Carry Hope to Every Home

Location: Creative Access #12

“My name is Teresa. This is my home. It’s simple, like many others here. In this photo, you see my family during one of the most difficult seasons we have faced. My husband, who is in the wheelchair, has been seriously ill for months. We have gone through sleepless nights, days without enough food, and moments when we felt we could not go on. Life here has become very hard. Sometimes there is no electricity, sometimes no food, and often, no hope.

“One day, a group of believers came to our home. They did not bring much materially, but they brought something we did not have—a message of life. They shared a gospel message with us and spoke about the love of God. At first, I listened, but inside I kept wondering: where is God in the middle of everything we are going through?

“Then one of the believers said something I will never forget: ‘God does not always change our circumstances first; he changes our hearts to sustain us through our circumstances.’

“The believers left the gospel literature and encouraged us to read it. That same afternoon, we read it together as a family in our living room. The message spoke of a God who is near, of a Christ who suffered and understands pain and who offers hope beyond what we can see.

“That day, we prayed together as a family for the first time. It was not a perfect prayer, but it was a sincere one.

“From that moment, something began to change. I cannot say that all our problems disappeared, but I can say that we are no longer alone. There is peace in pain. There is comfort even when there seems to be no way out. My husband, even in his condition, now asks for the Bible to be read to him. My mother, who did not believe before, now prays every night. And I have found hope again.

“Today, we are still facing difficulties, but no longer with despair. Now, we know that God is in this house. That day, when the believers came with that small piece of literature, they did not just bring paper—they brought light into our home.”

Carry Love to Every Human Heart

Location: Creative Access #41

The flat concrete facades on either side of the street created a canyon through which the bitter wind blew. Ben* hunched over, his eyes fixed on the ground as he walked. Maybe he would spot some loose change he could use to buy a drink.

Ben’s mother had died some time before. Trying to numb the hollow pain of grief, Ben spent more and more of his time drinking or trying to scrape together enough money to buy his next drink. “I started to lose my life…” Ben says. “The more I drank, the more I had nothing left.”

Ben’s neighbors avoided him. His brothers and several of his friends had turned to violence to get by, and now it seemed everyone Ben had once known feared him or wanted nothing to do with him.

“Without a job and without brothers and friends, I spent the night on the streets, collecting garbage, and drinking with people,” he recalls. “Life became meaningless.”

Cold and empty, Ben made his way down the street. He didn’t see the man moving in the other direction and bumped into him.

Looking up, Ben saw another outcast, perhaps even worse off than himself. Like Ben, this man had clearly been living on the street.

But the man told Ben, “Jesus loves you.” He invited Ben to a Christmas celebration happening at a church in a few days.

“I had not heard anyone say ‘I love you’ since my mother passed away,” Ben says.

Ben eagerly looked forward to Christmas.

“I was so happy that [someone] invited me to the holiday without rejecting me,” he says. “I cleaned myself up and went to the church with great joy. I was greeted by many beautiful people in very nice clothes. I was embarrassed and hesitated to go in, but they all invited me in. They were all kind to me. In the past, none of my relatives, brothers, or friends invited me in. None of them let me into their homes.”

After the celebration, the man who was preaching hugged Ben and prayed for him. It surprised Ben that a “big man in nice clothes” would embrace him.

Ben began going to the church every day. He is on the road to freedom from alcoholism.

“My pastor said that the patience and strength to not drink alcohol comes only from God, so I believe it…I love Jesus because Jesus loves me.”

*Name changed for security.