By Jeremy Handysides
I’m excited to say that God has opened some really cool doors recently. I stopped by a surf shop to talk to the owner who I’ve had the honor of knowing and showed him a flyer about World Orphans.
He immediately got excited and said he had been praying for an opportunity to donate hundreds of shoes he’s had to orphans. Please pray that this will happen. World Orphans has a project in Guatemala that provides shoes to orphans who work in the trash dump. Kids there literally die or can become seriously ill due to infections from stepping on sharp, contaminated objects, so a simple pair of shoes can save their lives.
The Grombomb Surf contest to benefit World Orphans projects in Haiti is coming up on Oct.30th. I’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response from the community here in San Diego about it. We will have artists creating live art and surf-product raffles. If you or your business want to donate items to go in the raffle, contact Jeremy Handysides at jeremy@worldorphans.org.
It is my prayer that events like this will stir people’s hearts up to get involved with World Orphans in one or all of the following ways:
1. Going a mission trip to see the need first hand and to get to meet the people they are supporting
2. By donating money to a World Orphans project
3. By volunteering time to help orphans & widows in need
4. By encouraging our Western church leaders to partner with indigenous churches that need our support.
There are more than 143 million orphans in this world. Everyone reading this can make a difference.
Some people just need a chance, an opportunity to get out of poverty. There are already so many awesome stories of orphans who were literally dying of starvation, victims of sex trafficking, abused by drugs or people, but through the World Orphans ministry were saved off the streets.
They are now healthy kids who went from these completely desperate situations to getting all of their spiritual, physical, emotional and educational needs taken care of by Christ-centered people who love them. Now they are going back into their communities and bringing light and hope to where there was none before.