Effective staff communication helps create a more unified, cohesive environment in which our ministry workers can thrive.

The implementation of virtual conferences and online training modules in El Salvador has allowed our staff to move one step forward in how they communicate with one another.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

A carbon tax. Floods in Queensland; fires in Victoria. Oil spills off Western Australia and Mexico. Mining in the Kimberly; irrigation in the Murray Basin; logging in the Daintree. No matter where you stand along the great climate-change divide, the debate about our environment — and what should be done about it — is hard to avoid.

In Australia, the environmental considerations we face are often long-term and somewhat academic in their repercussions. How would a dam affect local animal populations? Is the disposal of solar power batteries just as bad as the emissions from coal power? What would be the economic impact of restricting uranium mining?

Despite being the world’s worst polluters per capita, Australians live in one of the world’s most pristinely clean environments — even in our cities. Our skies are rarely congested with smog; our national parks are rich and sprawling; our streets are largely litter-free; our sewage is treated and piped away.

By comparison, tension between people and the planet in the developing world is much more stark. The struggle for economic growth has left scars in streets and slums awash with untreated effluent when it rains, waterways choked with garbage, landscapes stripped of vegetation, and urban airways blanketed with thick haze.

With lower levels of resource use and a much shorter history of using them, the developing world’s impact on the environment is much less than its developed counterparts; yet it bears a much higher price for damage done.

The World Bank’s 2009 World Development Report estimates that carbon pollution will cost Africa about 4 percent of its GDP and India about 5 percent — while the cost to world GDP is just around 1 percent.

Inadequate sanitation and housing infrastructure, higher levels of malnutrition and poor health, increased propensity to flooding, greater reliance on the land, and extremely limited resources to prepare or respond make poor nations and their people more vulnerable to environmental crises such as natural disasters.

For instance, both the Netherlands and Bangladesh are highly susceptible to floods, but while the Netherlands spends more than $100 per person per year on flood defences, $100 is a quarter of the average person’s annual income in Bangladesh and far out of reach for the public purse.

The implications for development for nations grappling with poverty — and for their children — are clear.

Securing a safe, healthy environment is essential for ensuring the well-being of an individual. Without it, efforts to improve health, housing, economic security, agriculture and other contributors that raise a person’s, or a community’s, standard of living are undermined.

Protecting the environment is just as important as these other seemingly competing priorities — and as with so many development activities, children are key to the process.

This is one of the reasons our holistic child development programs, which work to impact nations and generations by releasing children from poverty, have included a focus on environmental responsibility, or creation care, since the very beginning.

The other reason creation care is integral to our programs is reflected in our mission: to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

We believe that God created the earth, including men and women. We are made in the image of God, given a privileged place within His creation and commanded to exercise stewardship over it (Genesis 1:26—28).

Care for God’s creation — the environment and everything in it — is a biblical obligation, and we are morally accountable for how we carry out the task (Genesis 2:15).

We believe that creation care is essential to truly working in Jesus’ name and an important biblical teaching to pass on to the children to whom we minister. Therefore, creation care is incorporated into each of our four core programs, reaching children from the womb to the workforce.

The training that mothers receive as part of our Child Survival Program is practical and relevant, designed to improve the well-being not only of the household but also of the community — making caring for the environment an underlying theme.

Lessons on composting and the safe disposal of rubbish help clean up neighbourhoods and provide a useful source of fertiliser.

Training on growing vegetables gives families a cost-effective — and environmentally friendly — supply of food.

Education on the importance of safe water for drinking and bathing not only reduces sickness, but also raises awareness of the consequences of polluting community water sources.

In several development centres, mothers have learned how to make purses to sell using recycled plastic, thus reducing waste while adding to the family’s income.

In Kenya, our staff encourage mothers to beat the drought by recycling water from their washing to water vegetable gardens.

In the same way that children in our Child Sponsorship Program are taught how to wash their hands to avoid sickness, they are also taught to clear rubbish, keep waterways clean, and understand the value of trees to protect and improve their surroundings and their standard of living.

Uganda’s Rakai district is one that has felt the impact of poor environmental management. Uganda lost half of its forests in the civil and political strife of the 1970s and 1980s and another quarter of its remaining forests between 1990 and 2005.

Today, Uganda’s forests are being cleared at a rate of 92,000 hectares every year — a pace that will leave it completely deforested by the year 2052.

