Ms. Linda Kurtz is the CEO and founder of Hope and Care Outreach. hopeandcare.org After conducting mission work in Las Vegas, NV, she had the opportunity to expand her work into Liberia, Africa. Through on-the-ground partnerships, Hope and Care currently cares for 66 orphans and educates 130 students in West Africa. Teaching sustainable farming practices and granting small business loans to women, Hope and Care is improving lives even as the Gospel is shared. Hope and Care has become the mercy arm of the Lutheran Church of Liberia. Listen in to hear how you can help! Pastor John Cain hosts.

The following program is sponsored by evangelical life ministries.

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And welcome to engaging truth. I'm your host pastor John Kane with us today, we have Ms. Linda Kirk. She is the CEO and founder of hope and care outreach of Las Vegas, Nevada. She, um, is, uh, the head of a nonprofit organization that serves the most vulnerable people in Liberia west Africa. Welcome to the program, Linda,

Thank you very much. I'm so honored to be here.

So tell our listeners a little bit about hope and care outreach.

So in addition to the orphanage, do you have, uh, education or what, what are some of the other programs? Because this is more of like an umbrella. I think isn't, it.

It is. It just, it grew every time we went and we kept seeing a greater and greater need and when we put it, we came home, we went and we saw, and then we came home and we told, and people kept responding and said, well, I can help with that. Well, I can help with that. And so one of the early needs, of course, that we saw was education and not just Christian Lutheran education, but education across the country. There are probably 50% of the kids in Liberia will never complete sixth grade. So even the public schools are not reaching the kids. And so we saw this and we, and we saw that, well, Romans 8 28, that here is something that is, it's not meant for good, but we can turn that around. And in Jesus name, we can make something good out of it.

So can we bring Lutheran education to these, um, kids who are living in African traditional religion or Muslim communities? Can we bring Christian education and the parents because they want their kids, um, educated. They will put them in these schools. And so that's what we're seeing. Um, we work with the evangelical Lutheran church, Liberia Senate, the E L C L S in Liberia. And we have been funding tuition assistance to those schools. There's 21 schools throughout the country. Uh, we did build two schools ourselves because we had to have schools for our orphans to go to. Um, but we kept seeing this greater need as we're going through. Um, well, let me back up. We have women's micro loans, women's business micro loans. And we started working in conjunction with the Lutheran churches to give the women loans because another one of the problems was that women or the families could not pay for the tuition for their kids to go to school, which by the way, is anywhere from 50 to a hundred dollars per year to go to school, but they couldn't afford that.

But I mean, village after village after village, you just see thousands of kids walking the road and just aimlessly and not having any purpose. So that was a huge burden on our heart. Um, and little by little we're able to, uh, bring more education throughout the country. Um, and then another thing was the clean water. Also going through these villages, we saw that there are some, well, last year I brought a teacher with me and she was, um, she was doing some teachers trainings and we stayed overnight in one of the villages. And we had to walk for probably six, eight hours to get to this village. And we had gotten there and she was, she was frazzled. And she said, you know, I just can't do this anymore. And it's hot and there's bugs and there's, you know, all kinds of just no creature comfort.

And, you know, I said, just go take a, take a bath and, and you'll feel better. And they gave us the bucket of water and it was, it was, you know, you couldn't see the bottom of the bucket. And she looked at it and she said, I can't wash my hair in that. I can't take a bath in that. And she went anyway and did it. But when she left the, our tour, our, um, our person who is our, what do you call him? Oh, gosh, you're gonna have to edit this out. um, our liaison in Liberia, um, he looked at me and he said, Linda, this is the water that they drink from now. I had been going to Liberia for 10 years and I hadn't noticed their water source because I carry my own clean water. Um, so we started doing some hand pump projects and, and this is kind of fun because we, we match this with an existing church.

So in these villages where there is a Lutheran church, but they don't have any clean water and there's still, um, this deep rooted presence of the African traditional religion, we provide the hand pump to the church who gives it to the village. So it's not coming from the us. It's not coming from us. It's coming from the church and a gift from God and they share how Christ is the living water. And, um, it's a nice tie in because the African traditional religion, um, believes that the ancestors, your ancestors are the inner, CTER, the inter Ceders for the inter accessories for, um, to God. Um, and so it, it's a really good segue in to tell them that no, Jesus is interceding for us every day. He died the ultimate death and, and sacrifice your ancestors don't have any power to do that, but here's the, here's the God who can. And, um, so that's been a lot of fun. We've been able to do that in, um, eight villages so far.

Linda, tell us a little bit about these micro loans. What do the women do to, uh, enable them to raise money as kind of a, um, a cottage industry?

