I’ve just received the annual report from our “Response of the Heart” team in Minsk, detailing the work that friends like you accomplished in 2016.
To be honest, before I even got to the end of it, I was having trouble reading because of the tears in my eyes. Thanks to generous friends of New Thing providing 100% of the funding for the entire operation in Belarus, our “Response of the Heart” team brought in humanitarian aid with a total value of $887,660: clothes, shoes, food, hygiene items, furniture and other household furnishings, appliances, new medical devices, medical equipment and medical supplies, building materials, sanitary ware, sports equipment, toys, and more.
They received and processed a new load of aid on an average of every 15 days — a total of just under 450,000 pounds (225 tons) — from the U.S., Germany, Ireland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
This year for the first time we also began bringing in donated brand-new medical equipment: $625,481 worth, for use in intensive care and surgical departments.
Overall, you helped 5,100 families directly, plus thousands of others — the poor, the disabled, the aged, abused children, orphans, foster families, veterans, and more — through the institutions and groups that received aid from “Response of the Heart.”
And you provided a hot meal every day for up to 115 homeless people at our new “soup kitchen” in Minsk — plus another 12 bedridden homeless who can’t make it to our facility.
Through it all, as always, our work on the U.S. side has been 100% volunteer, so every penny given to New Thing has gone into Belarus.
You have made God’s love clear to so many in my adopted homeland. I can’t begin to express my gratitude.
Thank you, from my heart, for journeying with us.
Much love,
Doug Brendel
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