Story

Hello,

My name is Brandon. I am originally from a small town just outside of Chicago. My story is unique, and rather tragic as of late.

Back in 2006 I met a woman from Serbia while she was visiting Chicago and to make a long story short, we fell in love. After 1 year I traveled to Serbia and I married her there. People from Serbia are extremely close to their families so after some coercing, I convinced her to move to my hometown.

We lived there for 12 years and had a daughter together, she’s now 11 years old. The reason I’m giving my background is because 5 years ago, due to the depression that my wife was suffering from, we decided to quit everything in the US, and move to Serbia so my wife could be close to her parents and two sisters. This turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made because she became happy instantly upon arrival

However, finances have been borderline bad ever since we spent most of our money on the move. It wasn’t easy and was very costly. Not to mention that we didn’t have jobs immediately upon arrival.

Having said this I found remote work online shortly after and things became relatively normal. That is until COVID-19 arrived and then the war in Ukraine started shortly after. These two factors affected all of Europe and severely damaged the economies of the smaller countries including Serbia. Although times became tough, we struggled, but we still managed.

Unfortunately about 9 months ago my wife’s mother passed away leaving behind a €10,000 final expenses bill. To make matters worse, my wife’s small family is also struggling financially including her retired 86 year old father. We are all collectively trying to pay this final expense and to maintain our own financial stability. My job has even cut my hours by 25% in the last 6 months so my central family has fallen far behind with rent and bills. We are currently 3 months behind in rent ($550 per month) and on the verge of being kicked out. Internet/cable etc. has been shut off for 2 months, we have 5 credit cards maxed out and of course each card is months behind on payments and and we barely have enough to eat.

1. I’ve been working hard my entire life. I had my 1st job when I was 14 detassling corn in the fields during summer and I’ve literally had a job up until

1. now

1. at the age of 48. I’ve earned everything that I have and it burns my soul to even think about asking for a handout, but I see I have no other choice. I’m not only thinking about my central family (our daughter even lacks school supplies this year) but also my Father-in-law as his pension is small and he has a huge burden to pay his wife’s final expenses.

If you can find it in your heart to help, we’d be eternally grateful. I have no family to help us back home, and my only family here are struggling mightily.

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day .