A Sober Call: Following God to Yemen

“I prefer to starve rather than see my child lost,” Gamila thought to herself.

After her husband stopped working due to a severe mental illness, he started to hit Gamila and their six children. The family had no source of income. Gamila sent her 14-year-old son to get a job and support the family.

Still, she had her doubts. She felt overwhelming guilt that she was depriving her son of his rights as a child. When he began working as a waiter in a restaurant, he brought in enough money to feed the family and pay a small part of their rent. However, the young boy was soon being abused at work.

Each day, Gamila sent her son to the restaurant knowing she had forced him to leave school and suffer violence. Meanwhile, Gamila’s husband was deteriorating in front of her eyes. The family could not afford his medication. Gamila lost all hope. Would it be better to starve than to lose her son?

Life in Yemen

Gamila and her family live in Yemen, where civil war began in 2014. Before the war, Yemen was the most vulnerable country in the Middle East. Now, Yemen is one of the biggest humanitarian emergencies in the world. Half the population has no clean water, and two-thirds of the population does not have enough food.¹

Infrastructure is collapsing as the economy is shattered, and food prices are at an all-time high. Daily life in Yemen is a struggle to survive.

ERDO’s Work in Yemen

ERDO’s partner in Yemen is working to bring food, peacekeeping initiatives and job training to families in Yemen. Once a month, they bring a food basket to provide nutrition to the entire family. They put local leaders, including women in the community, in charge of distributing food to their neighbours. These local leaders are trained on good project management, peaceful conflict resolution, serving community needs regardless of political affiliation, and treating people with dignity—especially those who are marginalized or have special needs.

Not only are ERDO’s partners feeding families facing starvation, but they are also knitting communities back together.

Food for Gamilia

Gamila’s family received a monthly food basket, and their situation began to improve almost overnight. Gamila’s son quit his job, and he and was able to save some money. With additional help from a relative, he opened a small shop to sell food.

The family now has a stable source of income and is working on paying off their debts. Gamila enrolled her daughter in a business skills class. She is now making bracelets to sell in the market to help support the family.

Gamila says, “The food basket took away a lot of the pressure that was on my heart. We were hungry and lost, but now happiness has visited our home.”

Jonathan’s Story

Jonathan was at an American youth camp when God called him into ministry. He planned to follow his father’s footsteps into the insurance business, but at camp, God pulled at his heart. Jonathan said, “I will do anything for you, God, except missions. That is the one thing you cannot ask.”

But God asked Jonathan for all his heart. He soon realized there’s no turning back after you’ve been called by God, and a desire for missions grew in his heart.

Jonathan met his wife on a missions trip, and they decided to embark on a life of ministry together. In 2006, they made their first trip to Yemen. It was a difficult trip, and their call by God felt more sober than celebratory.

Yemen was 100 per cent M*slim, rigid in Islam, and unreached by the gospel. At the time, it was ranked the worst country in the world for women for the eighth year in a row. Domestic and gender-based violence were the norm. Jonathan and his wife quickly realized it was the poorest country they could go to, and that only grabbed their hearts more.

What began in Jonathan and his wife’s hearts in 2006 was a gradual journey of accepting the call to Yemen. When they decided to go, Jonathan said, “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.” He enrolled in graduate school for international development; his wife enrolled in psychology.

By 2008, they were in Yemen as full-time language students. They spent time building relationships, and Jonathan began having debates. A Yemeni M*slim might never meet a Christian, but if they did, they were taught how to argue. Jonathan argued back. It took him a while to admit that winning an argument does not matter. You cannot make people change. You can only love them.

Jonathan’s Work with ERDO’s Partner

Yemen is a Restricted Access Nation, closed to the gospel. Our partner in Yemen is an incredible humanitarian agency. They bring practical relief and psychosocial support to families and are changing lives.

Jonathan joined our partner’s organization and was put in charge of the psychosocial aspect of the program, where he assembled groups of 10 local men or women to meet together for 10 weeks to learn key stress management and interpersonal relationship skills.

Jonathan’s team taught basic communication skills, and the feedback he received time and time again was, “My husband isn’t hitting me anymore,” and, “My son is waiting for me at the door instead of running from me.” Without mentioning violence once, Jonathan and the team saw families being healed and restored.

ERDO Continues to Work in Yemen

Jonathan is back in the United States as life in Yemen for Christians is increasingly dangerous. However, ERDO is still working with Jonathan and our partner to feed families, bring hope and healing to a community, and trust the Holy Spirit to work in hearts while we care for tangible needs.

For $30, or a dollar a day, you can feed a person in Yemen for a month. Every dollar you donate to Yemen will be matched four times by the Canadian government through ERDO’s partnership with Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

Give to Yemen

“Yemen Crisis Explained,” USA for UNHCR, accessed August 7, 2024, https://www.unrefugees.org/news/yemen-crisis-explained

This article was written by Alicia Kolenda, the Marketing & Communications Manager at ERDO.

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This article was originally appeared in the October/November/December issue of testimony/Enrich, a quarterly publication of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. You can read testimony/Enrich online or subscribe to the print magazine.