Your impact in 2018: Community development

When you restore a community, you help touch every aspect of a person’s life: homes, schools, churches, medical clinics, and access to clean water.

Thank you for transforming villages through community development projects in 2018. Because of your generosity, people living on the margins of life now have the vital necessities they need.

In places like Guatemala, clean water is easily accessible for the first time thanks to you!

Odilia and her family walked over an hour each day to get to a clean water source. Often, these treks— sometimes multiple times a day — were made during the intense afternoon heat. Their only alternative was to go without water.

And without clean water, her family was often sick from dehydration and too weak to do everyday tasks.

But a gift of clean water changed that! When you gave in 2018, you helped people like Odilia have access to life’s most vital resource: water.

Now Odilia and her family can drink, clean, wash, and cook with clean water.

“I feel very happy for getting water in our community,” Odilia said. “Before, we walked for many hours to fill some jar of water suffering the warm hours of the day. And now we can get clean water and only walk 10 minutes together with our children. I am thankful for your beautiful gift to us and we hope God blesses you.”

But it wasn’t just clean water that you gave … you also helped build churches, family homes, and even medical clinics. You helped meet a community’s most critical needs.

Thanks to your dedication and giving. Take a look at what you helped accomplish.

One village in Uganda was overrun with witchcraft. But once a new church building was constructed, people started attending and turning to Christ.

Now, the local church has doubled in size. And the community’s pastor is praising God for your help and generosity.

“For what you’ve done in the village, and for me as the pastor, I am so thankful,” Pastor Joseph said. “It was a miracle. It was a surprise to me when they told me, ‘We are starting up the foundation of a church.’”

And people aren’t simply coming to Christ because of a new church building. People are also finding salvation because of medical clinics you helped build and stock.

Ugandan women often have to travel to hospitals on foot while they are in labor. And if the clinic is too far away, many women give birth in the street. Countless women have died as a result.

But you helped build new medical clinics that are easily accessible.

One woman named Esther explained that the clinic isn’t just saving lives … it’s saving souls.

“The hospital has been brought up by the church leaders. It has come to the community from the church that we know. So as we are being treated, someone can pray for us … someone can introduce Jesus to us. We can be prayed for and know that we will be well.”

Because of you, 2018 was a year of healthy births, clean water, and people accepting Jesus into their hearts. Thank you for all you did to introduce physical help and spiritual hope to villages around the world.