MORE THAN JUST LOVE IN WORD “When you help the poor you are lending to the Lord – and he pays wonderful interest on your loan!” (Prov. 19:17) “Happy is the generous man, the one who feeds the poor” (Prov. 22:9). The mentioned generous man does not only feed the poor by supporting them monthly, but also personally crosses thousands of miles to Vietnam to provide sheltering for the families. Let’s read his testimony (below) of his 3-week trip with LOVE and the poor in Danang to see how fantastic His work had been done! “My name is Mark Smith, I am an Australian. I have been to Vietnam 3 times. After my first visit, I decided that I needed to do something to help the poor people of Vietnam. I searched the Internet and finally came across LOVE. I decided to sponsor a family in early 2010. Soon after that, my wife and I returned to Vietnam to meet the people of LOVE and our sponsored family. It was a wonderful experience to be invited into the home of the family. After this experience, I still felt I had to do more. Of course, it is easy to send money but I needed to do something more personal than that. So in December 2012, I asked LOVE if I can come to Da Nang and volunteer to help directly. I have a construction background so it was suggested that I help repair houses of some poor families. In mid-January 2013, I flew to Da Nang to work with Phuong and volunteer University students to work on 3 houses. The first and largest project was for a family who had 2 sons affected by Agent Orange. This means the 2 adult children are confined to a wooden bed. Both men are mentally fine but without functioning bodies. For someone of my background this was very confronting. The father is also partially disabled due to a motorbike accident 10 years ago. The mother is a wonderful strong lady who has a very hard life. We painted the entire house, cleaned the ceilings, installed some insulation and replaced the roof over the outside part of the house. Our efforts were greatly appreciated. I came away feeling that I had made a small difference in the life of a family who are not so fortunate in life. The other 2 projects were smaller but just as rewarding. Before I left Vietnam, I went back to all 3 homes. In each case the families had been encouraged by our efforts and had continued to try and improve their homes. We also visited one of the families of Street Children Program (SCP) in Da Nang to install some lights for the education area and the orphanage in Hoi An handing out small gifts for TET. The staff at LOVE was wonderful, they were very supportive in what I wanted to achieve. I could easily write many pages about my experiences there but for this newsletter I need to keep it brief. Needless to say this was a life changing experience for me. I feel that I will be back to Vietnam in the future to do more. I have great respect for what LOVE does for the poor of Vietnam. I feel that my money is well used and that my sponsored family has a better life because the little bit of money I send keeps the children in school. I am very grateful to Reggie, Phuong and all the staff at LOVE.” | 
