The Luke 14 Project: When Things Look Bleak, Where Can We Find Hope?

The Luke 14 Project is spreading hope through hardship around the world, reaching the darkest corners with the light of Jesus.

For Yupin, a single mother living in a remote tribal village in Thailand, she found that hope through Joni and Friends.

She found hope in Jesus.

When Yupin, a single mother living in a remote tribal village in Thailand, attended our International Family Retreat with her two daughters—eight-year-old Praewa and six-year-old Air, who has cerebral palsy—she found hope in the midst of her hardships. She found hope in Jesus.

At Family Retreat, Yupin realized that it was all part of God’s perfect plan to give her a daughter with severe disabilities because without her little girl’s challenges, she may have never turned to God.

Yupin asked to be baptized at Family Retreat to show the Lord and the entire world that her faith in Jesus was real and strong.

“I wish I could pause time and be at this place forever,” she explained. But that was not part of God’s plan.

A few short days after Family Retreat little Air was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia where she would embark on a two month fight for her life.

Yupin had no choice but to hand her daughter’s frail body over so Air could be placed on a ventilator, knowing that they would be separated for an unknown period of time. Air was forced into a deeper level of social isolation, and her mother was heartbroken that she could not stay by her precious daughter’s side.

And in those dark moments, Yupin was able to call upon her newly strengthened faith. She did not give in to fear and worry; she knew she could rely on Jesus.

“I did not want to be alone,” Yupin explained. And she knew that “no matter where we are God is with us.”

Knowing that even though her little girl was in the ICU, she was safe in God’s hands—and wanting to be in that sweet community of fellow Christians she found at Family Retreat—Yupin decided to join the Wheels for the World™ outreach taking place in her village.

Because as Yupin described, when we are at a Joni and Friends event “the love of God is among us like nowhere else.”

Yupin had found Jesus and was living proof that true peace is attainable when we trust him, and she wanted to share that truth with other families living with disability. Shortly after arriving at the Wheels for the World outreach, Yupin met another special needs mom.

“Her eyes were so sad,” Yupin remembers. “She’s going through what I went through. The only difference is she doesn’t know Jesus.”

You see, in Thailand, families living with disabilities are considered outcasts. The Buddhist belief is that children are born with disabilities because of their parents’ sin. The entire family is hated and told they are no good.

They know social isolation at its deepest, darkest core.

Like every one of us, Air is God’s image-bearer, and Yupin couldn’t wait to share that truth with the other mothers she met!

With joy in her heart and a great big smile on her face, Yupin declared,

“Jesus first loved us so we can love others!”

Yupin felt that love at each Joni and Friends event. She shared that love herself, pointing other lost families to the saving hope of Jesus. And now, we are praising God because we received news that Air was released from the hospital and reunited with her mother!

With her release came medical bills that Yupin struggled to pay…until Joni and Friends stepped in to order her handcrafted star ornaments, one of the items featured in this year’s Christmas catalog.

Now, Yupin is able to meet Air’s special needs, while also blessing others and sharing the love of Jesus.

When you order gifts from Joni and Friends Perfect Gift Christmas catalog you are in turn giving a gift that changes lives! And 100% of all proceeds from your catalog purchase support disability ministry.

Your purchase will help Joni and Friends deliver the Gospel to children like Air and special needs mothers like Yupin—families in urgent need of hope in the midst of their many hardships.