Hope House Thursday
On Thursdays, pray for the maternity home in an Eastern European city.
Our Eastern European city is home to thousands of migrant workers from Central Asia who come to the city looking for a better life. Unfortunately, this journey can instead result in crisis. Young migrant women often lack the support system, language skills, and material resources to adapt well to their new surroundings. Stories of abuse, rape, trafficking, and abandonment by husbands are common.
The COVID-19 pandemic has added to the isolation and challenges a migrant woman must navigate. When a woman like this finds herself pregnant and alone in a big city, she often makes rash decisions that have serious consequences both for her own life and for the life of the little one she is carrying. Many choose abortion while others may abandon their babies. These young moms come to us with many layers of brokenness and need, the deepest of which is their need for a loving, healing Savior.
The maternity home, Hope House, which opened in November of 2019, offers these women an opportunity to experience a radical transformation in their lives through the hope found in Jesus. Our vision is to provide expectant migrant mothers in crisis situations with the physical, emotional, and spiritual support they need to embrace motherhood and nurture thriving children.
Hope House provides a temporary residence and emotional, practical, and spiritual assistance for pregnant Central Asian women and/or young moms with newborns. Our goal is to support 3-5 women a month through mentoring relationships, Christian counseling, prayer, teaching, parenting, life-skill and job-skill training, and access to medical and legal assistance. A team of believers who speak their heart languages is being trained to invest deeply in relationships with these women in crisis.
Hope House has been operating for two years out of a small apartment and has continued to function through COVID lockdowns and quarantines. In that time, 12 residents lived at the home, and many nonresident women in crisis were served by our staff. We praise God that through the close and trusting relationships built with each resident, the gospel was shared consistently. Women who previously had very little access to the good news were able to hear clearly of Jesus’ love for them, and several responded in faith. These women, many of whom have encountered shame and rejection in their own families and in the foreign land to which they’ve migrated, can now hear Jesus invite them into His family with open arms, declaring, “There is still room! You belong here in God’s family.”
We are currently doing fundraising, investing in our team of volunteers, developing our client program, and building partnerships with individuals and groups who can support us prayerfully and financially. All of this is being done in close partnership with a woman named “Maddie,” the Central Asian director of Hope House whose own journey from brokenness to wholeness in Christ has led her to want to share Him with others.
It has become clear that a larger facility is vital to adequately meet the needs of our maternity home ministry. Additionally, a new vision has been birthed to use Hope House as a prototype and training center that can be replicated in other locations, equipping local churches to reach migrant workers in their communities. This will have an impact throughout the whole country as the ministry multiplies.
Alliance Women is committed to prayer and financial support for the Hope House maternity home ministry in Eastern Europe. We have set a goal to raise $20,000 for this life-giving ministry to migrant women.
To participate, please visit www.alliancewomen.org/give.
