Exile International receives $10,000 grant from Giving of Life!

Sometimes you just want to pinch yourself!

A heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who voted, posted, reposted, and voted some more! 233 well deserved non-profit organizations and your voting placed exile international in the top 20. After a few interviews, Exile placed 3rd and will receive $10,000 toward our work with war-affected children in Africa! We are very humbled and our board met this morning to begin discussing how we can best use this gift!

We have come to know the hearts of our friends at Giving of Life Grant and we are more than honored to be chosen. Congrats also to Heartline Ministries and The Simple Way.

What makes this even more amazing is that Exile stayed in the guest home of Heartline Ministries while doing work with children traumatized by the earthquake in Haiti, and The Simple Way has had a great impact on our outlook and work with the world’s most broken children. Read Bethany’s blog written in August here:

Check out more information below from the website of Giving of Life Grant :

Thanks again for your love and support!

the Grant

We’ve been hard at work here at Giving of Life for the past several weeks as we have been meeting with, deliberating over, and praying about our Top 50 ministries. During this first season of Giving of Life, God has already connected us with some truly amazing people. We have high expectations for this next year.

Over a six month period, we received 752 applications and accepted 233 ministries. Then our voters chose their favorite 50. After that, our Committee selected 20 ministries and chose three of those 20 to receive the major grants.

Today we are recognizing the top 20 ministries – ministries who stood out to us both for their incredible work and their sincere servants’ hearts. We are so proud of these ministries, in addition to all of the Giving of Life ministries, and we are thrilled to be able to bless them financially.

We are pleased to announce the following ministries as recipients of the three major grants:

• Heartline Ministries – $50,000
• The Simple Way – $20,000
• eXile International – $10,000

Check out this video of our founders making the big announcement to the winning ministries:

The following 17 ministries are the recipients of the $2,000 grants.

We could easily just leave it at that – these are the recipients; these are the grants; now we can cheer and call it a day.

But that’s not what we’re about.

Our Committee chose these ministries for specific reasons. Each one is making an incredible impact. We want to share some highlights so you can not only congratulate them, but also come to understand their hearts.

Heartline Ministries has been serving in Haiti for the past 20 years. Their ministry focuses on the health (both physical and spiritual) and empowerment of women in their community of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. They have a Maternity Center where women can come for weekly vitamins, a check-up, a healthy meal, and a class focusing each week on a specific area of care for themselves and their unborn babies. They also have a birthing room for women to come when they are ready to deliver their babies.

Ultimately, Heartline is helping to reduce the number of orphans in Haiti by equipping mothers with valuable parenting skills. This incredible ministry is impacting the community of Port-au-Prince in immeasurable ways!

The Simple Way is an urban ministry that serves in one of the roughest parts of town in Philadelphia, PA. Check out this great description from their profile:

“We are not simply interested in dealing with the symptoms of poverty but the disease itself.

It has been said, ‘Give a person a fish and they will eat for a day. Teach them to fish and they will eat for the rest of their lives.’ But we also have to ask who owns the pond… who built the fence around the pond, and who polluted it. And why does a fishing license cost so much?

Here at The Simple Way—we feed people. We teach folks to fish. And we also ask who owns the pond. May we continue to build the world we dream of.”

eXile International provides trauma care to war-affected children and former child soldiers in the Congo and East Africa through art and expressive therapy. Besides engaging these kids in musical and artistic activities, eXile International also acts as an advocate for the children who are suffering and do not have a voice to speak for themselves.

We ask you to continue to support these ministries, along with all the others featured on our site, with your prayers, words of encouragement, and even financial donations. These grants would have been impossible without the generous donations of people like you – people who care about the ministries serving hurting and needy people. You can contribute by clicking on the Donate button at the bottom right of this page.

Please join us in celebrating the work these ministries are doing and continue to show them love!

Thank you all for all of your hard work and enthusiasm. Don’t forget to check back on our website to find out about the all-expenses-paid trip we are providing for two fans of a Giving of Life ministry.

Blessings,

The Giving of Life Team