Dear Friends,
We have been working hard for Pakistan over the last few years. We have big dreams for what we can accomplish to help the persecuted people there, and we are finally getting a chance to help in a big way. If you care to look at the video here, you can see our developments over the last year. In less than a year, we have purchased a big piece of land, developed it (including a large wall and gate), and by the end of January, we will have our first building on the land. We are so excited to announce that during the last weeks of February, we will finally get a chance to visit the place for which we have been praying and working so hard.

For 10 days, we will be taking a small team to Lahore, Pakistan, and we will be running three different training programs.

The first program will be a pastoral training certification program. In Pakistan, pastors and Imams act as the advisers and leaders of their communities. Often rural pastors in Pakistan have no access to any kind of formal pastoral training, so it’s very common for them to develop skewed theological beliefs over time, which translates to whole communities buying into things like the prosperity gospel. For one week, we will provide some intense training for these pastors (including their transportation and food for those days), and at the end of the week they will show what they have learned, and be certified through a bible school in New York, receiving documentation that they have completed a thorough theological training program.

The second program involves training destitute women in cosmetology (many of these women are at risk for resorting to dangerous and degrading professions, as they hold no marketable skills) so that they can support their families. We are bringing a certified cosmetologist, and will be running a 5 day training school for about a dozen women, who will all learn basic beautician skills, and who will be given the opportunity to start their own small businesses to cut hair and perform other cosmetic skills, through RAM Foundation’s micro-finance program. By the end of the week, these women will be given a certification of completion from an American licensed salon, and will have a small salon made available to them so that they can practice their new skill.

The third program is to construct and set up a tailoring training school for women. We are planning to install at least 10 sewing machines for the use of at-risk women. We have an excellent teacher on ground to teach and train a group of girls who are eager to learn a trade to support their families. We have been discussing this plan for some time, and they have been waiting for us to set up the sewing machine stations so that they can get started. Believe it or not, a sewing machine in Pakistan costs less than $25, and can change a woman’s life.

In order to accomplish all of this, we are asking for a few things from you.
1 – Donations – Incredibly, in order to run both programs we need just $2000. This will provide transportation and food for the beneficiaries of the programs, as many of them come from rural surrounding areas and cannot travel back and forth on their own. It will also provide for “completion kits” to be given to each person that finishes each program. This will consist of training materials for the pastoral trainees, and beautician tools for the women to use to start their own businesses.

2 – Equipment-We need physical donations of basic equipment necessities from you – we will be able to transport a good amount of freight with us, and if you can donate any of the following items, they would be put to great use.
– Hot hair tools, such as blow dryers, flat irons, and curling irons.
– Tools and simple power tools (drills, small saws, etc.)
– Simply hygiene products (soap, toothbrushes and paste, feminine products)

3 – Prayers-We need your prayers! We will be on the ground in Pakistan for about 10 days, and while we have been assured that it is very safe, we could really use your prayers that our time there is spent effectively and that we bring some important skills to the people that we’re hoping to help.

We believe in personally investing in our mission, so each person going on the trip is personally paying for all of their own expenditures. That means we are all digging into our own pockets to pay for our airfare, room, board, and other things. We are also individually working on fundraising to facilitate the programs that we will be running. 100% of your donation would go directly to running the programs in February. It would mean so much if you would enable us to perform this important work by contributing in any way that you can.

Thank you so much for all of your support, we can’t wait to send you all pictures and updates when we come back in March!

Sincerely,
Sarah Javed
President, RAM Foundation, Inc.

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