I'm Tim Burnett: I'm a Zen Priest at Red Cedar Zen Community and the founder of Mindfulness Northwest. I'm creating this GoFundMe in hopes of correcting part of an injustice and helping someone I love continue to serve the world.

In 2007, my family and I were invited to sponsor a girl in rural Kenya named Mercy Ukumu. Mercy had been orphaned by AIDS. For not that many dollars, we were able to help her attend a quality boarding school, giving her the opportunity to escape the likely, and very unpleasant, outcomes that come to many rural orphaned girls.

Mercy not only thrived; she exceeded all expectations at her secondary school and was admitted to university. Although now beyond the program that had first paired us, we continued to help Mercy as we could, and she went on to complete her bachelor's and master's degrees, focusing on human development and service to those who also have few opportunities for growth, health, and safety in rural Kenya.

She'd recently succeeded in taking up a key post at the nonprofit NGO Save the Children after giving birth to her son Berwin. It was a dream job in that it both supported her family in a sustainable way and also gave her that opportunity to serve.

Her role as a Program Manager for international aid projects in rural Kenya was to ensure that local experts were fully involved in the projects to ensure their long-term value and success.

Then the new American administration dropped the hammer.

Among the 100+ Executive Orders on day one of the new administration was one that began the gutting of all American international aid through the USAID agency.

I was to discover then just how much good the US was doing in the world, especially in East Africa. Many health, development, and especially anti-AIDS programs were helping millions and saving many lives.

As the song goes, "you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone."

Mercy, and almost all of her colleagues, have now been let go as Save the Children's primary funding for projects in Africa and around the world was through USAID. That money is gone. Even though Federal judges have ordered it reinstated, it has not been, and there seems to be no reasonable hope that it will be any time soon.

This GoFundMe is to replace Mercy's lost income for what we hope will be long enough for her to secure new employment and/or a successful entrepreneurial project to keep her going until the opportunities to serve others arise again after the current administration is finally prevented from its illegal and unconstitutional blocking of Congressionally approved aid programs.

While we can't address the magnitude of the suffering this sudden cutting of all US foreign aid has led to, perhaps we can support one trustworthy and beloved worker for justice to stay afloat and continue her good work!