The Fruit of the Spirit in a Place of Waiting
In many places, “waiting” is an inconvenience. A delayed flight. A paused career move. A line at the store.
In Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, waiting is a way of life.
Tag: God’s word
How Faith Communities Can Support Refugees Without Creating Dependency
When a crisis touches our hearts, our natural instinct is to help. For churches and faith communities, this desire often leads to food drives, clothing collections, or donations to emergency relief efforts — all valuable responses in times of urgent need.
But what happens when that need isn’t short-term?
What happens when a refugee camp isn’t a stopgap, but a home for decades?
Why We Employ Refugees to Teach and Train in Nyarugusu
At Equipping Hope International, one of our foundational commitments is simple: we hire local. That means when we need someone to teach English or train tailoring students in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, we look first — and often only — to the refugee community itself.
We don’t fly in short-term instructors from the U.S. or recruit professionals from overseas. Instead, we invest in the talents, skills, and leadership already present within the camp.
Here’s why that decision isn’t just practical — it’s essential to who we are and how we believe real transformation happens.
Meet the Team: Elise Harvey, Vice President & Marketing Director
Every thriving mission needs both vision and care. At Equipping Hope International, Elise Harvey brings both — along with wisdom, warmth, and a deep commitment to sustainable, Christ-centered work.
As a founding partner and behind-the-scenes advisor, Elise has helped shape Equipping Hope from the very beginning. She is the quiet strength behind the strategy, the voice of encouragement in hard seasons, and a faithful advocate for dignity-based ministry.
5 Lessons We’ve Learned After 5 Years in Nyarugusu
When we first started Equipping Hope International in 2018, we didn’t begin with a long strategic plan or big donor campaign. We began with a friendship, a shared burden, and a simple desire to do something that mattered. Five years later, our work in the Nyarugusu refugee camp has grown into a small but deeply rooted effort to equip refugees with skills, opportunity, and spiritual hope.
Serving in Nyarugusu, one of the largest and longest-standing refugee camps in Africa, has taught us more than we ever expected. And as a Christian nonprofit working in Tanzania, we’ve had to unlearn some assumptions, deepen our commitments, and trust God to multiply however much we bring.
Whether you’ve been walking with us since the beginning or are just now learning about our mission, we want to share five of the most important lessons we’ve learned since launching educational and vocational programs in a refugee camp setting.
How We Measure Success in a Refugee Camp Setting
In most organizations, success is measured in numbers like revenue, expansion, metrics that make for bold headlines and bright graphs. But in a refugee camp, where nearly everything is constrained by circumstance, success looks different.
At Equipping Hope International, we’ve spent the past several years walking alongside refugees in the Nyarugusu camp in western Tanzania. We’ve seen firsthand how long-term displacement challenges conventional ideas of progress. And we’ve learned to ask a different question: What does faithfulness look like here?
Meet the Team: Executive Director & Cofounder, Alexander Harvey
Some people step into missions work with a formal title or a long resume. Others step in with a simple yes. For Alex Harvey, that yes began with a handshake, some rusty high school French, and a family newly arrived from Nyarugusu refugee camp.
Today, Alexander is the Executive Director and Cofounder of Equipping Hope International and one of its steady, strategic leaders. But before there was a nonprofit, there was a friendship — and a deep conviction that we are called not just to respond to need, but to walk alongside people with love and hope.
How You Can Pray for the Work in Nyarugusu Right Now
At Equipping Hope International, we often say: we are not just building programs — we are building people.
We believe that transformation comes through more than skills training or language lessons. It comes through the power of the Gospel, through the presence of Christ, and through the faithful prayers of His people.
If you’re wondering how to support the work we’re doing in the Nyarugusu refugee camp in western Tanzania, start here: pray.
Sustaining Hope: Reflections on Three Years of Impact in Nyarugusu
Since Equipping Hope International launched its first training programs in the Nyarugusu refugee camp nearly four years ago, our mission has remained consistent: equip displaced people with skills and opportunities to rebuild their lives with dignity. Three years in, we are humbled by how much has been accomplished and more convinced than ever that sustained investment in education and vocational training changes lives.
This blog post is the first of a two-part update based on our 2022 field report, highlighting the outcomes of our English and tailoring programs to date. In this post, we focus on the Teaching Hope English initiative and its long-term impact in a camp where barriers to education are steep and opportunities are rare.
Why We Teach to Fish: A Reflection from the Cofounder
In the earliest days of Equipping Hope International, before we had formed a board, launched a program, or drafted a mission statement, I kept returning to a simple but powerful idea, the kind of idea that’s easy to say but hard to live: teach a man to fish.