By Janet Gerow
At first I thought the hardest thing was actually going to Vietnam. The trip was originally planned to go to China, and when we were re-routed for Vietnam due to a swine-flu fear in the other country, I felt rushed and not sure if I was spiritually ready to give my all to [...]
By Jenny Pope
About 100 kilometers east of Addis Ababa is the city of Nazaret, the third largest city in Ethiopia. More than 1 million citizens live here, including an estimated 7,000 teenage prostitutes. This is the reason Buckner/Bright Hope started a job training program here three years ago, and the reason why so many young [...]
By Ashley Green
Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls Trip Participant
(El Paso, TEXAS) — We were in border towns, known locally as colonias, meaning poor neighborhoods. Poor. A colonia begins as nearly nothing. Homes are made of wooden palettes and cardboard. Again, no exaggeration.
The people construct their homes from anything they can find and slowly build them. [...]
By Suzy Hemming
For the past few years I’ve been putting together Christmas gift boxes for orphans in Peru. It’s a shoebox that I would fill with pens, markers, notebook, hair bows (for the girls), games, deodorant, toothpaste, etc. But probably the most important thing in the box was a letter to the child and a [...]
By Lindsey Rattan
My freshman year in high school, I wrote an essay regarding adoption and the affect adoption can have on a child. The essay covered the specific topic of when to tell a child they are adopted. My conclusion from that particular essay? The earlier, the better. Little did I know then how greatly [...]
Nov 5, 2008
Filed in Your Perspective
By Carla A. Robertson
Buckner Volunteer Missionary to Kenya
On our first day at the Baptist Children’s Center and at the Technical Education Center, we discovered that the sewing center was about more than just sewing.
I realized that Zibora, the sewing instructor, and Agnes, the embroidery teacher, also served as counselors to the women in the [...]
Oct 7, 2008
Filed in Your Perspective
By Jarred Schremmer
Impact, transform, bless, inspire. I was prepared to live out those words when I first walked into the Buckner-run Vickery Wellness Center three years ago. I just didn’t realize that I would be the recipient of them.
Vickery is a community center defined by relationships and, in my mind; it is the embodiment of [...]
By Tim & Theresa Oloffson
Many prayers and preparations went into the six months leading up to the 2008 camp for the children at the orphanage in Zau deCampie, Romania. Just before the kids arrived, my heart felt anxious.
This feeling was different from any feeling I had before. This was my third trip to visit [...]
By Dagmar Mueller
I am not even sure where to start our story, so I thought I might begin with the happy ending. On December 22, 2005, we went to the hospital in Sherman, Texas, to meet our future daughter and her birth family for the first time. This was the day we would bring our [...]
By Robyn Bush
Yolani is a precious girl around the age of 12 who never spoke.
We were told she was mute, but we weren’t sure if that was a medical diagnosis or strictly based upon the fact that she hadn’t spoken since her arrival at the hogar (an adolescent girls’ home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras). [...]
