“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”
Dr. Nehkholal with Mr. Shokholet, a young, physically disabled man who is unable to work or earn income. Since being on our Family Support Program he never has to beg for food.
There are no programs to help people in this situation. The elderly are especially vulnerable.
Mr. Myint Aung contracted leprosy and became unable to work. His wife, Nyo Lah, is a basket weaver, but she earns very little money. They now have a new house and receive monthly food aid, and his health has improved greatly.
Ms Pha Hat, an orphan, contracted polio as a child and became disabled. Before joining the Family Support Program, she depended on love gifts from friends and neighbors to survive, but they were all too poor to really help her, and her health suffered a lot. Now she is very healthy and never has to go to bed hungry.
From the very beginning of MyHope, one of our primary goals has been to help the poorest of the poor to escape the chains of extreme poverty. We knew that it would be a long-term process, and that educating the children would be one of the most effective means of accomplishing this goal.
In the meantime, however, there are thousands of families in northwest Myanmar currently experiencing extreme poverty, with most of them struggling from one meal to the next, never sure what the future might bring.
When someone isn’t even sure if they will have food tomorrow, planning for the future is out of the question. Any kind of emergency or natural disaster is enough to throw these families and individuals into a level of desperation that we in the West cannot even comprehend.
One of our very first projects was the Family Support Program. We asked the local churches to tell us who among their congregations were the very poorest. And though all of the people are poor, even they know who is the poorest.
These are the people we set out to help first. Many were widows, or single mothers with young children, or people who had been disabled from childhood diseases such as polio.
We shared their stories with people like you, people with a desire to help the poor and needy, and especially those within the Household of God. And you responded in a very generous manner! Now there are many families and individuals who have received or continue to receive monthly help—usually in the form of food, but also in the form of medical care, clothing, shelter, transportation, and more.
The Problem Persists
There are still many people who need regular help. The unemployment rate in rural northwest Myanmar fluctuates between 75 and 90 percent. There just are no jobs for the people, and if a family has no land to farm, they are particularly hard hit.
Young people are fleeing the rural villages for large cities, looking for work. Many never return, leaving their families behind. When a man leaves to find work in Malaysia, or Singapore, or some other place, it is usually as an illegal foreign worker. Sometimes they are arrested and put in prison, sometimes they are conscripted into slavery. The end result it a young mother with children and no way to feed them.
Some families need short-term help because of a medical emergency, or a poor harvest, or some other unforeseen disaster.
There are others, such as the elderly or the severely disabled, who need long-term help. There are no social safety nets in rural Myanmar. When someone is disabled, they rely on the mercy of family members, neighbors, and the larger community. Unfortunately, when everyone is poor and struggling each day to put food on the table, there is little to nothing left over for charity.
Sometimes disabled children are abandoned simply because no one knows how to care for them. If these children are able to somehow survive, they grow up as street beggars.
Elderly family members are vulnerable, many of them suffering from malnutrition and sickness because they do not get enough food to eat. They will intentionally skip meals so that younger members of the family will have more food to eat.
We could go on, multiplying example after example, but we hope you have a better understanding of the terrible situation that many individuals and families experience as their normal daily life.
How you can help
You can sponsor a poor individual, family, or a disabled person by joining our Family Support Program. Your $30.00 per month donation will be distributed to your sponsored family or individual, in the form of food aid, medical care, or however the local leaders deem most appropriate.
When you sign up to sponsor a family or individual, we will send you photos and a short biography of their story. We ask that you commit to your monthly gift for at least one year, but we understand that life happens and of course you can stop your monthly commitment at any time.
Also know that 100% of your monthly gift goes to your sponsored family or individual, and none of it is used for administration or fundraising or any other purpose.
Click here to join the Family Support Program as a monthly sponsor.
This blind widow is part of our Family Support Program and receives a monthly love gift from her sponsor in the USA. This amount is enough to meet her basic needs and to keep her from starving or being reduced to begging from family, friends, and neighbors.
Mr Jang Kho Lhun is a disabled man in our Family Support Program. Every month he walks on his hands and knees over one mile to receive his love gift and to say “Thank you.”