Still Here: We need to raise $7,000 in July.

Every Wednesday morning, Nell logs onto Zoom and before she can even say hello, she hears it. "How are you, Mum? I am glad to see you, Mum!" It doesn't matter how hard the week has been. That greeting resets something in her every time.

That conversation has continued for over a year now. We hoped to welcome this family to the United States. When that door closed, they were resettled in New Zealand instead. Their daughter just turned one. She was born in a country that took them in when ours could not. We still talk every week. We are still watching her grow.

That's what "still here" means to us this year. It means Bernard, who finished all his paperwork in Pakistan and thought he was close to a new beginning, only to watch that door close overnight, and who is still waiting on a single visa that could change everything before the end of this month. It means a seamstress who has been displaced twice by fire and flood and picked her needle back up both times. It means the Wednesday Zoom calls that keep happening no matter what shifts in the world around them.

We continue to show up for these families and these programs through a year of closed doors and reversed plans. We've done it mostly through the quiet, steady giving of people like you. We haven't made a public ask since early last spring. We've stretched what we have. We've leaned on small grants and been carried by our monthly givers. Right now, though, we need to raise $7,000 to keep the commitments we've already made to the people counting on us.

Give Here

Over the next four weeks, we'll share more of these stories and where we stand toward that goal. A contribution to this fundraiser might cover fabric for a woman rebuilding her livelihood after displacement. It might cover a single book for someone learning English. It might cover a night of shelter during a program retreat. It will cover what it takes to keep showing up.

If you're able to give something toward this goal, we would be so grateful. And if you can't right now, know that simply reading these stories and carrying them with you matters too.

Still here, still grateful,

Christen and Nell