Emily looked in the rearview mirror as she drove the five silent girls to the Back2Back team house. No one was talking, but their eyes were taking everything in. The five teenage girls from Tres Reyes knew each other, but one would think they were strangers as the ride to the Girls Retreat continued in… Read more
It’s a sunny day in Haiti. As Dan Ravenhorst, Back2Back Haiti staff, walks towards Lighthouse Children’s Home, he can hear a clear, confident voice pierce the air. He smiles to himself. He may not understand every world to this song, but he recognizes the voice who is sharing it with the neighboring homes. Anne Marie… Read more
Ansouby’s eyebrows knit together as he looks down at his fingers, strumming across the strings of the guitar. To anyone watching, it might look like he is deeply concentrating, but his stature has become a release for him. A year ago, seven children from Harvest Care Children’s Home began taking music lessons from a local… Read more
Basketballs bounce off the concrete into small hands. A small soccer game has started on the field next to it – children chasing after the soccer ball with enthusiasm and vigor. Two small girls swing high, their laughter higher, as butterflies erupt in their bellies when they reach their toes to the sky. As mothers… Read more
Back2Back staff member, Sammy, knelt down with her phone in hand so sets of brown eyes could see the screen. They watched as children from around the world received red and green shoe boxes and opened them to find treasures inside. The children in the video were smiling, and as the children at Douglas Children’s… Read more
Sathwik’s cry could be heard throughout the campus. It was clear he was a little boy in a new environment, still fearful from earlier trauma. A visiting team engaged him in play and watched encouragingly as the older boys Sathwik lived with were patient and gentle in their attempts to calm him down. Sathwik has… Read more
Her cry broke through the steady monsoon rains. In a rural village 3 hours outside Hyderabad, India, on a humid, July morning in 2002, V. Bindu, entered the world. Her parents, agricultural workers of the Banjara tribe, spend their days doing the labor intensive work of rice farming. But today they enjoy the sweet first… Read more
Haiti can be a hard place. Amidst stories of corruption, devastation, and crippling natural disasters are statistics that almost defy belief. Seventy-seven percent unemployment. Over 300 orphanages in the city of Port-au-Prince alone. The poorest country in the entire western hemisphere. However, there is also breathtaking natural beauty in the mountains and emerald green ocean… Read more
The families sat together in little units, all taking the other families in with their eyes. Plates and forks sang a chorus of clatter louder than voices communicating with each other. Food was being prepared and eaten, but eight families gathered as relative strangers and measured each other from across the tables. It was January… Read more
Eduardo feels his palms get clammy as the classroom of eyes center on him. He squeezes his hand into a fist, takes a deep breath, and begins to share his vision to help others by collecting bottle caps. Eduardo, 11, lost his mother to cancer at a young age and is learning what it means… Read more