What has been the hardest part?
Probably leaving people in VA because they’re our family and it’s hard to leave because we love our family.

What do you miss most about VA?
Friends & family; people at church (First Church).

What’s the best thing about living here so far?
I like meeting new people and making new friends because I didn’t know them before – and if we didn’t move here, I would have never met them.

I also like having the feeling that we’re helping a lot of people. It was harder in VA because everyone here lives far away.

I know that now more people are contributing because in VA I wasn’t really aware of what we were doing, but now since we live here – I feel more involved.

What have you learned about God since you’ve moved that you might not have known, recognized, or realized before?
I was 9 when we moved & now I’m 12 and in 7th grade so one thing I’ve learned is that God makes everything work out, and it could take a day or it could take a year or something, but when I was younger – I still had a bunch of stuff I worried about, but it wasn’t too difficult to manage. Now that I’m older – there’s schoolwork to worry about, COVID to worry about, sometimes my relationship with my family.

God can make it work out, and it doesn’t work out easily the majority of the time because it’s not easy to solve your problems even if you’ve been having them for a day or a week or more.

I feel like He’s always working to help you fix your problems and sometimes it can feel like He’s not helping you out because I’ve thought that way before. A bunch of people have a bunch of problems, and some of them are worrying nonstop or some of them are only worrying a little bit – but God helped us help them. It’s really God who’s doing the majority of the work by helping them because He convinced my mom and my dad to move here. And even though moving here we would sacrifice a lot of things, God told my mom and dad that we would have to move here if we really wanted to help the people who live here.

Now that we’re here, I still have a lot to learn but I feel like God is always helping us solve our biggest problems or our smallest problems.

What have you learned about yourself since you’ve moved?
I feel like in VA I thought…I’ve learned that I’m more lucky than the majority of the people here. In VA, I thought that everyone lived with running water, electricity, lots of food and water – and a bunch of other stuff.I thought everyone lived with essentials and necessities. When we got here – I learned that a lot people don’t have electricity, a lot of people don’t have clean running water, or a healthy food supply or enough essentials to support their families. So I’ve learned that I’m really lucky to have family that can support me financially, mentally, emotionally. A lot of kids’ families or even parents don’t have that, and that’s what I’ve learned.

If you could say something to the people who give money every month to help the nonprofit, what would it be?
First, I obviously want to say thank you because without all of our donors (is that the right word?), we couldn’t be living here. We couldn’t be helping families with essentials. We couldn’t be doing the programs for the kids and teens here. And with your help and support – we can continue our missions trips, we can continue our youth group, we can continue food and water donations, and we really couldn’t do all of this without your support – and I want to say thank you for that.

If you could say something to people ho are thinking about giving money to HSM, what would it be?
Do it!
Just kidding…I don’t really know what to say.
Should I persuade them?

Favorite moment, story, memory you’d like to share from anytime in the past 2.5 years?
The time I was Student of the Year in 5th grade.

Next week, you’ll hear from Gianna!

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