Her name is Raeda. She is eight years old. She comes from Khan Younis, in Gaza. And she was told her case was hopeless.

An airstrike left her paralysed and unable to speak. The medical assessment was bleak. But at an Anera clinic supported by Tearfund, a team of physiotherapists refused to accept that verdict. Day after day, they worked with Raeda — patient, persistent, professional. And slowly, something began to change.

Today, Raeda can walk. Today, Raeda can speak.

In the middle of a conflict that has produced statistics almost too large to comprehend — tens of thousands killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, an entire healthcare system on the verge of collapse — Raeda's story is a single, specific, human miracle. It does not resolve the larger tragedy. But it is a reminder of what becomes possible when people refuse to give up.

Tearfund's work in Gaza is part of a broader humanitarian response that is keeping people alive, treating the injured, and maintaining the basic infrastructure of human dignity in conditions of extreme adversity. The organisation is asking UK supporters to give to its Gaza Emergency Appeal.

Raeda's story is also a story about what it means to be the church in the world: to show up, to stay, to do the next small thing — and to trust that those small things, accumulated, can change a life.