Yes. Uh, the vast majority of the women, uh, will start with, well, in the interior, in the rural areas, you don't need as much to start a loan or to start a business. So these women start with about an average of 30 us dollars. They get a loan and they will start selling or, um, marketing, maybe they'll sell dry goods or oil. And it's basically a, um, they're actually a wholesaler. And so they will buy it and then sell it as retail. Um, some of them know how to make soap. And so they will make the iron soap. It's a, it's a ball. They, they get a great big VA of it and boil it, stir it, and then form it into balls. And you sell that for maybe a quarter in us. Um, they try to make maybe a dollar, $2 a day, and then that will put the food on their table.

Um, some of them know how to weave. Um, some can harvest the oil palms and, or the palms and make oil from that librarians eat the Palm oil almost daily basis. So that's something that's a huge need. Um, we had one woman, she's a wife of a pastor and she started with a $30 loan, $30 in us. And she started making some little snacks out of flour and selling notes. She made a little bit of profit. She upgraded her business and started selling dry goods and then started making a profit from that. Then she was able to buy the equipment to press the Palm nuts and make the oil out of that. And then she took that profit and she invested in two pigs, a male and a female. She now has six pigs and an ongoing oil production, and she still has her market.

And that $30 has increased into about $350. But the most important part is that in a, in a culture, in a society where everybody is struggling so much, you know, 80% of the people do not know where their next meal is gonna come from. And all of a sudden here, now you have women who for the most part are not literate, and they're not normally seen in business. Now you have these women in the Lutheran churches coming up, and they are some of the biggest and most successful entrepreneurs in their town or their village. And people are seeing that. And when, um, non-believers asked them, how did this come about? They can tell how Jesus gave them the loan. And this all came from God and, you know, they glorify God through it all. So it's great. That's one thing. Number two, you know, every church always has a, uh, building campaign going on, right?

And so they, in Liberia, they have a competition between who's going to raise the most for the building campaign this month. Is it the men, the women, or the youth group and the women where the docu loans are, are working and are really thriving. The women are just, they're excelling in that competition. And so roofs are getting put on the churches and farms are being, um, sewed because the church is investing in rice and they're planting rice fields. And then they're able to do the things that the church wants to do. So, um, the docus has really, it started out as something small and we weren't sure how it would work. And it's surprisingly really been a huge blessing.

So you mentioned, uh, food security a little bit, and also farms. Is there a farm associated with your organization?

We do. We have a 400 acre farm. That is our hope for sustainability because there may come a time and I don't know, people may not always wanna be giving to tuition assistance. And so our heart is really about sustainability for the ministry. Sustainability for the people that we serve and work with the farm is hope and care outreaches, um, planned for sustainability. Right now we have a hundred acres of rice, um, that will be sewn this season. And then all of those profits will pay for the staff first for the, the farm staff. But then also the eventual goal and vision is that the farm will, um, feed into the tuition assistance fund and that farm will help to keep the kids in school.

So how does that, uh, work then with orphans and widows and maybe the indigent, do they get to help out in some way?

Oh, as a matter of fact, um, the C really made that very opportun for the orphans last year. They had a four month, uh, break and many of the kids, um, hadn't really been in the interior, their city kids, or they've been living in the city in the orphanage. Um, so they went out to the farm and we rotated, uh, 12 kids on 12 kids off on off. And they rotated through, learned how to plant the rice and sew the rice. And that's the same thing and how to harvest the rice. Um, and so they now know because the goal for the orphans is not just to get them educated. And, you know, every child has a different path. Some are gonna go to college. Some may not go to college. Some may wanna be farmers. We have to be able to teach these kids how to market and how to, um, go to the market and make change and be able to barter and how to go onto the farm and do everything they have to do. Um, so the kids helped a lot with that. Um, the, some of the teachers from the school, they wanted to come, um, some of the different churches that we are associated with, um, they took time out of their schedule and they came, even though they have their own farm, we didn't even ask anyone, God just put it on many people's hearts last year. It was our first harvest and people were just showing up from all over to come and help with the harvest. So it's been a blessing.

What, uh, what's the climate like in Liberia? Is there a state that you could compare that to in the us?

I would say it is like maybe Louisiana in July on steroids, whites, and that's in the rainy season. Um, yeah, or, I mean, the dry season, the dry season is just hot and unbearable. Um, and humid, always humid in the rainy season. At least you get some breeze and it cools down a little bit, but it's tough to take and there's no break. There's no air conditioning, you know, and everything is warm,

But you've got a long growing season. It sounds like .

Yes. Yes.

So, um, uh, do you have some other success stories or stories from some of the people whose lives have been changed?

Mm-hmm . I would say one of the, one of my favorite is our caretaker. Uh, she also was a pastor's wife. Uh, he passed away after the war and she had three children and just no place to go and nothing, no options. And, um, we took her in as the caretaker for the orphans and she has embraced them. There's 61 kids at that home, and then we have a new home, um, and she just loves them all with all her heart as if they're all her own children, but not only that, then through her wages, she was able to put her own daughter through college and through nursing program. And so that's the exact thing that we're looking at, right. We don't wanna have to put her daughter through college. That's something that she wanted to do herself. And so by able, by being able to pay her a fair wage, she was able to do that and had the dignity to take care of her own daughter.

