2025 End of Year Letters by President & Founder, Dr. Jeff Brodsky, and Executive Director, Gina Moran
Dear Friend of JOY,
As we prepare to close the chapter on 2025, my heart is overflowing with gratitude, and, if I’m being honest, a few tears as well. This past year has had many challenges and has been nothing short of miraculous. Sometimes I feel like that little boy growing up in Brooklyn, New York, marveling as stories of heroism played out on the movie screen, never imagining I’d one day watch real-life miracles unfold across three continents.
In Nepal, our JOY International Mukti Home has become more than a safe place. It’s a family. I’ve watched precious young girls, once robbed of hope, rediscover the laughter that should fill every childhood. I’ve seen them step boldly into classrooms, clutching dreams of a future that seemed impossible only months before. Every healing smile, the kind that starts timid and blooms into life, is a victory that belongs to all of us.
In Uganda, the Empowerment Project has reached girls perilously close to the horrors of trafficking and forced marriage. Together, we are keeping girls in school and out of early marriage by covering school fees, uniforms, books, and basic living expenses. We provide mentoring, safe transportation where needed, and access to healthcare so attendance stays high. My heart swells with true joy each time I learn of a girl who, instead of vanishing into the darkness, steps into the light of her own promise.
And in October, Belize welcomed Jenn Jordan as a JOY International missionary, planting JOY’s work on the ground. Her path began in 2019 when she said yes to a JOY trip to Cambodia while in graduate school, then in 2021, she served in Belize and returned through 2024 to lead trainings and retreats for caregivers. Over time, the Lord’s call grew clearer, and this October she moved to Belize to serve year-round.
She is equipping caregivers with trauma-informed training, providing regular soul care and supervision for staff, mentoring local leaders, and facilitating support circles to reduce burnout. With your continued support, this new program is strengthening our partners, expanding prevention before harm occurs, and bringing steady, practical hope where it is deeply needed. This is sacred ground, and we stand upon it together.
The JOY Family
My friends, none of this would have happened if it weren’t for our extraordinary JOY family. Our dedicated staff, whose compassion refuses to clock out; our volunteers, whose hearts are as big as their courage; and friends like you, who quietly move mountains with your prayers and generosity. You are the secret strength behind every rescue, behind every counseling session, and with every new beginning.
Some of you have organized events, lost sleep in prayer, or traveled across the globe to lend a hand. Others have given sacrificially, sometimes when it hurt. In all of these things, you have been the hands, feet, and heartbeat of JOY International. There is little we can do without you.
As we approach the year’s end, I come to you with one simple request - would you consider a special, hope-filled gift to JOY International? It is your generosity that keeps the doors of the Mukti Home open wide for trafficked girls in Nepal; that makes sure vulnerable children in Uganda have food, medicine, and a safe haven. It is what sends Jenn to Belize to bring hope for a brighter future for so many precious young lives.
Your year-end gift – whether it’s $50, $500, or $5,000 - becomes a literal lifeline for children enslaved by fear and abuse. Your gift goes straight to bringing freedom, restoring joy, and giving precious children the childhood they deserve.
With Eyes Fixed on Hope
As I look ahead to 2026, my faith is that much brighter because I know friends like you stand with us. I see more doors opening, more children freed, more families restored, with hope for a brighter future. The stories in Nepal, Uganda, and Belize aren’t finished. In fact, I believe the best chapters are just ahead, and they are only possible because of your partnership.
Will you stand with us? Will you help us bring light to the darkest places, one child at a time?
From the depths of my heart, I sincerely thank you for being part of the JOY family. Thank you for caring for “the least of these.” You are a gift to this broken, but beautiful world.
Always for their freedom and with sincere love and gratitude,
Jeff
Dr. Jeff Brodsky
Founder & President,
JOY International
Dear Friend of JOY,
A startling noise breaks the silence of early morning. Maya jolts upright, her heart racing. Outside, her predictable world is thrown into chaos. Men are yelling. Girls screaming, crying, scared. It is all happening so fast, and yet for Maya, it feels as though her world is unraveling in slow motion. She is confused, filled with fear and uncertainty.