The rapidly growing population’s demand for land to grow crops and build houses, and for trees for fuel like charcoal and firewood, is driving Uganda’s deforestation. This demand is exacerbated by the fact that 70 percent of the country’s forests are on private land.

The Rakai district, part of the grazing corridor which hosts 60 percent of Uganda’s cattle population, has been hit particularly hard by water depletion and increased frequency of droughts that have been linked to the deforestation.

Compassion’s Kakuuto Child Development Centre in the region responded by giving each child at the centre four trees — distributing a total of 900 mango, orange, avocado, tangerine and hard-wood trees throughout the community.

The children were taught how to plant and look after the trees, as well as how to use energy-saving stoves that reduced the amount of timber needed for fuel.

In addition to providing shade and helping to reduce flooding and soil erosion, the trees will provide a valuable source of food and income for the families.

As our Leadership Development Program works to develop Christian leaders and empower young people to bring change to their communities and nations, it is also one of the key ways we encourage creation care — simply by empowering the community’s own young people to make their voices heard.

Wanda Medina is one of our Leadership Development Program students and a passionate advocate for the forests and wildlife of her home in the Bahoruco Mountains of the Dominican Republic.

As well as studying education at university, Wanda volunteers at the Unit of Environment Management of the Municipality, working to convince local farmers to preserve the forests. It’s a battle with life-and-death consequences, seen clearly in neighbouring Haiti — where more than 98 percent of forests have been cut down at a rate of 10 million to 20 million trees each year with devastating consequences for the hurricane- and flood-prone country.

By comparison, the Dominican Republic’s 28 percent forest cover looks verdant. But not for long, if the slash-and-burn land clearing techniques that the Environment Ministry says have claimed nearly 310,000 hectares of forest in the last 50 years continue.

“In our meetings, farmers say that they have families to support and the only thing they know how to do is agriculture. They take what they have at hand, which is the land. So we teach them methods of how to reforest and cultivate their land at the same time, like planting tall trees like mahogany and avocado. We also run courses on tree grafting, beekeeping and honey production, and raising pigs, so the farmers have other employment opportunities and skills.

“I want my community to make progress and be developed, that it will go back to be what it was regarding its forest and vegetation. I hope that people will go back to feel for and take care of their environment, all that is around them and their natural resources.”

Compassion’s Complementary Interventions help tackle the barriers that stand between children and healthy development that can’t be overcome through our core programs alone. Environmental factors such as natural disasters, poor sanitation and health epidemics are often among those barriers. As a result, many Complementary Interventions involve improving the way home and community environments are managed.

For instance, thanks to a Complementary Intervention designed to help parents generate income, a group of 15 parents of children attending the Ebenezer Child Development Centre in southern India have been taught how to make paper bags to sell to local shops.

While improving the parents’ work skills, the training also supports a government effort to reduce the use of plastic bags that have caused wide-scale pollution of waterways and streets.

A Complementary Intervention in six child development centres in Kenya’s Machakos district is also supporting government environmental initiatives by establishing fruit-tree nurseries in each centre to propagate seedlings to distribute to children’s families. The nurseries will provide a food source as well as help combat desertification and soil erosion in the region.

Installing solar-powered stoves is another effective Complementary Intervention that has been implemented in several centres. The stoves use a clean and endlessly supplied fuel that doesn’t force people to choose between cutting down a tree for firewood today and keeping it for the fruit it will bear tomorrow.

Because of the toxic smoke they produce, traditional wood, coal and animal-dung stoves are blamed for killing 1.6 million people every year, more than 85 percent of them women and children under 5. Thus, solar-powered stoves help save lives.

Similarly, at least one Complementary Intervention to provide adequate water and sanitation (such as a well or toilets) is put into action in every country we work in every year, for both health and environmental gains.

In the developing world, roughly 90 percent of sewage is discharged untreated into rivers, polluting the water and killing plants and fish.

In Southeast Asia alone, 13 million tons of faeces are released into inland water sources each year along with 122 million cubic metres of urine. This poses a major health threat to people who depend on open streams and wells for their drinking water as well as an economic blow to people whose livelihoods depend upon fisheries.

Water pollution from poor sanitation costs Southeast Asia more than $2 billion a year, primarily from the loss of productive land. In India, it is estimated that water pollution causes 80 percent of diseases. Providing safe water and hygienic toilets is essential to our development efforts.

