Not too long ago, Kelina wasn’t your ideal mother. She would spill her anger over onto her three children, hitting them every day. She never used an empty hand to hit them, but would use rattan to hurt them. Her children were scared of her.

“I started to hit them when my husband wasn’t at home.

“I don’t know why it was so easy to get angry with my children. All I know is that when they wouldn’t do something that I had asked, I became angry and started to smite them. My anger was known as a common and frightening morning greeting for them.”

Kelina lives in Wamena, West Papua, a small city on the western side of the remote island of New Guinea. Wamena women are known as caring people and responsible mothers. Even though they have two major responsibilities, to go to the farmland and take care of their children every day, they still have love to share with their family.

That responsibility encourages Wamena women to be strong against all challenges. Even when they receive challenges from the unpredictable weather, they always try to give their best. In the middle of the difficult conditions, they still are able to give their love and time for their family.

Wamena women think creatively with the resources they have to survive. Even though they do not own farmland themselves, they rent farmland from others. To pay the cost of the rental of the land, they will share half of the crops with the owner of the land.

Although Kelina owned her own land, she didn’t want to take care of it. She had a bad attitude toward it. As a wife of Yosep, Kelina never showed her thankfulness, preferring to blame her husband, who didn’t work and couldn’t support their needs.

“I liked to get angry with him. I even have hit him because he couldn’t support our family financially.”

Kelina didn’t know how to give her love to her family in appropriate ways. Since she was young, Kelina’s parents never taught her.

Kelina also did not have a good relationship with God, even though she was born in a Christian home. She didn’t go to Sunday school very often. She preferred to stay at home and sleep rather than to go to church or have a daily prayer life in the morning.

“I never knew that building a relationship with God would help me to deal with anything. I just know when I feel angry, I can hurt anyone I like to hurt.”

Kelina’s bad attitude didn’t stop at the front door of her house. Kelina liked to gossip about the things going on in her neighborhood.

Kelina once had a fight with one of her relatives who asked for food. She gave her answer with one slap to her relative.

Her bad attitude became a trigger for her to fight with everyone. But then everything changed. (more…)

I-Heart is a movement of people helping people, showing the love of God in practical ways, wherever need exists. Because it’s together that we love … and think … and act. As one, I-HEART.

On Nov. 4, 2009, The I Heart Revolution film, We’re All in this Together, will debut in theaters for one night and one night only.

We’re All in this Together is part apologetic, part documentary and part call to action.

Take a look at the trailer below … and then buy your tickets to the show.

My biggest fear in life is not reaching my God-given potential. And for the first 20 years of my life, I found myself being increasingly shaped by worldly values. That is, until I came face to face with Jesus!

Since then my Creator and Saviour has been helping me to weed out values that are contrary to those of the Kingdom and walking with me towards the dreams He’s planted in my heart. It’s been a step-by-step process of learning to be faithful with what He entrusts me with.

Of course, going against the patterns of this world isn’t easy, but the fruit of obedience is liberating! I wouldn’t want to live any other way. Life’s exhilarating when you’re dancing with a God of the supernatural.

Thanks to modern technology, I met a former sponsored child Paul Omondi through Facebook! Paul shared his testimony with me … It’s more than encouraged me to be all that I can be; it’s given me hope.

Paul completed the Leadership Development Program in Kenya years ago (a program that educates, trains and disciples servant leaders), was recently married (congratulations Paul!), and now works to help his fellow Kenyans escape the cycle of poverty in his role as a Community Development Manager.

But every achievement starts with a heart that dares to dream.

Twenty nine years ago in Kibera, 15 minutes outside of Nairobi, Kenya, a baby boy was born. Kibera is the biggest slum in Kenya. I can’t imagine what would’ve become of me if I was born there.

I’m reminded of the words of Nathanael when Philip told him that he had found ‘the one’ that Moses and the prophets wrote about. He said,

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” — John 1:46a (NIV)

Can anything good come out of a slum?

Tune in all next week as Paul tells his story.

- Irene

A refrain from a popular song of the 80’s began with “I believe our children are our future … .” It was a sentiment echoed by governments and organisations in a bid to show why we need to invest in programmes for children.

The problem is that it was a convenient excuse for some to do exactly the opposite. Delaying funding or putting issues affecting children on the back burner was, consciously or otherwise, an opportunity to focus on ‘more pressing’ needs – justified because children are our future, ‘the leaders of tomorrow’.

Perhaps it is such thinking that has caused children to be the greatest victims of poverty throughout the history of humankind. The gross and most debased forms of abuse happen, more often than not, to our littlest citizens – our world’s largest population group.

Of the 2.2 billion children in our world today, nearly half live in desperate conditions, and yet it is the children who hold the potential to break the cycle of deprivation for future generations.

The Bible says that children are ‘a gift from God’ and He is their greatest defender. Time and again, the Bible describes God as a defender and protector of the poor, the oppressed, abused, impoverished and the fatherless.

All children are precious in God’s sight. His heart is most definitely endeared towards them and His ear inclines to their worship (Psalm 8:2). We are told that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these (Matthew 19:14).

