As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, I want to thank you for raising orphans to new life around the globe. Your partnership with HopeChest provides life-saving services to over 10,000 children suffering from abandonment, poverty, and violence.
On Monday I travel to Moldova and then to Russia to spend time with the ladies in our "Young Mothers Program." I'm giving them first-edition Hopechest Mother's Day necklaces as an early present and an encouragement. You'll be able to buy those very same necklaces (pictured here) in just a few weeks.
For Mother's Day 2010, we are selling beautiful, handmade, one-of-a-kind necklaces to raise funds for girls in our Young Mothers Program. Keep an eye out for the "Love Goes Around" necklace and our Breaking the Chain Mother's Day gift campaign.
Let me tell you about these girls in our Young Mothers Program. When orphans are released from the orphanage in their early teen years, they enter a critically vulnerable time. In the case of these women, they found themselves pregnant and alone. Still children themselves, they had nowhere to go. That's where HopeChest comes into the picture.
Fortunately, these 45 young women enrolled in our Young Mother's Program, an outreach that provides direct assistance, training, community building, and intensive counseling and casework. I'm happy to report that 100% of these moms are raising healthy young children and breaking the cycle of orphans producing more orphans.
I love how one of the mom's, Nadya, described the program in the simplest terms: "The women working at the Ministry Center helped us to keep our family."
But sadly, many orphan girls from Russia are targeted by sex traffickers. These women are lured with the promise of a job in a new country. Instead, they end up locked in a room and raped up to 40 times per day. There are 2 million children trapped in child sex slavery.
I have seven children–including two daughters from Russia–and the thought of them being raped once makes me exceedingly angry. I cannot fathom a world where every 36 minutes those two million kids are raped in exchange for money.
Sex trafficking in Russia is real, and orphan girls are at the highest risk of being trafficked. Russia's leading anti-trafficking organization estimates that 500,000 Russian women have been trafficked to over 40 countries in the past decade.
Since the day HopeChest was founded, our supporters have helped stop sex trafficking before it starts. You can join them! Through long-term relationships, we provide kids with a good support system, a stable education and job, and a network of Christian role models.
By restoring hope and rebuilding dreams, these young girls begin to create a life worth living. And HopeChest is there every step of the way to help them.
If you would like more information about the Young Mother's Program in Russia, please download this program overview (PDF). This is a very deep outreach, and we invest about $2,400/year into the lives of each mother and child.
To make a gift, please click on the donate button below and put "Young Mothers" in the notes. A gift of any amount will encourage these moms and allow HopeChest to further expand our outreach to these vulnerable girls and their kids.
This weekend we celebrate the new life we have in the resurrection of Jesus. On behalf of the children of the young mothers in this program, thank you for making it possible to bring "new life" to the orphans of Russia this Easter.
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