About Mary Kaech

Author Archive | Mary Kaech

Becoming a wife and a mother, while still a child – Part 1

By on May 25, 2012 in Sponsor Impact, Stories

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be born a girl — a girl born into poverty versus one born into wealth — and how incredibly different their paths can be. We’ve examined in recent posts how gender-based injustice inhibits a girl’s chances at getting education, having a voice in society, protecting her own [...]

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Church in Kenya rises to meet practical needs

By on May 15, 2012 in Church, Sponsor Impact

About this time last year, we learned about a local church in Kenya that chose to go against the flow of society by reaching out to the outcast: people living with HIV/AIDS. You can read that uplifting story here. Today, I want to tell you about another church in Kenya that has led its community in providing [...]

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A price too high to pay for clean water

By on May 7, 2012 in Sponsor Impact

It’s 5 a.m. one chilly morning in Mariwa village, and Florence is up and ready for the day ahead. She quickly sips her tea to help her energize. As the lady of the house, Florence knows an early start will give her an edge over most other women going down to the stream to fetch water.

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Focusing on young people is key to stopping the AIDS pandemic

By on May 4, 2012 in Sponsor Impact, Stories, World Poverty

AIDS orphans are so abundant in our world that many people recognize today, May 7, as World AIDS Orphans Day. There are some 15 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone and, over the past few weeks, we’ve highlighted a few of them in our Poverty 180 blog. In case you missed it, click here [...]

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Empowering resource-poor families to send their children to school

By on April 30, 2012 in Sponsor Impact, Stories

They moved from their impoverished hometown to the crowded, almost-12-million-person capital city of Metro Manila in search of a better life. Finding Manila’s high cost of living too impossible, they moved again to San Roque, a coastal neighborhood about 10 miles outside the city. Settling there was illegal, but it was better than going all [...]

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Breaking the bonds of child slavery

By on April 26, 2012 in Church, Sponsor Impact

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners….”  Isaiah 61:1 She never smiled, talked or played. She never had [...]

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Caring for all of God’s creation

By on April 19, 2012 in World Poverty

Following the examples of Jesus, FH works with people of all faiths and backgrounds because we understand that all people are God’s creations. Likewise, we know the earth is God’s creation, and resource-poor communities are intimately connected to it. Here’s a glimpse of how we care for people by caring for the land on which [...]

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One in three people lives without a toilet

By on April 19, 2012 in Sponsor Impact

Some people consider toilets dirty — their germs dangerous. But others see them as icons of health that actually save lives. Today, a full 36 percent of the world’s population lives without a toilet, says the newest data from theWorld Health Organization. That’s one in three. This lack of sanitation is the primary cause of [...]

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All on their own — A family of HIV-positive AIDS orphans

By on April 13, 2012 in Sponsor Impact

It’s hard for me to imagine a situation more desperate than a child born with a deadly disease — the same disease that killed both her parents. At age 13, Mihiret assumed the role of mother over her two younger siblings aged 9 and 7. AIDS consumed both of these children’s parents, and all three [...]

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Sustaining communities and forests at the same time

By on March 30, 2012 in Sponsor Impact

In one of the driest parts of Kenya, FH helped people in one community gain better access to clean water while, at the same time, protecting the environment on which their very lives depend. Years ago, the Arapal community settled on Kulal mountain, right in the middle of the forest next to a freshwater spring. [...]

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