MEET BETHANY

     Bethany was born with severe strabismus, an eye condition that causes crossed eyes, double vision, and possibly even blindness in one eye.  She was ostracized in her village.  Through a series of tragic events she became orphaned and abandoned as a young teen. After first becoming a child-soldier in the resistance army during the civil war in Kachin, she ended up living on the streets.  Her life looked hopeless.  Eventually, she ended up in a Christian orphanage in Yangon, and was offered the chance to get surgery on her eyes.  Unfortunately, the surgery was an abject failure.  Distraught, she returned to the orphanage with little hope for a future, and her eyes worse than before.  But God wasn’t finished with Bethany’s story.  

     Through a series of circumstances that only God could orchestrate, she came to the US for life-changing surgery.  Esther, the housemother of the orphanage, accompanied Bethany as a translator.  Their host family was Larry and Deb Bauss and their daughter Lizzie, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  By the time the seven month stay in the US was over, they had become close with the Bauss’ entire extended family.  The complex, six hour surgery was completely successful and Bethany’s vision was restored.  The girls boarded the plane back to Myanmar filled with excitement for the future, and confident that God had heard their prayers.  

     It was around this time, that the leader of the ministry that provided the only significant financial support to their orphanage passed away unexpectedly.   His organization became unable to continue support.  The US host family did the only reasonable thing that could be done and stepped in to fill the gap.  They asked Esther to make a budget for the orphanage’s essential needs (in Burmese kyats, the local currency).  They began to call parents, siblings, their grown children, in-laws, nieces and nephews, close friends.  “Could you commit to ongoing financial help?”  Any gift would help.  When the pleas were complete, they sat down at the dining room table and tallied the commitments.  Then, they converted Esther’s budget to US dollars.  Miraculously, the numbers were identical.  Living Hope, Myanmar was born.

     The early financial help from Living Hope was geared towards survival.  The children had rice to eat and a place to sleep.  We then began to seek God about His plans for the orphanage.  It is our heart that not only will the children survive, but actually thrive. God has a plan for each one of them.   He wants to help them to become ‘salt and light’ in a nation that desperately needs Him.  Today, we provide nutritious food, clothing, basic necessities, healthcare, education, and most importantly, loving Christian relationships to the residents of our Children’s Home.  Our sincere goal, as you will read elsewhere on this site, is that our children  graduate from the orphanage with confidence that God has a plan for their lives, and the skills that will allow those plans to come to life .  Living Hope is a story we could never have imagined on our own, and it continues to unfold.    What in the world?  An apt phrase.  A group of believers here said ‘yes, we will help these children’.   Suddenly, we stepped right into the middle of God’s story of love and protection of the fatherless.  We have been invited to be a part of a miraculous story He is still writing, halfway around the globe.  We invite you to join us in it.