U.S. — Growing up as the son of a sharecropper in Lancaster County, Pa., Claude Hess learned generosity from his parents.

During the Great Depression, when tramps passed through the farm, Claude’s mother gave them warm soup and dry lodging in the barn. When Claude shirked his farm chores to snack on cherries and chat with a friend, his father chided Claude — not for laziness but for forgetting to offer Elvin some cherries.

“It was instilled in me as a child that you give,” Claude said.

Weakened from a childhood bout with polio, Claude could not go to the mission field, but he decided to give what he could in other ways.

“[Jesus] healed the sick, made the lame walk and brought sight to the blind,” Claude later said. “If He’s your God, your Creator, it’s just natural to want to do the things He wants you to do. I knew that [I could] financially help others.”

Once Claude started working, he donated to the ministry of his Aunt Clara, a missionary in Haiti with Crossworld (then Unevangelized Fields Mission). As God blessed financially, Claude sponsored numerous Haitian students through school and funded countless other mission projects.

Years later, one Haitian student visited Claude’s house in Pennsylvania. “My family had seven boys, and five of them died,” he told Claude. “At age eight, I was put on the streets, but then your Aunt Clara got a hold of me. She sent me to school for eight years, and I understand that you paid that bill.” He stood and hugged Claude gratefully.

“That’s a joy, to see somebody get out of his chair and come across the room to give you a big hug,” Claude recounted of the afternoon. “One of the great blessings that we have is to give to others.”