With a sudden crack, the wooden door separating her from the commotion is broken down. Men in uniform rush in, pulling Maya toward the door, into the street where the chaos spills. People she knows are being arrested. The ones who fed her, who gave her “work.” Panic rises: what will her family do without the money she sends? Will she be taken, too? Tears blur her vision.
A steady hand guides her toward a waiting van. Inside, it’s cool and still, a small island of calm. A woman meets her eyes with a warm, unhurried smile and reaches for her hand. “Aap safa hunuhuncha,” she says softly. You are safe now. Maya exhales, the first fragile breath of relief.
This year, 39 girls in Nepal experienced a moment just like this: a moment where fear and chaos were met gently with love. When a girl in Nepal is rescued by the Nepali police and the Mukti rescue and investigation team, a social worker from the JOY Mukti Home is there. She reaches out her hand to every girl who is rescued. You are safe, now, she will tell them. You are free.
Every girl who is rescued has experienced the unimaginable, and yet, for her, the rescue can fill her with fear, doubt, and uncertainty. Everything she has known is gone in an instant. She feels alone, afraid, numb. Surviving her past required such stoicism and bravery. What lies ahead will require a new level of courage. She is unsure if she can rise.
In Mark 5, Jesus encounters a commotion over the death of a young girl. “Do not be afraid”, He tells them. “Just believe”. As the mourners wail in grief, Jesus steps into the home where the young girl lies cold and still. He reaches out to her, “Talitha Koum,” Little Girl, I say to you, rise. And, she does.
I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to be in the room when this happened—the grief and heartbreak so heavy in the air. As the mourners watched the girl rise, what hope, awe, and exhilaration they must have felt.
When a girl is rescued from trafficking in Nepal, the Lord is at work in every moment of her story, calling her to rise as he once called this young girl. The Lord works through each of us: the social worker who reaches her welcoming hand to a scared young girl, the house mom who embraces her and feeds her warm, healthy food, the security guard who keeps watch over the home to ensure her safety. The Lord works through the legal team, prosecuting those who have harmed her and the counselors who walk beside her as she heals. And the Lord works through YOU, thousands of miles away, as you generously provide resources to make this all happen for her. Together, we serve the Lord, calling each of these girls to rise, to once again live and breathe, and have hope for a brighter future. Together, we remind them of their worth and remind them that they are loved.
The holy work of JOY International is brought to life through the Lord’s work in each of us. Collectively, we create new life, new hope, new dreams.
Your generosity changes the lives of vulnerable, trafficked, hurting children in Nepal and around the world. Your role in their story matters just as much as the social worker reaching out her hand to a newly rescued girl. It is only through your generous giving that any of our work takes place.
Today, I am inviting you to step into a trafficked child’s story. I’m inviting you to be one of the people the Lord works through to call these children to rise and become who He created them to be.
JOY International needs your help to continue stepping into the stories of these vulnerable, trafficked children. Our end-of-year fundraising goal is $200,000 to fund safe housing, trauma-informed counseling, legal advocacy, and critical staff support in Nepal, Uganda, Belize, and right here in the U.S.. Your gift will mean rescued children don’t return to harm; they will receive care that heals, education that empowers, and advocacy that brings justice.
Will you stand with Maya and hundreds like her?
$50 provides immediate safety items and transport for a newly rescued girl.
$100 provides trauma-informed counseling sessions for survivors and caregivers in Nepal or Belize.
$450 helps heal one young survivor through a month of counseling, education, and trauma-informed care in Nepal.
$1,200 empowers a vulnerable girl in Uganda with healthy food and education for one year.
$5,400 gives one year of freedom, healing, and love to a survivor in need.
Please give today at www.joy.org/donate or mail your gift to JOY International, PO Box 571 Conifer, CO 80433. Our goal is to raise $200,000 by December 31, 2025.
Will you step into the story and join all who have been called to reach these vulnerable children in the year ahead?
Always for their freedom,
Gina Moran
Executive Director
JOY International
P.S. Every rescued child deserves a chance to rise. Your year-end gift of any size will be multiplied by the love, care, and skilled services it funds.