This post originally appeared on compassion.com.au as The Great Debate.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

We are taking steps forward — one at a time — to ensure that the work of this ministry grows with the needs of the countries we work in. One step we’ve taken in Indonesia is to work in unified teams to better serve our Implementing Church Partners (ICPs).

Our staff and church partners in Indonesia benefit from the collaborative effort between Partnership Facilitators (PFs), Sponsor Donor Services (SDS) and Training Specialists. By working together in unity, we help one another succeed in our individual roles, as this video from our Indonesia office explains.

Project Facilitators have a huge responsibility and the team model helps them know that they don’t need to “do it all” by themselves.

As Sarah Rahadja, Program Communications Director in our Indonesian country office, explains,

“The cross-functional team approach is beautiful for the Project Facilitators because they are not superman or superwoman.”

To illustrate this point, the staff made a fun video we hope you’ll enjoy!

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

I’ll admit it: I’m a child of the 80s. I’ve got fond memories of Expo 88, and I can still sing the theme songs of She-Ra, Inspector Gadget, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Smurfs.

Punky Brewster was my hero. I owned a hypercolor t-shirt, and I wore it tucked into my “happy pants”—think everything you’ve ever seen of MC Hammer, but on a five-year-old.

It’s funny how the 80s legacy lives on, for better or worse. I got more than a little bit excited when Cold Chisel announced their comeback tour this year, and I’ll always be fascinated by Rubik’s Cubes.

And it seems my mum was right when she told me that fashions always go in cycles—although I just can’t bring myself to embrace high-waisted jeans a second time. But it’s not just clothes that seem to have cycled around again.

One of the defining characteristics of the 80s was the “greed is good” mantra that infiltrated consumer psyches across the Western world. It’s no coincidence that one of the most significant events of the decade was the stock market crash of 1987, which devastated households, companies and economies around the world—or that this episode in our history was shortly followed by the infamous recession “we had to have” of the early 1990s. And yet, it seems we still haven’t learnt the lesson.

Greed, say observers including former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Archbishop Canterbury and the head of the Reserve Bank of Australia, was at the core of the Global Financial Crisis that hit in 2008 and is still reverberating now.

Despite human experience ranging from King David all the way through to Gordon Gekko proving that it would be better relegated to the pages of history (along with shoulder pads), greed came back in fashion this decade, and we are all living with the consequences.

The most disturbing return to the 80s is without doubt the horrifying stories of African mothers walking for days through the desert to beg a handful of grain; of tinder-dry crops and emaciated cattle shriveling under a merciless sun; of children dying for want of food as the world looks on through their big screen TVs.

Again, consecutive seasons of drought in East Africa have laid bare a region mired in poverty, neglect, instability and conflict, leaving 12.4 million people—more than half the Australian population—at the brink of survival.

The television images of Ethiopian children with withered, ancient faces that I remember seeing as a kid in 1984 are back, and just like before, they play second fiddle in our media to news about the latest politician faux pas and celebrity wedding.

How—in a world where junk food, alcohol and cigarettes are among the leading causes of death—are we here again? Have 30 years not been enough to learn how to prevent catastrophes like this?

The fact is, there is enough food produced to feed everyone living right now on Planet Earth—but one in seven people in the world do not have enough to eat.

The reasons why 12.4 million East Africans are facing starvation are complex, but while the drought is the result of not enough rain, experts tell us the famine is man-made.

Self-interest—of local authorities, of inefficient governments, of the architects of an unjust world trade system, and of all of us who have passively accepted it—is again at the core.

Yet, 30 years on, some things have changed. I was a child in the 80s, but now I have a child of my own—though thankfully, she is not old enough to insist on wearing high-waisted jeans. I want her to grow up in a world that has learnt its lesson; that understands that greed is not good. And I am not alone.

The Australian Government pledged $60 million in emergency relief, then boosted it to $80 million. Everyday Australians have added another $10 million of their own. Blog sites like this one have done their bit to get people talking and reaching into their pockets.

Tens of thousands of Australians have chosen to sponsor a child in East Africa, helping to reduce the vulnerability and build the resilience of no less than 32,932 children through year-round nutrition, health, education and income generation support.

This is our time to do things differently than we have in the past; to make sure this is one part of our era that won’t cycle around again. What will you do?

This post originally appeared on compassion.com.au as Child of the 80s. Sponsor a child through Compassion Australia.

