Alleviating Poverty

Now in his sixties, Yuri seems both older and younger. Living with a disability since birth, Yuri seems like a young child when he speaks. But when he walks, it’s with the body of a weak, elderly man, as he also faces many physical challenges.

In Russian, her name means “hope.” That’s what 84-year-old Nadezhda tells us. Her mother, a doctor in Russia, named her that after losing her first child.

As 85-year-old Victor volunteers both at a Fellowship-supported soup kitchen, as well as an interpreter for Israel’s courts, those he helps would never know the hard life this gentle man has faced.

“In peace I will lie down in sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.” (Psalm 4:8)

Veronica is only in the third grade, but she has already seen what the help of others can do. Her grandmother, Lyudmila, spent her life as a nurse, helping others in their native Ukraine. And because her daughter — Veronica’s mother — is unable to care for her two children, Lyudmila has raised her granddaughters as if they were her own.

Hand in hand with his beloved grandfather Boris, 7-year-old Ilya once skipped through the melting snow on the way to synagogue in Ukraine.

Life has always been hard for 10-year-old Alina and her 6-year-old brother Vladislav, and faith and hope have often been hard to come by. They once lived in a small dirty apartment in eastern Ukraine, an area mired in war and poverty.

Before the past year and a half, Yamikar’s family lived a simple life. Gathering for simple meals after work at Ben Gurion Airport — where the 43-year-old Ethiopian olim (immigrant) worked in the kitchen and her husband carried luggage — the couple and their six children gave thanks to God for giving them a home in the Holy Land, their biblical and historic homeland, where they can practice their Jewish faith during the High Holy Days and all year round.

Thirty years ago, Magda made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) from Romania with her husband. The childless couple realized one of the dreams they’d long shared.

Still just a young girl, Paulina fled the Soviet Union to the Ural Mountains with her Jewish family… to escape the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Svetlana has faced — and overcome — challenges her entire life. Born with cerebral palsy, she learned to cope with limited mobility — in the days before World War II, when those with disabilities found little help.

At 101 years old, Roza holds the title of oldest person in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic. And in those 101 years, Roza has seen and experienced so much during her century of life… and much of it has been tragic.