Paid in full

This post is dedicated to Orxan and Aynur, two teenagers living at Merdekan Orphanage.

They were deaf.


Now they have hearing aides to help them, for the first time, experience the sounds of this world.



My dear friend here in Baku works at this orphanage regularly, and I've been privileged to serve alongside her and her team. The idea was presented of having our youth group raise the money for these hearing aides.

We decided to have a bake sale a few months ago on a Sunday morning. We were overjoyed to see every last goodie gobbled up and paid for with generous donations. I was touched at the dedication of our youth group, how they poured their efforts into even the little details of planning the sale.

Then we decided to have a youth concert. We took donations instead of a cover entrance fee and also sold baked goods.

I cannot even begin to express how proud I was of our students. First of all, the band members gave every last drop of love and effort into making sure we sounded good. And boy let me tell you, they sounded goo-ood. I may be a bit biased, but seriously, these students can rock the house. We've got some real talent here and my heart is bursting with pride over them! Actually, talent lies everywhere, its the patient and adventurous few who actually take the time and effort to seek it out. Its usually the humblest of all who have the most talent, in my opinion.

But the focus wasn't on us. Every song we sang glorified our King of Kings. And all the praise went to Him. I told myself if we didn't raise a dime that night, all that mattered was our Father was glorified.
The results of the night?

We REACHED our goal!

Those hearing aides are paid in full. Now Orxan and Aynur will go through therapy in order to learn how to hear and speak.

Mother Theresa once said," If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."