Alathea’s Mandee Radford will run the Chicago Marathon with the hope of raising more than $13,000 for a small community in a country more than 2,500 miles from her cabin in East Tennessee.

To tell more about the story, Radford shares an excerpt from a journal she kept during Alathea’s May 2003 Compassion International trip to Ecuador: “We had the gift to visit homes of many of the sponsored children in Ecuador, and one day while walking home with a little boy from the Otavalo project, we came to a busy, paved highway. It took about five minutes for us to get safe passage across the road. Once we finally made it, the interpreter told us that the little boy we were with had recently lost his brothers at this crossing—they were hit by cars. Our hearts dropped, and we walked in silence through the community to his home. When we arrived, we weren’t struck by the one-room, dirt-floor house with chickens inside or the plywood mattress that slept six people at night. We were struck by the sorrow that hung over us. We politely conversed with the little boy’s mom through the interpreter, and then she broke down and began to sob. She was weeping for her sons. We no longer needed an interpreter to translate her Quichen language. Sorrow is a language we all speak. We stood around her, hugged her, wept with her, and prayed for her. We left feeling helpless, helpless because we realized that if one home had lost two children trying to cross the road, chances were that more mothers were in the same pain. That night I prayed, not for a solution but hope.”

Radford was struck with the idea of building a pedestrian bridge over the busy highway, but was discouraged by how many obstacles were in the way. Then, in a providential meeting later in the week, Alathea met Compassion’s Ecuador Country Director Fernando Puga. His prior career? As a civil engineer who specialized in the building of bridges. If Alathea could raise the finances, he committed to oversee the construction of the bridge.

As Radford explains, the first effort to raise money for the project involves securing sponsors for her upcoming participation in the Chicago Marathon Oct. 12. Radford ran the Chicago Marathon once before in 2002 and completed the Nashville Marathon earlier this year. Radford’s goal is to raise $500 per mile for each mile she runs for a grand total of more than $13,000 for the bridge build when she successfully finishes the race.

“Jesus has called us to seek out the oppressed, the widows, the orphans, the hurting,” Radford says. “I don’t have much to give, but I do have my passion and my time. This project seemed like an impossibility from the start, and I know not one person is going to make this happen, but all of us putting our drops together to fill the bucket. It is a privilege to serve. It is a gift to use our small influences to become contributors to something bigger than ourselves, to a need that is bigger than our abilities to fix that need. That’s where Jesus steps in.”

Greg Fradey, Compassion’s development director, said, “It's a joy to our hearts to see Alathea's enthusiasm, energy and passion being poured into this project. They have been long time partners in ministry with Compassion and have given their lives to reaching out to others... like Jesus would.”

Details on how to sponsor Radford in her run can be found on the following page. For more information or to arrange interviews with Radford or members of the Compassion International staff, contact Rocketown’s Director of Media Relations at the number below. Grammy Award-winner Michael W. Smith and former Reunion Records A&R chief Don Donahue started Rocketown Records in 1996 with the goal of building a label around a foundation of great songs and a family atmosphere. Since its launch, Rocketown has garnered commercial and critical acclaim with more than 2.5 million units sold, 24 No. 1 songs and nearly 40 Dove Award nominations, including New Artist of the Year nominations for four of the six new artists the label has introduced