“Just the week before [the] lockdown started in our area I filled my store with new goods. I brought mostly the kitchen items like [the] electric kettle, fan, iron, gas stove, and rice cooker. I invested all the savings that I earned from my tailoring store,” says Sahinoor, 35, an entrepreneur and a single mother who is raising her two children Shanta, 15, and Shourav, 7. She lives in a slum in Khulna, a city in southern Bangladesh.

The Church is empty, except for the pulpit and some metal chairs in a circle position. This is where we meet a sweet young married couple, Dunia Ardon (34) and Victor Santos (35). They serve at the church as Sunday school teachers and have been transformed by the Raising With Tenderness training, a Christian Discipleship methodology provided by World Vision.

Dunia recalls, ¨I grew up in a house were my mom had left us and I ended up growing up with my dad who was very aggressive. Many times, all I wanted was his approval and love but ended up getting beaten.”

Fozia regrets the stories she made up to avoid going to school. “I mourned [the death of] my relative” or “I had to take care of my feeble grandma,” she would say to the teacher. Fozia is 15 years old and is an 8th grade student at Mariye Junior Secondary School. The school has 45 teachers and 1,134 students that attend in two shifts, one early in the day, and a second group in the afternoon.

We’ve likely all had an experience of life changing in an instant. Maybe it was the birth of a first child, the unexpected loss of a loved one, or bad news about a job. Whatever it was, life was irrevocably altered after.

For millions of refugees, the life-changing experience might involve armed conflict, a natural disaster, or persecution. And it can propel them into uncertain and dangerous places, with few options to build better futures.

A sizeable crowd of people gathered inside Brethren Church of Christ to listen to the Sunday service. Van Hamusikili, 53, was one of them.

“Today’s message is about exercising dominion through Farming God’s Way,” Pastor Obert opened his sermon, much to the shock of all the congregants. The expected message was one of redemption from sin, not farming. At the end of the sermon, visibly angry men and women approached Pastor Obert, expressing their displeasure with the day’s message. “We expected messages of salvation, but he preached Farming God’s Way in church. We felt he had been demonically possessed to confuse and mislead us,” Van says.

The impact of COVID-19 has changed the entire world. In one community in Bangladesh, a Hidden Hero has emerged to help slow the spread. Meet Rumi, a 16-year-old who lives in a slum with her parents and brother Rummon (9) in southern Bangladesh. “I mostly invest my time helping my parents in household chores, playing with my younger brother and messaging my community with my peers. My school and life have greatly changed…now I spend my days at home to stay safe from the coronavirus contamination. I miss my normal days,” says Rumi. She completed high school this year and now disseminates life-saving messages to communities through the Chader Alo (“moonlight”) Child Forum mobilized and inspired by World Vision’s Area Program in Barishal City.

The sound of the water is beautiful, bringing peace. And if you close your eyes, you can almost feel it—the cold drops coming from the mountain, straight to your home. The sound can bring life and joy to a community. The sound is heard in the community of Lanita Verde in Honduras.

Here is where we find Maria Sarmiento (40). Green trees surround her home and a small river runs nearby. She lives with her husband, her daughter Marixa (24) and her two beautiful granddaughters: Keylin (7) and Francisca, who is a 12-month-old baby.

Marcellina is a 16-year-old, grade 10 student at St Joseph Chepterit Girls High School and marvels when she considers how fast life has changed in just three years. She now epitomizes the future of a changed society.

“I grew up in a patriarchal culture that emphasized more on conformity to the norms and practices of the community. Whereas this culture has some positive aspects, a lot of it is negative,” Marcellina shares. “These harmful negative cultural vices such as FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) and child marriages are so institutionalized and no one dares speak against them.”

Marcellina recalls being a grade 7 pupil at Ortum Girls Primary, when her head teacher selected her to represent the school in the first ever County Children’s Assembly.

Mugombwa, a refugee camp in southern Rwanda, currently hosts over 10,400 Congolese refugees. Gabriella, a 7-year-old girl in Mugombwa, smiles every time she washes her hands after using the toilet because she believes good handwashing is an effective way to prevent the spread of diseases, including COVID-19, Ebola, intestinal worms and diarrhea. The camp’s water supply system was constructed last year and has the capacity to serve the entire camp, plus the neighboring host communities.

In the community of Los Planes, located in Marcala, Honduras, we met Abel Lopéz who is 44 years of age. He proudly showed us his huge coffee plot where he has over a 1000 coffee trees. This season has been better than any he can remember. He says, “This has been the best harvest I've ever had, thanks to the support of the World Vision THRIVE program; I've been able to care for each of my coffee trees and increase my production to be able to sell it and make an earning to support my family.”