The diminutive Sarah Tucholsky, just 5 ft. 2 inches tall, found herself at bat in a crucial time of the game, with two runners on base. She had played sparingly her senior year, having had a total of just 3 hits in 34 plate appearances. Now, for the first time ever in her playing career, she struck the ball solidly and sent it over the fence in center field, giving her team an apparent 3-run lead. However, while watching the trajectory of the ball she missed touching first base. A few steps away from the base she turned to correct this oversight. As she did, her right knee buckled. It was later determined that she had torn an anterior cruciate ligament.

In pain, and unable even to crawl around the bases, it was obvious that her first ever home run would be relegated at best to a single, with a pinch runner replacing her on the base path. Knowing the rules, her coach, made certain that no one on the Western Oregon team or coaching staff touched Tucholsky, who was writhing in pain, because by rule she would be called out.

It was then that Mallory Holtman, the first baseman for Central Washington, a senior herself who has hit several home runs during her career and who owns just about every all-time hitting record for her school, spoke up. “Excuse me, would it be OK if we carried her around and she touched each base?” With a possible bid for a national championship for her team hinging on her decision, she came forward to help a player she knew only as an opponent.

The umpires huddled and finally determined that it would be OK for the opposing team to help the injured player around the bases. So Holtman and one of her teammates picked up Tucholsky and carried her around the remaining bases, pausing for her to gently tap her uninjured leg on the base bag.

Upon reaching home plate, both teams were in tears, fans were crying while applauding the sportsmanship they were witnessing, and even the umpires were choked up. The game ended with Western Oregon winning, and Tucholsky’s home run providing the difference. Mallory Holtman said, “we didn’t know that she was a senior, or that this was her first home run. WE JUST WANTED TO HELP HER. It’s really not about winning and losing. She hit it over the fence and she deserved a home run.”

I hope we can all take inspiration from this story when it comes to helping others. There are so many people in need. They may not be on our team. They may not share our viewpoints and they may actually be working to defeat our own ideals. But when we see someone in pain, regardless of who they are, I would hope that we, like Mallory Holtman, would pick them up and give them a helping hand. 

Human sex trafficking is an international problem involving almost every country in the world as a source, transit, or destination country. The United States, Japan, and Australia are the leading destination countries, while most of children sold into the global sex trade every year come from Asia, Africa, and South America. They come mostly from places where the problems of poverty, violence, and political conflict are strong fodder for human exploitation. Often they are kidnapped or orphaned, and sometimes they are actually sold by their own families, who themselves are on the brink of starvation and will do anything they can to scrape up enough resources to buy food. For these children, exploitation usually includes forced prostitution, participation in pornography, and other forms of sexual torture and humiliation.

According to David and Beth Grant, co-founders of Project Rescue, these children become so traumatized that they “move beyond hatred and into a hardened state of detachment; the light in their eyes visibly turned off. The dignity, with which we are all born, stripped from their souls.” Sold by someone they loved and trusted, these young women and girls find themselves trapped in a condition over which they have no control, wanting to escape but unable, craving love and affection where none is to be found. If given a chance they would rather play. And in this regard, they are NO DIFFERENT FROM YOUR OWN CHILD.

These kinds of victims need so much more than tangible help. They need restoration of the soul, reacquisition of meaning and purpose in life. And this is precisely the design of Project Rescue. The Grants have opened several Homes of Hope (in India, Nepal and Moldova.) These are places of safety that provide a holistic environment attending to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the girls who have been rescued from brothels and other places of sexual servitude. In addition to the Homes of Hope, Project Rescue also operates Vocational Training Centers, After-school Programs, Night Care Centers, and HIV/AIDS Medical Clinics.

If you would like to know more about Project Rescue please visit their website at www.projectrescue.com. I wholeheartedly endorse this program whose purpose it is to restore the lives of today’s young sex slavery survivors by giving them the love and ongoing support they need to restore dignity and bring meaning and purpose to their lives.

After the Asian tsunami of 2004, Convoy of Hope provided assistance to hundreds of thousands of victims, mainly in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India. Shipments containing food, school supplies, tools for helping workers get back into jobs, water purification systems, and many other items were sent into the hardest-hit areas. Convoy of Hope also organized many volunteer construction teams who worked on homes, schools, businesses, and churches.

