Before he was in one of Mission of Mercy’s child development centers, Josue was a typical boy from the Dominican Republic. He came from a broken family: his father was largely absent and his mother verbally abusive. Josue was impatient and behaved aggressively towards other kids his age. He struggled in school, especially in reading and writing. Josue’s health was suffering. Meals were few and far between, yet what made it worse were the parasitical worms – hunger was constant. Josue was dirty and disheveled. And he did not know anything about Jesus.

These words defined Josue’s life. At least, these words defined Josue’s life before he was enrolled in a Mission of Mercy child development center.

After he started going to the Mission of Mercy center, Josue’s life was truly changed. For the first time, he was introduced to Jesus. Josue heard and read stories from the Bible. He sang worship songs to God. He asked Jesus to forgive him of his sins. Because Jesus changed his heart, Josue begin to obey his mother more. He is patient with others and kind to his friends.

And not only did the project show Josue the love of Jesus, they helped him with his reading and writing. They taught him how to take care of his body. He finally had access to deworming medicine, curing him of his parasitical illness. He receives nutritious meals of beans, rice, and beef.

These are the words the define Josue today:

Through the love and dedication of our sponsors and Mission of Mercy personnel around the globe, thousands of children just like Josue are being transformed. It is this kind of impact, renewal, and change we work to see happen in our children’s lives. We live for this stuff, because children like Josue can finally live!

These word clouds were formulated from an interview of Josue and his project director. The larger the word within the cloud, the more frequent the words were used by Josue and his project director.