Dona Kabeary has been a widow since November of 2006. She is the mother of four, grandmother of seven, and soon to be great-grandmother in November of this year, just before turning 70. She has served the Lord for the past 25 year in Billings Montana at Faith Chapel Foursquare Church. It was while working at the church that she was given her first opportunity to go to Ethiopia in June of 2009. It was an experience which would changed her life in every way, and Dona has been devoted to serving the children of New Hope Center through development and oversight to the sponsorship program ever since that first trip. What began with 48 orphans and less than 20 sponsors has grown to over 80 children and more than 200 sponsors. In 2016, Dona passed the torch to Tomorrow Come Foundation, but has remained an advocate and consultant ever since.
Without a doubt, this has been a call the Lord put upon my heart, a call which has changed how I look at the world. The Lord has given me many amazing experiences while in Ethiopia: working side by side, and leading short term teams once a year for many years; living for months with the children and even taking a camping trip with 48 children, plus 8 staff; teaching English in the classrooms when they were without an English teacher; praying over the sick, loving on and being loved, but none of these experiences were as overwhelming as being able to be a part of working with Suleiman and the government to find the most vulnerable children in the community so we could bring them into the orphanage. Children who were without hope all of a sudden were given a bed to sleep in, food to eat, safety, medicine, and education…nothing can compare to seeing this transforming power. I have been blessed to be a blessing…and in return I have been blessed beyond description.