Convoy of Hope is noted as a first responder to U.S. disasters. When four hurricanes struck Florida in 2004 in rapid succession, Convoy was one of the first agencies on the ground. As a result, the organization received considerable press coverage. On September 8, 2004 in the wake of Hurricane Frances, President George W. Bush visited one of Convoy’s distribution sites in Fort Pierce, Florida. The President had this to say about Convoy of Hope. “The people here tell me that if it weren’t for you they would not have had hope.”

Convoy of Hope is still helping victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In fact, Convoy of Hope was cited in USA Today (July 19, 2007) as one of the top 7 faith-based relief organizations still active in helping victims of Katrina in Gulf Coast communities. To date, Convoy of Hope has distributed over 800 semi-truck loads of food water, and other relief supplies and helped 5.7 million people in 74 communities in the gulf. Convoy of Hope has also organized volunteer construction teams to help rebuilt/restore over 3,000 homes.

Ministry Needs
There are many ways to help Convoy of Hope fulfill its stated purpose of helping those in need. Please visit Convoy of Hope’s website at http://www.convoyofhope.org for up to date information on current needs.

According to the Navajo belief system, problems are best solved if everyone contributes to the solution. During the time of sheep-shearing, for example, when everyone in the extended family is involved in the process, a Navajo elder may invoke the phrase ba-je-la. This phrase is best translated as “everyone must now cooperate in this endeavor by using their own unique gifts and abilities so we can accomplish this task smoothly and with best results.”

There are a couple of things about this aspect of Navajo culture that I find instructive. I think our culture is prone to look to one person (father, mother, president, or other leader) for insight in solving some of our most basic problems. The Navajo seem to understand that bringing together the best that everyone has to offer within the community is the better approach. Secondly, the Navajo seem to have a keen recognition that we all have different gifts and acumens. When all of these are brought together and aligned properly to address the problem at hand there is better chance that nothing will fall through the cracks and the proper resolution will be rendered.

The Navajo language is rich in expressing human responsibility and how it is manifested within the family and the community. In fact, the Navajos were enlisted in the military during World War II to rely sensitive messages to and from the battlefields of the South Pacific. They were called Navajo “code talkers.” But they weren’t using code. They were using the Navajo language. It is the only communications device employed by our military that the Japanese were unable to crack.

If we were more strategic in our understanding of human responsibility I believe we would be enriched, less stressed, and value the contribution of others more highly, many of whom could help us greatly if only we ask them.

As a result, Convoy of Hope began a Nurturing Hope program that now provides daily meals to some 12,000 children.

I just returned from visiting some of the feeding initiatives in El Salvador.  I heard parents say their children want to come to school so they can eat.  I felt the warm hugs of grateful children and was moved by their smiles. 

I walked through impoverished neighborhoods.  I saw how the children lived: tiny one-room shanties with no electricity, no running water, and no sewage system in place.  And I saw firsthand the difference Convoy of Hope is making.  For many of these children, Convoy of Hope is providing their only meal of the day. 

We want to continue to be a voice for starving children.  I saw what one nourishing meal can do, as the children attending the school were regaining strength.  But we need to do much more.  We need to feed many more children.  And with more resources… we will. 

But there’s one thing at every outreach that causes tears to well up in my eyes:  I meet people who are lonely – people who aren’t accustomed to the love, smiles and compassion they experience at a Convoy event.

In some circles, the poor are treated as second-class citizens; they have few friends and are often ignored.  Proverbs 14:20 says, “The poor are shunned even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends.”

There are no second-class citizens in God’s eyes.  He has given us the responsibility to befriend the poor, lift their spirits, and offer a helping hand.

At Convoy, we make every effort to treat each man, woman and child as God’s creation and a guest of honor.  We’ve overheard guests say to the television news reporters, “They treated us like kings and queens at the Convoy of Hope.”

When we bring a smile to the faces of the poor, we bring a smile to the face of God. 

But too often no one is there to extend the hand of compassion to people surviving in refugee camps or children living below the poverty level in both rural and urban America. As a result, thousands die each day from hunger-related causes. They live and die––quietly.

Thus one of the keys to responding to the cries of the poor is to mobilize more workers. Each year, Convoy of Hope mobilizes 25,000 workers to extend a helping hand to hurting people. Together we must go where the need is so we can hear their cries and then respond in a tangible way.

We’ve discovered firsthand that millions of people are one helping hand away from finding new life. One meal, one blanket, one jar of vitamins can make all the difference.