And that's one of the big things that we're about. And we always say is that nobody's gonna get rich working for hope and care, but you are not gonna be oppressed and have to be scrambling to find your next meal either you should be able to take care of your family. So that's a big one of our heart. Um, also, um, our eldest male just graduated from high school, the school that's on campus, and he is being groomed actually to be the next executive director at hope and care in Liberia. He's a marvelous young man who just is so committed and, um, integrity and wise. And so, uh, his sponsor is willing to put him through, um, a school in Ghana. He's got a big heart for agriculture. So he would like to go to a university in Ghana that teaches it's very holistic. They teach plumbing and electrical and how to make a fence.

And, um, you name it masonry because in a farm in Liberia and in developing countries, you have to have all that knowledge. So he's gonna go off and do that soon. COVID put a kind of a damper on things, but we're getting back to. And so, um, that has been a huge one. And then not only is he just a success, but he's a role model to all the other kids in the home because, you know, the teen years are not easy anywhere in the us or in another country. And kids start going off their own way. And our kids are, you know, they could easily become lazy and complacent because they're being given, uh, so many things. And so he's really a great RO role model. Um, he's the president of the home. He was the president of the student body. He was the valedictorian and he is the treasurer of the church and has been since he was a sophomore in high school. Um, he's just, he's an amazing young man.

So we're talking with Linda Kurtz of hope and care about, uh, the mission work and all the things that they've been doing in Liberia, west Africa. Uh, Linda, you talk about partnering with the librarians, helping them with their lives, giving them dignity and opportunity and resources. I would imagine you also have to partner with people in the United States. Can you tell us a little bit about how that happens?

Yes. That has really been opening the door on that, especially since, uh, we launched into this new ministry. Um, we are working with different organizations to try and just partner and use all of our different resources. One of them that I'm, I'm just so thankful for is lead a child. Uh, Dr. Phil frosty is doing zoom, uh, teachers trainings with us. Uh, the first we've had two so far, and that's another one of the things that COVID was a blessing because we were forced to use that avenue, but it's good because now on, uh, this next week, we're looking at having 10 different locations in Liberia, all zooming in with Dr. Frosty and his heart is so zealous to teach teachers how they can be missionaries to the student in the, um, yes, to also be a, a good teacher, but how can they share Christ with these, uh, students, whether they're teaching mathematics or science or whatever.

So that's been great. Um, we're working with, um, Dr. Jack Price, um, and how we can partner with new schools that are opening up. Uh, the Pacific Southwest district has been wonderful. Uh, Rachel cling is going to work with us, um, possibly in different mission partnerships. Um, and who else? Oh, orphan grain train. Uh, they have been amazing. They've been helping us to supply, um, desks and all kinds of resources, Bibles rice for hot lunch program for the kids, um, infant clothing, because we have a medical clinic and that's, that was something that we didn't even realize they were giving us infant clothing. And we started sharing the clothing with the mothers when they came in to give birth. Well, that little gift has spread to women all over and women wanna come because now they hear that we love babies so much that we're giving free clothing. And we have the reputation of delivering safe babies because having a baby is definitely not safe there.

Yeah. We'll come back to Linda in just a moment. I'd like to, uh, invite our listeners to visit our radio programs, website, Elm houston.org. And they're on that website. You can find out more about us. You can, uh, uh, hear about pastor Schultz, myself, and, uh, find out that we are volunteers in this. So, uh, in addition to having our 5 0 1 C three designation from the IRS, you can be assured that your donations to us go far to, uh, help us, uh, secure radio airtime. Uh, you may, uh, jump from that website, Elm houston.org to our Facebook or Twitter or YouTube account pages. Uh, you can also write us at Elm Houston PO box 5 68, Cypress, Texas 7 7 4 1 oh, back to you. Linda, can you give our listeners real quickly a way that they can find out more about your mission work?

Absolutely. We also have a website. It is hope and care.org. We are also on Facebook and, um, we would so love to, uh, talk with anybody, answer any questions. We have all different kinds of opportunities that people can partner. Uh, if you would like to sponsor an orphan, if you would like to, um, help someone go to school, help a, a child to go to school, um, build a hand pump. Well, there's all kinds of different things. I think that God has given us a, a variety that no matter where your heart is or what your passion is, we would be able to connect you. Um, in that way, that would make it feel very real and passionate and, um, tangible

And what a way to share the love of Christ. And also some of the, the amazing, uh, blessings that we have in this country to share it with somebody else in a way that will make, uh, a life changing, uh, lifelong difference. Linda, thank you for, uh, your time with us. And, uh, we hope that our listeners will check out your website and maybe send some of those blessings your way. Join us again real soon for another edition of engaging truth.

Thank you for listening to this broadcast of engaging truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time, to help support our ministry, contact evangelical life ministries, post office box 5 68, Cypress, Texas 77 400, or visit our website@elmhouston.org, or find us on Facebook at evangelical life ministries. Thank you.