But what of the 1.1 billion children who are homeless because of armed conflict, or who have been orphaned because of the scourge of AIDS, or malnourished and can’t remember when they last had a bite of food, or the ones that are continually ill because they can’t afford malaria medication? They don’t shout the loudest; indeed, many seem to have no voice at all, but it doesn’t mean that their cry should not be heard and this is where we step in.

Compassion exists for the one. The one child who is left on the side of the dusty road to beg each day because their family can’t feed them; the one child who has to walk many miles every day for water and cares for siblings because her parents have died from AIDS; the one child who dreams of being a doctor but has no access to an education.

Compassion is unashamedly and singularly focused on the child. We place value on children simply because God does. Proverbs 22:6 (NIV) says, “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

Investing into children’s lives at an early age enables them to grow up with a sense of value, worth and confidence – essential if they are to grow up knowing that they can fulfill the dreams that God has placed in their hearts.

The intervention of a local church-based Compassion child development center and your invaluable support can literally shape a child’s future, causing him or her to be a change-maker in the family, community, perhaps even the nation.

That’s why we believe that one-to-one child sponsorship is so important and imperative to releasing children from poverty.

It all begins with valuing the one.

The way we fight poverty is through holistic child development. The combination of children and poverty is the laser focus of our mission. We speak up for the most vulnerable.

But if your call to serve the poor extends beyond holistic child development, which it does for many people, we’d like to introduce you to our partner TEAR Fund New Zealand.

TEAR Fund stands for The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund, and its purpose is to glorify God by extending His kingdom in ministry to the poor, oppressed and disadvantaged, and to encourage God’s people to live out the values and principles of His kingdom by sharing with those in need.

TEAR Fund New Zealand represents the compassion of Jesus. This organization partners with local Christian organizations and churches in developing countries who use local staff to work directly with the poorest people, helping the poor find their own solutions, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs.

Microenterprise, community development projects and disaster relief are TEAR Fund New Zealand’s key activities, but that’s not all this ministry does. Right now, it’s working to eradicate the Guinea worm in Côte d’Ivoire, and also has programs to fight adult illiteracy and sexual slavery, among others.

TEAR Fund New Zealand offers child sponsorship too, but does that through us. Sponsoring a child with TEAR Fund New Zealand is sponsoring a child through Compassion.

Although our friend is from New Zealand, you can still partner with this Christian aid and development agency. Visit tearfund.co.nz to learn more.

We promise they don’t write with an accent…then again, maybe they do.

Oh yeah, you may like this. TEAR Fund New Zealand’s non-sponsorship programs are conducted in places of the world we don’t currently work.

• Afghanistan
• Cambodia
• China
• Malawi
• Mongolia
• Myanmar
• Nepal
• Niger
• Palestine
• Sudan

So if your heart is in those parts of the world, TEAR Fund New Zealand would be pleased to meet you.

Yesterday, I promised you some insights into Steph’s Compassion Traveller experience, so here you go. - Irene

Steph in 30 seconds:

• Age: 14 and a half



• Siblings: I’m the eldest. I have a 13-year-old brother named James.
• School: Year nine (third year in junior high school)
• Pets: We have two cats: Maddison, a white tortoise-shell cross Persian, and Soots, a grey Persian cross something. Both are girls. They have completely different personalities and hate each other. We also have budgies, which we’re getting rid of.
• Hobby: Netball. This is my seventh year playing in the district competition. I also take art lessons.

Favourites:

• Quote: “A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can repeat it back to you when you’ve forgotten the words.”
• Book: The Tomorrow series by John Marsden
• Film: The Notebook
• Board game: Scrabble
• Song: “Pray for Me” by Plumb

Steph’s Compassion Traveller experience:

Describe the trip in one sentence:

An amazing experience … I need to go back!

And at the moment I’m looking for a way to do it. No luck yet, but I’m sure my Lord will provide for me and something will come up. I can’t do it by myself.

Most memorable moment:

I met my family’s sponsored child in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her name is Kini.

Kini was born without pulmonary arteries, the arteries that go between her heart and her lungs.

My Dad sponsored her after his last visit in 2006, so we had been sponsoring her for 18 months when I met her.

The doctors thought Kini would die within months when my Dad first met her, but because of her sponsorship she receives regular treatment and still lives!

What did Kini say to you when you met her? (more…)

As a kid, did you ever daydream about venturing into the slums of Kolkata? I know a gutsy 14-year-old who did … who ventured into extreme poverty. But that’s for later.

I, Irene, grew up in a sheltered, middle-class family. Whilst I didn’t make it to India at the age of 14, I ventured to Kyrgyzstan at the age of 24 with a team of medical professionals and helpers. It was a completely humbling and mind-blowing experience.

I met church pastors who have been blessed with so much more materially than I, yet they have chosen to live in abandonment for the expansion of God’s kingdom.

I met Muslims in remote villages who suffered advanced stages of cancer, but had no means to receive medical treatment. All that my team could give them were vitamin supplements.

I met orphans who were stunted from malnutrition and sometimes from past substance abuse, but have found the love of their heavenly Father.

I can’t quite imagine how I would’ve coped on the same journey at the tender age of 14.

If you read the Reflections of a Compassion Traveller series, you may have gained some guts –- I mean, a new level of desire to meet our friends living in poverty.

It definitely takes guts to travel to less developed nations. It’s inevitably a confronting experience. (more…)