Last night we asked for $452 to purchase shoes and footlockers for the children of New Hope School. As of tonight do you know how much we’ve received?

$452!!!

Thank you Pat, Mary Kay, Arnold, Kathryn, Dorothy, Nora, and Margie. 7 people just changed the lives of 61 children. On behalf of the students and staff at New Hope, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

I thought you’d like to meet one of the recipients of the shoes and lockers. Meet Gladys. She was rescued from the IDP camp just a few days ago and is the newest student living at New Hope. She is Sudanese. She doesn’t speak English. She has a stuffed toy kitten. And, as you can see from the photos, she has impeccable fashion sense.

While the adults were sitting and chatting, Gladys approached Pastor Amos with her kitten in hand and began hitting him with it. Pastor Amos gently took the kitten from her and started cradling it like a baby, cooing at it, telling the kitty that it was a good kitty. Ever so calmly he said, “We don’t hurt people. We don’t hurt babies.”

Though she doesn’t speak English, Gladys immediately softened, as if she understood.

It was at that tender moment that I knew Vigilante Kindness and New Hope would become partners.

The Sudanese refugee children were born into a country that responds hotly to disagreements with violence. In Sudan, murder is a common response to relatively small disagreements.

The staff at New Hope has seen first hand how small disagreements amongst the refugee children cannot go without intervention because the only way the refugee children know how to end an argument is with violence. The staff also knows that retraining a brain that has experienced trauma comes through small actions seasoned with large amounts of patience.

When Pastor Amos started holding the kitten like a baby, Gladys calmed down. When he started making the kitty make meowing noises, Gladys burst into giggles.

In the next couple of days, because of you, Gladys will have real shoes and more importantly, she’ll have a footlocker where she can keep her stuffed kitty safe.