Compassion

Few can understand the desperation and fear of absolute poverty who have not experienced its grip firsthand. Many in the Christian community in Pakistan have no backup or resources other than their own families. Despair haunts the wife who loses her husband and who cannot get a job and is faced with a house full of children to feed, or the family that faces sickness —all too common when poverty deprives them of an adequate diet- and there is no money for medical bills. 

Light of Life is a small charity, which means that we have the flexibility to respond to individual emergencies as they arise in the lives of the tragically poor. Through our Partners with Light of Life, we make small grants to individuals in need, of whom there are many. The light of Life principle is this: "We know we cannot help everyone, but we have to help some". A small committee works together with the Light of Life Director and remains accountable to our Trustees. They make discretionary decisions when funds are available. Here are just a few of the small grants that have made a difference to those who have received them. Help for the Sick, Disabled, Disadvantaged Eleven year old, Yousf, worked alongside his mother and father making bricks, near the city of Karachi, until he fell ill with TB (tuberculosis). His family was too poor to take him to the hospital, so he lay at home for more than a year, his body getting weaker by the day. Around Easter 2009, a Christian family took me to visit a pastor at one of our small church and school buildings in the brick-making community where Yousf and his family lived and worked. Yousf was lying in the sun as his life ebbed away. Seeing the situation, we took him to the hospital where we learned that he was in the last stages of the illness, his lungs eaten away by the disease, but we at Light of Life went the extra mile to pray for him and nurse him back to health, providing care that is rarely shown to the poor. Adnan contracted Polio when he was a child. In Pakistan, those who have disabilities are at an immediate disadvantage. Society tends to treat the disabled as deficient, worthless, and shameful. But they are precious in the sight of God and deserve special care and love, and those who have committed themselves to care for them are in need of extra help. I first met Adnan in 2005. He had taken into the home of pastor Iqbde B-Mall, and he there treated with love and respect as a member of the family. Light of Life began to provide support and care for more such young. Now Adnan lives in our Orphan House and is in Class 10 in high school. He only has the use of one leg, but he has great ambition to study for his degree and then become a pastor. We will help and support him all the way.