Light Gives Heat

Background Statement

Sometimes we can't believe this is our life. Who knew that our family's quest to find our daughter would end up changing so many lives? (including ours)

After a difficult labor and emergency delivery with our son, Asher, in December 2004, we (Dave and Morgan Hansow) decided that the next child we would welcome into our family would be through adoption. In 2005, we began the process of adopting a child from Uganda, East Africa.

About that time, Uganda began to take a spotlight in the media with Oprah, Invisible Children, and other celebrities. We began to read up and learn more about Uganda and the horrific civil war with the LRA rebel group and felt called to action knowing our to-be child was somewhere in that country. Our hearts just started to become passionate about Africa in general.

A year and half into the adoption process we got an email that said we were still at least 6 months out from getting to travel. And so in a single day, we made what other people might consider a brash decision - we decided to quit our jobs, rent out our home, leave our friends and family, and move to Uganda to meet our child (and start a non-profit organization in the process).

In March of 2007 we formed Light Gives Heat with the intent to 'simply go and meet real needs.' Rather than presuming we knew answers to needs in Uganda, we decided to travel first, listenwait second, and act third (which we will have to say made fundraising initial donations a little challenging). Nonetheless, people got behind us and we bought our plane tickets (the point of no return)!

We knew that if we failed, we would rather fail having stepped out and risked than living with the 'what-ifs.' So two months later we packed up our belongings, had a couple going-away parties, and boarded a plane bound for Uganda.

We spent the next 6 months in Uganda and it was a crazy adventure. We found our beautiful daughter, Jadyn Suubi Hansow, and were granted custody of her on her first birthday. We welcomed our family to visit on different occasions. AND, after listening, we began the SUUBI(hope) project offering displaced women from war-torn Northern Uganda the opportunity to earn a consistent income each week.

Our lives were forever changed on that trip to Uganda. The women of SUUBI have shown us a great deal about what life looks like when it is lived with hope. They have proved to us over and over again that our past does not determine our future, that circumstances in our lives don't have to affect the love and joy we live with, and that hope is a choice!

In 2010 we produced a feature-length film called 'Moving On' with the cinematic quality typically reserved for Hollywood productions. The documentary, which went on to to play (and win awards) at Film Festivals around the world, is a story about resiliency and hope. We wanted the world to know that a relationship with Africa is not one sided - we both need each other, in fact, our rescues are tied up in one another. And it is through the daily choice of hope that we found love is winning. 'Moving On' is currently playing on television networks around the globe and will be officially released in America in November 2014.

Through our production of 'Moving On' we realized that media and the advancement of technology has made the single largest impact on the sharing of ideas. We knew that if we want to change people's worldviews and challenge the impact they could make in this world, we'd have to continue harnessing the power of media which brings us to our latest endeavor, LGH.tv, a free digital television network committed to well-produced media that will connect, empower, and ultimate create change.