The 1980s graphic is courtesy of Kenny Dodge.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Fidel had a vision for his community, a poor fishing village in Ghana. Kpone didn’t have a library or computer center and Fidel understood that in today’s world, not to have computer literacy is a great disadvantage.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

The focus of our ministry is to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. Partnering with the local church allows this to come alive and become tangible — become so much more than a tagline.

As we grow, so does the need for local churches to play a larger role in helping their communities take steps forward out of poverty.

One example of this is the local church in the Valley of Toluca, Mexico.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Imagine finding yourself in East Africa, where thousands of children are being abducted and transformed into child soldiers. Families are separated, some killed horrifically.

The government forces you to relocate to an area of safety, and here you’re invited to pray with a small gathering of believers.

After a few weeks, more than 50 believers are gathering for prayer and worship.

Someone suggests the group should form a church and asks for a volunteer to pastor the group, and another volunteer to assist.

After six months, the fellowship has grown to 500 members. Land has been given, a church building is being erected, and it’s all being led by a willing, volunteer pastor — with no theological training.

But the picture is not yet complete. And it’s not uncommon.

This pastor knows that people in his congregation are facing many challenges, including the reality of HIV and its progression into AIDS, and potentially death.

He tells them “God can heal you,” so many church members stop taking their medications. Possibly a widower marries again, but doesn’t tell his new wife that he has AIDS because he thinks he is healed.

Still other families are desperate for food … work … training for jobs … money to start a small business, so they come to their volunteer pastor for relief.

If your family is in desperate need of money, whom do you go to? Do you go to your pastor?

In Africa, the answer is overwhelmingly “of course.” And this question leads one to discover some significant differences in how pastors are viewed in Uganda and here in the United States.

In all fairness, in the U.S. one might approach his or her pastor or at least the church’s benevolence committee about financial difficulties. But what about questions about hygiene? Problems selling a home? Learning how to budget?

The African pastor faces very real expectations, not only to provide resource and counsel in the spiritual realm, but also in the physical, social, economic and educational realms as well.

Another challenge faced by African pastors is that the majority must find work outside the church to support themselves and their families, which leads to a great personal need for the very training/equipping a pastor needs to present his congregation.

To say that the role of the African pastor is complex is an understatement.

Jackson Rujoga, a church partnership facilitator with Compassion Uganda says,

“The Bible says that David led God’s people with a heart of integrity and hands of skill; our pastors have the heart, but often lack the skill to deal with even simple issues that we might assume are common sense.”

When a pastor begins serving a church, he is open-hearted and willing to serve. Then a realization occurs; ministry requires much more than willingness and open-heartedness.

Soon, the pastor discovers that while money is coming in, more is going out, families are demanding, and he feels overwhelmed.

Not knowing the biblical foundation of how to handle the situations he faces, he makes decisions that compromise the very integrity that led him to be chosen as pastor.

Pastors Discipleship Network, founded by Richmond Wandera, a formerly sponsored child and Leadership Development Program graduate, is reaching out and empowering pastors to face this challenge.

If pastors are trained, empowered and equipped in biblical principles, then they can be further trained on how to identify and resolve challenges in these other areas, and how to nurture a mature church.

Then the entire community gets transformed.

Later this week, Pastors Discipleship Network is hosting approximately 500 pastors from the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda at its third annual pastors’ conference, organized to train pastors in the concept of “mastering the land” from a biblical perspective —“Rooted in the Word.”

“Think about it this way. Your view of God shapes your view of the world, of yourself — and of your neighbor. It shapes how you approach the “land” or, in other words, your decisions on relationships, finances, employment, politics etc. So the mindset and one’s heart are critical.

“Once someone is rooted in the Word, they’re able to face the different stones or challenges that come seasonally in the land.

“For example, in Uganda we have seasons of peace, but also seasons of war and civil unrest. Very practically speaking, people need to know how to deal with anger, or how to respond when political leaders are being ill-treated. Do they join the demonstrations? How should they respond?

“The church is a place where people come in good times and in desperation, and the church is ready to listen.

“The people can be stripped of everything else, but they will still come to church — when they are in need, they need a pastor who is knowledgeable about many areas of life and who is living a Christ-like example to those who follow him.

“Even [the Ugandan] president — Museveni — goes to church. There is a pastor today who is speaking into his life … into the areas of family, politics, business, and relationships.”

Being “rooted in the Word” makes mature disciples who are able to go out and “master the land” — wherever God places them… in a hospital, a church or a business — or in a justice house.

