A Word From The Directors

We are just finishing our very busy summer travel season and have had the pleasure of hosting 10 teams since late May! Every group has brought something special to the table and we have seen the work progress in nearly every facet of ministry. I am always amazed at the incredible heart, passion, and talents of the ministry partners God sends us. These trips are more than just mission vacations, but are vital to the ongoing work of New Hope Initiative. Without question our greatest tool in expanding the work of NHI is our short - term exposure experiences. The vast majority of our trips are group-specific trips where a church, school, or other organization brings a team from a single entity. However, in January we are going to have two open enrollments trips to Africa. From January 8 to 17, 2013 we will open enrollment for a trip going to the Kibera Slum of Nairobi, Kenya. The second trip will be to our NHI orphanage in Sierra Leone West Africa. This trip will be from January 17 to January 27, 2013. Both of these trips will be life-changing experiences. If you are interested in more details, contact Sandy Baird at s.baird@newhopeinitiative.org.

By Sandy and Karen Baird - Directors of New Hope Initiative

Construction Boom

During the past few weeks, two New Hope Initiative projects in East Africa saw construction of vital facilities accelerate at an incredible pace. We are currently about 60% complete on a large new wing for our medical center in Arusha, Tanzania. This new wing will house the very first charitable x-ray service in all of northern Tanzania. In addition to the x-ray facilities, the second level of our new building will also house an expanded lab and diagnostic section. This allows us to offer a greater range of services at much faster speeds. When we move the lab from its current position in the main wing, we will have the space to add a third doctor, increasing our capacity to see more patients on a daily basis. This is an exciting new development for our medical center and will double our usable square footage. We would ask you to pray for this project, as we are currently about $25,000 dollars short of the needed funds to bring the project to a timely completion.

Our second major project this summer is the completion of our new church construction in Kibera. The facility was under roof and usable last fall, however code restrictions in Nairobi have prevented the Kibera congregation from fully utilizing the building. This summer we added flooring, finished carpentry, painted, installed a septic system, and finished the Pastor's housing in the basement. The facility is now 90% complete and we are excited to report that the Kibera church is now using the facility on a weekly basis. We are thankful for the help that several of our summer teams brought to this project. It is exciting to see the ministries in both Arusha and Kibera going forward in these tangible and visible ways.

By Sandy Baird - Director of New Hope Initiative

A Little Girl Named Irene

Irene has lived her entire 12 years in a small village in northern Tanzania. Her community is rurally poor, however her family provides a loving and happy environment for young Irene.  When her health began to rapidly decline in June, the tranquility of Irene's family shattered. Her mother took her to a local clinic, but their lack of expertise and her family's financial situation prevented her from receiving the required treatment. As Irene's strength continued to fade, her mother became increasingly desperate, fearing for her little girl's life.  She made the decision to try a clinic 2.5 hours away in Arusha where, according to the talk, the facilities and staff were excellent and where you could be treated even if your financial resources were meager. Irene and her mom took the arduous bus journey, made even more difficult by her severely weakened condition. They arrived at New Hope Initiative’s Clinic in the Olorien neighborhood of Arusha, where she saw Dr. Byemba and his staff immediately. Following in-house blood work, she was diagnosed with malaria, a urinary tract infection, an amoeba, and an umbilical hernia. The staff gave her mother all the necessary medications and, for the first time in weeks, Irene’s mom was finally confident that her daughter would recover.

Little Irene’s dramatic story was 1 of 134 similar stories that day, of hopeless people receiving a healing touch from the amazing staff of New Hope Initiative’s Medical Clinic. Thank you, ministry partners, for saving little Irene and for making the ending of this difficult story a happy one.

By Sandy Baird - Director of New Hope Initiative

How Did He Inspire You?

For my wife and I the adventure began nearly 18 months ago. Leading a missions trip was something we prayed about and was high on our list of dream to-do’s but like many people, jobs & scheduling remained a constant hurdle. It wasn’t until a radical shift in my career and the encouragement from close friends that we applied and were offered the opportunity to lead a team from McLean Bible Church with New Hope Initiative to Tanzania & Kenya.

