Colette Byamungu, a 5th grader at the ELI Academy in the DR Congo, had her life drastically impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Even though her family didn’t have much before the pandemic, their basic needs were covered between her parents’ business of selling crops along the street and the school feeding program, which fed Colette while she was in school. But when the coronavirus started spreading, everything changed: no one was allowed to sell food on the side of the road, leaving Colette’s parents without an income, and schools were shut down, so Colette got no meals there. In the blink of an eye, their family was locked down inside their home with no food and no way to make money. They asked some neighbors for help but they didn’t have any food or money either. Fear set in. What were they going to do? Were they going to starve?

One day, a miracle phone call changed everything! A social worker from the ELI Academy let them know that food distribution would begin for the children who were part of the school feeding program. Food was ready and waiting for them! Colette said, “It was such a surprise! Like manna falling from the sky! Just when we were about to give up hope, we received this miracle!” Colette and her parents went to the school and received a bag filled with rice, sugar, beans, and porridge flour—enough to feed the family for a month! At first, they thought this was just a one-time thing, but month after month, ELI kept providing food for them. They received food for 5 months!

Besides receiving life-saving food during this pandemic, Colette also credits the teachers’ weekly assignments with saving her life—they kept her from wandering the streets where the virus was prevalent and gave her something productive to do with her time. She would pick up her assignments each Friday, work on them every evening at the end of a long day of chores to help her family maintain a clean, germ-free home, and then return them the next week and receive new ones. She was grateful for the chance to continue her education even while the school was shut down.

Thankfully, the spread of coronavirus cases in her area has slowed so much that Bukavu is now open! The ELI Academy reopened recently, Colette is back in school, and her parents are again selling crops on the side of the road. Colette knows the blessing that the ELI Academy provided to her during this lockdown: “I want to say thank you very much to ELI. It is a blessing for children from poor families to have an organization like this that cares about us and sacrifices a lot to make our lives better.” Even friends in her community told her how privileged she is to study at a school that cares about their students both inside and outside the classroom.

This amazing story was made possible because of faithful partners like you. Because the school was closed and not collecting tuition fees for those 5 months, we had to dip into our reserves to make sure these children were educated and families were fed. You went above and beyond with your selfless giving, and we were able to continue the feeding program, provide school supplies, and keep the teachers paid! Thank you for helping so many families like Colette’s survive during this pandemic. By standing in the gap, you are truly World Changers!