“I believe every decision in life is seasoned by our view of God, found in the Bible. And as one of my professors at Moody used to say — ‘every view of fallen man is — crooked or skewed, but the Word of God can create change in one’s heart.’ That’s what Pastor’s Discipleship Network is trying to help pastors do — for their congregations and the greater community of East Africa — by God’s grace.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Melissa Riehl joined Compassion in 2004 and is the Director of Donor Development. Originally from Houston, TX Melissa is Ugandan at heart and is a volunteer member of the Pastors Development Network’s leadership team.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

My wife and I have been on three mission trips to Nicaragua, where we have built several relationships with people living in extreme poverty. Since that first trip, we have made fighting extreme poverty a life-long goal.

I have struggled to figure out how to use the gifts God has given me to do the work He wants me to do, which is how the seed of making a difference was planted for me and has now sprouted into a company: ResQrags.

My concept is to create shirts with a simple design that emphasizes a powerful message of hope and love. Every message is inspired by the Word of God. Every shirt has a purpose.

I donate more than 50 percent of the proceeds from ResQrags to causes I believe in. And if you purchase a shirt, you decide which program your purchase should support.

• Rescuing moms and babies
• Developing future leaders
• Disaster relief and stability
• Health and medical needs

10 Ways ResQrags Make the World a Better Place

1. “My shirt raises awareness.”
Whether it is about extreme poverty or the meaning of the shirt’s specific message, ResQrags raise awareness.

There are too many people who simply do not understand what extreme poverty means. People need to know that 1.4 billion people live below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.

ResQrags give you an opportunity to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. They allow you to share your faith and talk about things that matter to God.

2. “My shirt encourages others to take action.”
Many people want to make the world a better place but they don’t know where to start. ResQrags give you an easy way to get involved.

Buying a shirt provides financial support and wearing your shirt encourages others to take action. There is strength in numbers, which is why I have made ResQrags as affordable as possible.

The more people who wear the shirts, the more of a positive impact we can make in the world. Everyone needs to be encouraged.

3. “My shirt provides disaster relief.”
Whether it is a tornado, earthquake, tsunami or hurricane, when natural disasters strike, people come together and help each other persevere.

Compassion’s Disaster Relief Fund provides food, blankets, shelter and replacement belongings for children and families when disasters strike.

4. “My shirt feeds the hungry.”
The current global food crisis is being called by many a “silent tsunami” that could plunge an additional 100 million people on every continent into hunger.

Food prices have risen as much as 100 percent in some countries since 2006. Compassion’s Global Food Crisis program provides food for the hungry.

5. “My shirt fights deadly diseases.”
My shirt helps break the devastating cycle of AIDS and provides care for people who are often cast out by society.

Compassion’s AIDS Intervention program helps staff, partners and families understand and prevent the disease, care for children who have lost their caregiver to AIDS, and provide treatment and care for people who already have the disease.

Compassion’s Malaria Intervention program helps children and their families receive the resources they need to fight the deadly disease, including mosquito nets to protect children from mosquito bites, prevention education, and access to medical treatment.

6. “My shirt builds unity.”
When people join forces and support a common cause, that’s when mountains can be moved.

Companies, non-profit organizations, churches, governments, faith-based groups, schools, and other groups need to find more ways to work together to help those in need.

ResQrags brings people together and partners with people committed to fighting extreme poverty and providing hope to the hopeless.

7. “My shirt develops leaders.”
Compassion’s Leadership Development Program helps identify young men and women who have shown potential to become Christian leaders who can, in turn, influence their own churches, communities and nations.

The Leadership Development Program assists with college tuition, books, and room and board. Leadership is crucial to making a difference. ResQrags is committed to building new leaders.

8. “My shirt shows compassion.”
Everyone needs to show mercy and compassion. And Compassion’s Child Survival Program saves the lives of young, vulnerable children and helps set them on the path toward healthy development.

The Highly Vulnerable Children program provides food, clothing and a nurturing Christian home environment to children in poverty who are orphans or who have no adult caregivers. Compassion is God’s way of motivating us to do His will.

9. “My shirt gives hope.”
A common theme in poor villages throughout the world is hopelessness. Without hope we have no reason to live. We are told in Romans 5:3-5:

“Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Hope reminds us how powerful God is. When we rely on God and follow His lead, He will provide. Hope does not disappoint us.

10. “My shirt shares my love.”
Jesus tells us to love each other as He has loved us. If we did everything in love, the world would be a much better place. I often take love for granted and underestimate its power. Without love we have nothing. ResQrags remind people how important it is to love one another. After all, God is love.

