I’ve been thinking about Pastor Sosthen Amin a lot this week. I realize many of you may not have been introduced to him yet.

Sosthen has worked with us for more than a decade. He knew James Harrison personally, back when this movement was just beginning, and he’s faithfully led Mobile Messengers in both South Sudan and Uganda since then.

Sosthen has lived through many, many years of civil war. Like nearly everyone in his community, he’s buried a lot of people he loved. He lives, even now, in a refugee camp alongside the people he serves. Though his life could easily have produced a hard, closed heart, he’s one of the most gracious and purpose-filled people I know.

This June, the work we’re doing with Sosthen expanded in a big way.

We equipped seven Mobile Messengers in South Sudan and eight in neighboring Uganda with brand new motorbikes. This same gift made it possible to fund urgently needed community aid. Sosthen and his leaders assembled care packages and distributed them to 5,265 people—most of them families who had just arrived in the camps from Sudan and South Sudan.

Putting these amazing people on wheels means Sosthen’s neighbors, in church communities scattered throughout the camps, will keep having food in the weeks ahead. More than 700 students and staff at Jan Care School, founded by Sosthen and his wife, Pastor Veronica Karaba, will also receive materials so they can keep learning. And 52 families will receive solar lantern power banks.

South Sudan is one of the first places Open Eyes took root; and because of you, we’ve never left. I don’t think we ever will—not while there are leaders like Sosthen still showing up, still serving, and still choosing joy.

Thank you for being a part of that with us.

Open Eyes is a faithful partner of The Bolick Foundation