Over the holidays, you probably had many opportunities to celebrate with your family. Maybe it was a little hectic … but there’s nothing quite like looking back over the past year with the ones you love most.

As we begin the new year, we hope you’ll join us in one more family celebration — celebrating our amazing sponsorship family and how it’s grown in 2016.

What you’ve accomplished

For many of you, this is your first year as a child sponsor. For others, you have been part of this family since the beginning. But you all are important. Together, your efforts resulted in 13,720 active sponsorships … providing countless children a chance at a brighter future!

Your love is reaching around world into 22 different countries, rescuing boys and girls from poverty and helping train them to become leaders in their communities and witnesses for Christ.

In 2016, you gave more generously than ever before, often investing above and beyond your $35 a month to ensure that your sponsored children received the best care possible and were able to celebrate special milestones like birthdays and Christmas.

New opportunities ahead

In addition to welcoming many new sponsors to our family this year, we also welcomed 150 new children from the Nath Mohalla community outside of Indore, India.

These children have been victims of persecution their entire lives. As members of one of India’s lowest social castes, they are scorned even by other “untouchables,” making it impossible for them to attend school.

For generations, the Nath people’s only source of income came from performing as snake charmers, but strict government regulations have taken away even that small job opportunity. Before sponsorship, many children were forced to join their parents as beggars just to survive.

Now, they have the opportunity to earn an education as well as receive food and basic medical care. Most importantly, they are taught each week that even though some people may despise them, they are loved by God.

Annu’s story

Ten-year-old Annu Nath’s dream has been to become a doctor and help improve the lives of the people in her community. Her heart breaks with compassion every time a disease sweeps through her settlement and she watches her neighbors suffering.

For years, she would help in whatever way she could when her little brother or friends became sick, but knew she would never have the chance to become a real doctor. At least that’s what she thought until she heard about the child sponsorship program coming to her village. She is now in school, working hard to make her dream become a reality!

Annu and most of the other 150 Nath children are still waiting for a full-time sponsor, but they finally have hope that their future may hold more than begging and difficult labor. It’s people like you who make that hope possible.

Sponsors, thank you for changing lives like Annu’s. We’re excited to see how God will continue to use you and how much more He will grow our sponsorship family in 2017.

And to those of you still considering becoming a sponsor, we hope you will begin this year by doing something that will outlive you and last for eternity … investing in the physical, spiritual, and emotional growth of a child.