As both of us have been part of short term mission teams in the past we spent much of our preparation time with the team focusing on how this two-week experience could usher in lasting change within their lives instead of just a flash-in-the-pan spiritual moment. This was reinforced once we arrived in country and Sandy Baird, the director of New Hope Initiative, spoke to the same ideal and challenged each team member to dig deep and see where God was inspiring them through this trip. Little did we know that the preparations and those conversations with Sandy would end up challenging us in ways that we are still unraveling and seeing where God is leading us.

For many of you reading this you have been on a trip with NHI or you know someone that has. So I have a challenge for you - when you come back or when you have the opportunity to sit down with someone that went take the time to dig a little deeper – beyond the safari tour, the souvenirs, the foods consumed and the always prerequisite bathroom question – ask them How did He inspire you? There is a chance that you or the friend you are asking may not know at that exact moment but maybe there is a glimpse of an idea or their heart has clearly been burdened to make a change. In any of these cases, accountability is a strong tool and I encourage you to take the time to follow up and pray with them or find someone that can become a partner in prayer and a sounding board for ideas.

While some ideas may involve NHI - and we truly hope that many of you will sponsor a student through Penda, share the mission of Project Biashara, or help serve in some capacity within an active project - but in addition, hopefully the inspiration will also hit close to home as you are likely going to spend 50 weeks over the next year there as opposed to Arusha or Kibera. For some it may become evident that the mission field God has placed in your path at this moment may not be as far as Africa, India or South America but maybe the next cubicle, the next door neighbor or the orphan in the city that needs a shoulder to lean on.

So how did He inspire us? We feel blessed and incredibly challenged to say that God inspired a lot in us through our time in East Africa – many ideas we are still processing through and others that we are currently in the midst of. For starters, it wasn’t less than a week after we returned from our first trip that we knew we wanted to go back. It was clear to us that God was not finished working on our hearts to serve the ‘least of these’ and as of this writing we have just wrapped up leading our second trip back to Kenya & Tanzania within a year.  As anyone that has lead a mission’s team knows, sometimes the greatest moments can come when seeing a change in others and we have had the amazing opportunity to watch six young adults from our first team embrace the ideas that God inspired in them - some within NHI and in other local ministries. But we are also filled with even more excitement as we have the chance to ask five other young adults that we just returned with the same thing we want you to ask yourselves and those returning from trips this summer – How did He inspire you?

By TJ Walter - New Hope Initiative Board Member

Forging A Path Out Of Poverty

Poverty is a villain who terrorizes, oppresses and represses.  It takes the path of unworthiness, defeat and sorrow.  I feel this sorrow as I consider poverty and a deeper sorrow as some of its victims have now entered my life and become my closest friends. As a result, my path in life is to fight against poverty, to challenge its violent and relentless pursuit to take its subjects.  It is an evil regime that has preceded and will continue to proceed the majority world.

Along my path I have found many organizations accomplishing credible feats in this battle and I heartedly commend and thank them.  But there is an organization I can personally and intimately endorse in its efforts and that is New Hope Initiative, where we are initiating change by carrying the Good News of God's love thru nutrition, education, micro-loans for small businesses and providing medical care for those who are as poor as you can imagine.  Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 400 million of them.  Their simple dwellings have no electricity, no running water or sewage system, women cook with charcoal, they wash their clothes in a tub, they get up early in the morning to walk to market and sell their produce or wares.  They return home at night to prepare meager dinner for their families or no dinner at all.  As men lose their self worth women and children bear the brunt of their trauma.

Yet I have found some things along this path.  I have witnessed to what extremes a mother will go for her child.  I have found that amidst the strife and hopelessness God is right in the middle of it.  He knows it all, He sees it all, and He has great compassion for us all.  Also I have found that even the most difficult life is still a treasure.  As far as poverty seems from the throne of heaven, I can still hear His voice.  I see light in the darkness and hope burning bright for the future.

Join us in forging this path out of poverty...

By Karen Baird - Director of New Hope Initiative