Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! 

I have been deluged, accosted, and inundated with folks in the last few weeks expressing gratitude for giving them a Christmas gift so that they could have a fun day of celebration in the midst of what is a very dark time in Burundi.  I hope you can catch some of the joy in this brief video of Ephraim and his family, including little 3-year-old Milcah who has been traumatised by the regular shooting such that she wets herself at each round of gunfire. The family’s hanging in there in a tough neighbourhood and they looked pristine in their new sets of clothes, do check it out.

We gave out substantial gifts to 456 families of those we work with, and here are some of their messages:

‘Million thanks because we have prayed with my wife Bernadette and my three little girls during our daily evening devotions, asking God to send us something so we can celebrate Christmas Day. God used his angels to help us through your gift to rejoice, sing, eat well, drink juice, and dress new clothes, fifteen of us in total!’ (Leonidas)

‘We lost a family member and this gift was a relief aid in times of mourning, God bless you!’ (Estella)

‘God used the donor to save our family. We couldn’t pay our rent, so nine of us might be kicked out, but now we are still in our home.’ (Felix)

‘My wife was in hospital  two weeks. I couldn’t pay her bill and they wouldn’t let her leave until I did. And then your gift came! May God bless those who gave to help us!’ (Ernest)

‘We had so much fun because of your generosity. And we had to share the blessing so we invited over a widow and her three children too.’ (Sarah)
 

What can I say? I hope the above is an encouragement to you that your Christmas gift to GLO was money well spent. The needs are still huge and we are deeply grateful that we can continue to provide crisis support for hundreds because of your generosity. 

I read this yesterday in The Message from Proverbs 11:24 – “The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.” May your world get larger and larger and may God indeed bless you so much in all you do – THANK YOU!