It was a journey that would change our lives and never really ended.
We were two young, idealistic people embarking on a bus that would take us to a world we hardly knew existed. The year was 1994. It was September, the rainy season in Thailand, and we were invited to the Thai-Burma (Myanmar) border to meet an ethnic group called the Karen. Rumors had it that they had fled brutal violence, oppression, and poverty. To us, such suffering was hard to imagine.
Shokhlo refugee camp was home to 9000 refugees. However, calling it home is a stretch of the word. Simple bamboo shacks populated the hills, and people mingled about like busy bees. Children played in the mud, and the constant rain and silt made everything dirty. We were soon as muddied as the rest. It reeked of sewage, cooking oil, and wet dirt. People lived here, we mused. They were confined to a camp surrounded by tall barbed wire. Leaving could result in prison sentences. What kind of lives did they have?
The living conditions shocked us, but what surprised us more was meeting the Karen people. They may have been poor, destitute, traumatized, and ill, but that didn’t stop them from showing us hospitality and love in ways we had never experienced before. They did not give us their abundance when we were invited into the simple, often dirty bamboo shacks they lived in. They gave from their scarcity. They fed us, gave us drinks, and offered for us to sleep in their houses.
It may sound strange, but observing their generosity made us feel poor.
When we met Rose, we were challenged to give away more than our time and spare change. She gave her life away. Widowed with two toddlers to care for, she thought that God had a greater plan for her life than just sitting around, catering to bitterness and feeding her depression. Instead, she started looking for those who had lost more than she had, those who had less than her—the least of these, as Jesus said. When she met us, she had a daycare for 14 vulnerable children. Her house was full, but her love seemed to have no boundaries. She kept taking in more children. She introduced us to one little girl whose family was missing and whose village was destroyed. She was four years old and found in the jungle all alone. “I want to take care of her, but I don’t have the money to provide for her right now,” she told us. “I need 30 dollars.”
It was as if God looked at us and asked: “What will you do about it?” Then we remembered a verse from the Bible that said, “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
We gave 30 dollars away to help save the life of one little girl exactly 30 years ago.
Since then, millions of lives have been changed and saved through our work. It started with that first visit and that little child. It began with a woman who had lost much but wanted to give more. We didn’t intend to start an organization that day. We just responded to a call: What will you do?
Thirty years later, the 30 dollars we gave is still giving. We have never stopped working with children who are living in war and conflict, children who are chained to poverty and violence. We wake up every day and ask: What will we do?
Novi has all our focus on children living in war and conflict. Spending 30 years working in war zones has given us incredible opportunities to help where most needed. When we started working with the Karen people, we were living on 500 dollars a month (it was tight, but since we lived in Thailand, we could live cheaply). This didn’t leave much to help the refugees and displaced people we met. To help more, we asked our friends and family to contribute, which they did.
That strategy can work now, too. To celebrate our 30 years of working with the world's most vulnerable people, we want to recruit 30 new donors who commit to giving 30 dollars a month. If you get this letter, it’s because we are inviting you to join us. The 30 dollars we gave 30 years ago has multiplied many times, and we believe yours can, too. It is a journey of hope, action, and generosity. Do you want to join?
Visit The 30 Challenge site to see the pictures from our first years working with displaced people and to give your donation.
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For the children living in war and conflict
Steve and Oddny Gumaer
