To Old Friends and New: A Letter from Our Founder
Dear Friend,
If you have walked with this work for years — through mission trips, through family programs, through seasons that only a shared calling can survive — thank you. I remember your names. I remember your prayers. I have not forgotten the seeds we planted together.
If you are arriving here for the first time, welcome. You are reading the right page. Let me tell you what we are building, and why I am inviting you to be part of it.
What This Ministry Is
Y.E.T. Compassion — Youth Evangelism Training Compassion — is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit ministry equipping South Sudanese youth and families with the Gospel of Christ and the practical skills to lead with integrity, build stable households, and transform their communities. Both here in America, and back in South Sudan.
This is not a new idea. It is the maturation of decades of work. I began teaching the Bible in 1993, in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, in conditions of displacement and scarcity. That origin is not incidental — it defines the DNA of this ministry. Y.E.T. Compassion was not built in a comfortable office. It grew out of the lived reality of what it means to be displaced, to rebuild, and to lead from within a community rather than above it.
What God placed on our hearts, we have now built into an organization with the structure and credibility to carry it forward. We are fully chartered. We are tax-exempt. And we are ready for what is next.
The People We Serve
Somewhere in the middle of Tennessee — and in Minnesota, in Omaha, in cities across this country — a generation of young people is navigating a tension that very few organizations are equipped to address. They are South Sudanese by heritage: children and grandchildren of people who survived one of the most devastating civil conflicts in modern history. They are American by circumstance: growing up in a country that often does not know their story.
They were born into diaspora — shaped by two worlds, fully claimed by neither. They face questions of identity that mainstream youth programs do not answer. They carry cultural expectations from elders while navigating the pressures of American life. Statistically, they face elevated risks of educational disengagement, economic instability, and family breakdown.
But statistics do not tell the whole story. Inside these communities is a depth of faith, a strength of community, and a hunger for purposeful leadership that — when properly invested in — produces remarkable results. We have seen it. We are building the systems to multiply it.
The Work, Plainly
Our work is organized around five interlocking strategic areas:
- Youth Evangelism & Discipleship — grounding young lives in Scripture and spiritual identity, in a way that addresses the real-world tensions of diaspora life.
- Leadership Development & Mentorship — identifying emerging leaders and investing in them through structured discipleship, skills training, and accountability.
- Family Stability & Economic Empowerment — strengthening the households that shape the next generation, through spiritual formation, economic literacy, and educational navigation.
- Community Building & Diaspora Advocacy — mobilizing diaspora networks for collective action and ensuring no family navigates its challenges alone.
- Service & Mission in South Sudan — youth evangelism camps, Bible distribution, support for orphaned children, and direct partnership with local churches.
These are not programs in isolation. They are interlocking investments in a generation that will determine the future of South Sudan and the stability of our diaspora communities here in America.
A Word I Often Repeat
How can you know that your car taillight is not working? Someone else has to tell you.
That image has guided my entire ministry. None of us can see our own blind spots. Progress requires community, accountability, and shared responsibility. No one — no family, no young person — should navigate their future alone.
To my old friends: you told me things I could not see in myself. You traveled to South Sudan when it was not easy to go. You gave when you had little. You prayed when words were all that remained. I am asking you now, once more — with greater clarity and greater capacity than ever before — to stand with us again.
To my new friends: this work is not unfinished theory. It has been in the field for three decades. Your investment does not fund a hope — it funds a tested community and a leadership that has already done the hard work of showing up.
How You Can Stand With Us
I invite you to consider a meaningful, sustained partnership with Y.E.T. Compassion through one or more of the following:
- Pray — for our youth, our families, and the nation of South Sudan.
- Give — make a one-time or recurring tax-deductible contribution to fund youth camps, evangelism training, and mission initiatives. Give today.
- Sponsor — provide Bibles, school supplies, or targeted support for orphaned children in South Sudan.
- Volunteer — bring your skills and your time to wherever you can serve. Get involved.
- Connect — introduce us to your church, your school, your civic network, or your philanthropic community.
- Travel — join a future mission trip to South Sudan and witness the impact firsthand.
Every generation of leadership must be intentionally built. It does not happen by accident. It happens when people who see the need choose to act — with their time, their resources, and their trust.
The harvest is not yet complete. The best chapters are still ahead.
In His service, and with deep gratitude,
Y.E.T. Compassion is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All financial contributions are fully tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. yetcompassion.org · 615-569-5572 (evenings & weekends) · P.O. Box 680262, Franklin, TN 37068-0262