Amanda Holmes, a 2008 graduate of King College in Bristol, Tenn. with a degree in English and youth ministry, has devoted much of her life to bringing joy to the children of the world. Her travels have taken her from her home in Knoxville, Tennessee to New Zealand and Kenya.
“We visited Agape School in the middle of the largest slum in Kenya, and as I sat in that two room school house, a smile crossed my face, but with that smile came tears as I listened to the voices of the children singing songs in Swahili and in English. Children who are more likely to die before the age of ten than they are to live on. Children, who drink, play and bathe in water from open sewage because that's the only water available. Children who create soccer balls out of plastic bags because they have no other toys. Children who, when lunch time comes around, have to be served in plastic bags because there are not enough bowls, plates or cups to go around. Yet they stand there and they sing, loudly and out of tune, but with smiles on their faces and a bounce in their step. Are we missing something? These children need so many things, but they just want you to play with them, to sing with them, to laugh with them. In the midst of suffering, they have found that you can be found in a life spent with others.” Let us do the same. Let us live the life.
The students and faculty at Richlands High School, in Richlands, Virginia, each year devote their time to raise money for the families of students in the school that can't afford to have food and gifts during Christmas.
Jared McGaffee, a student at RHS, started RHS Gives Back to help families who otherwise, wouldn't be able to celebrate Christmas together. Each year, around the holidays, students and faculty volunteer their time to RHS Gives Back. The faculty chooses the needy students in their classes, the students fundraise the money, shop for the food and gifts, wrap the gifts, and then the faculty deliver the food and gifts to the families before Christmas. This Christmas they raised enough money to buy the students iPods, one student an X-box and another a Playstation. One volunteer student said, “A lot of these kids feel like they don't fit in... and I want to let them know that we care and that they are an important part of our school.” They ended up helping 15 students and their families have a memorable Christmas together.
Amanda Lynn, a graduate of Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida, has devoted her life to showing God's love to orphans all around the world.
Amanda has signed on for a two-year term to run the Makwale Vision Orphanage in Makwale, Tanzania. She lives with, teaches, cares for and plays with 50 orphans everyday. She shows the love of God to these beautiful children and gives them a family that was taken from them. She has left behind everything she knew in the United States and moved across the world to a country she knows little about, to live out the adventure God planned for her.