In a small border town between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the challenges of hunger are deeply felt. Just blocks from the border gate, members of our team met with a group of pastors and community leaders to discuss food security efforts. Our mission was simple: to explain what we were learning from hunger maps, share information about the recent shipment of food received from Feed My Starving Children (FMSC), and encourage participation in gathering more information to resource and serve the leaders and their communities.

As our team explained our efforts, the leaders listened intently, their faces reflecting the weight of responsibility and the heartbreak they felt for their communities . Toward the end of the meeting, a few stood to ask questions or express gratitude. Among them was *Mireya a Dominican woman who walked forward with a tattered piece of paper in her hand.

Mireya made her way to the front, clutching the piece of paper. She explained that she lived in a rural area where internet service was unreliable. She worried that her community’s needs would go unheard because they couldn’t submit the online form. As she spoke, she handed our team a page torn from a notebook. At first glance, it was an unassuming piece of paper, its edges jagged from being ripped hastily. But as our team unfolded it, they saw that Mireya had written 59 names, each one accompanied by a first and last name. These were her neighbors—fellow Dominicans she knew—who were greatly in need of food. She then went on to write on the back of the paper a list of 13 Haitian families in desperate need of help in her community, too.

Mireya’s heart for her neighbors, both Dominican and Haitian, transcends political barriers and highlights the power of caring for one another in times of great need. Our team assured her that the lack of internet service would not hinder her community from receiving aid, and we are working on the best way to support that community.

Your support of Mission of Hope directly ties to stories just like this: serving people in communities who feel forgotten, discarded, and hopeless. When provision shows up in the form of food, encouragement, and critical supplies, hope is restored. Thank you for your partnership and for being the hands and feet of Jesus this season.

*Name changed for privacy