever had the chance to look into the face of a child who is searching for a place to belong, you know, as I do, it can be heartbreaking. We were all that child once, looking to our parents or families to find safety and security, but for the children we serve, there is no one there to reassure them. You and I have the chance to take that heartbreak and exchange it for hope. When we invest in the lives of orphaned and at-risk children, we provide the safety and security they so desperately need. Thank you for partnering with us!

Until Every Child Knows Love, Terry Meeuwsen

orphanspromise.org

orphanspromiseonline

@orphanspromise

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Orphan’s Promise, a children’s ministry of The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc., serves orphans and other vulnerable children around the world, taking them from at-risk to thriving through the transforming power of God’s love.

CBN is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization and your contributions to our ministry are tax-deductible.