Wear love well. Join the fight against extreme poverty at www.resqrags.com. And show us how you “Wear It Well” by sharing your photos with us on Facebook.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Gannon and his wife, Tina, are the founders and owners of ResQrags. They live in Fort Myers, Fla., with their twin 6-year old boys.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

As a pastor in Uganda for more than 13 years, Peter Mugabi deeply understands the plight of the African pastor.

“Pastoring in Uganda is a big call that God puts on one’s life. It’s a tough calling because many of our churches have quite a number of challenges.

“The expectations for pastors in Uganda go far beyond the spiritual realm. Our people are very needy, and whether the needs are spiritual, economic, social or physical, the church is the place of refuge. People look to the pastor for help.”

When asked about the specific challenges faced by the members of his congregation, Mugabi said that people in his congregation have “big” needs ranging from economic empowerment, support for schooling for their children, food supplements and medical assistance.

“Many people are sick with malaria, tropical diseases, AIDS — and they fail to go anywhere because they lack the finances.”

Mugabi also says that social needs are abundant. Many people have families that are unstable — and out of the devastation come broken marriages and child abuse.

Though Mugabe has to work outside the church as a teacher and professional counselor to ease the financial burden of his church, he is quick to talk about the blessings he sees as a pastor in Uganda.

“The needs that we have also have been our blessings in a way, because we have learned to trust God in our poverty. We wait on God day by day because we are not sure of tomorrow.”

Mugabe says that in Uganda there is tremendous freedom in worship.

“Because of the great need in our community, as a pastor, I can knock on any door and be welcomed. Ugandans will welcome anyone bringing the gospel. They are very open, loving and sincere; people believe that the church has the answers.”

When asked about his involvement with Pastors Discipleship Network (PDN), Mugabe breaks into a huge smile. As the childhood pastor of Richmond Wandera, CEO of Pastors Discipleship Network, Mugabe was able to speak into the vision as Wandera first shared God’s call.

“There was a great need to impact pastors — to empower, equip and encourage them. Many pastors have been called but very few have any training.”

Mugabi says that the resources provided by the Pastors Discipleship Network have been invaluable.

“It’s like on-the-job training for various aspects of pastoring.”

The Quest Study Bible has been a precious resource for him, Mugabe says, both personally and as he prepares sermons and devotionals for his congregation. And the Network’s resource center has opened a world of information, helping him access sermons by Internet as well as numerous books on various aspects of pastoring.

Still, more training is needed.

“I’d like to see training incorporate three major challenges to our people: politics, economy and our culture.”

In addition, Mugabe says that management training is critical.

“We’re not only pastors, but leaders — and therefore, managers of God’s resources.

“The Pastors Discipleship Network has provided an invaluable network for us because, as pastors, there are tough seasons when we are worn – burned out. And as pastors we know that every counselor needs a counselor; we need other pastors to share our frustrations and dreams.

“I’d like to give a Macedonian call like Paul gave in the New Testament. The work here is great, and we pray that the Lord would provide for us. Our spirits are willing but, at times, our pockets are weak. Just as Paul said: ‘Come and help us!’”

Article courtesy of the Pastors Discipleship Network. Download the latest PDN e- newsletter.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Guatemala with a group of youth pastors to see Compassion’s ministry firsthand. I am a part of a group called LEAD 222, which is a coaching group that helps mentor and coach youth pastors from around the nation. We went to Guatemala to see what type of partnership we might have with Compassion.

Before the trip I had the opportunity to sponsor a child I could meet while in Guatemala. My family decided to sponsor one child.

With no prior relationship with this little one, I had no idea what to expect.

On the first day of the trip we visited one of the child development centers and were able to visit some of the families’ homes. I was completely wrecked to see the poverty that each of these children lives in on a daily basis. I was also comforted by the fact that each of these children receives care, learning opportunities and nutritious snacks from the Compassion program.

The next day was my day to visit Noe Abraham, the 5-year-old I had decided to sponsor only days before the trip. I was nervous as we pulled up to the center he goes to for after-school care. Nervous as to what I would say and how he would react.

Having a 2-year-old little boy of my own, I immediately knew that my heart would go out to little Noe.

When we pulled up to the center my hopes of visiting his home were shot down as the guide told us this was a drug- and gang-infested neighborhood, and we would not be safe venturing off the church’s grounds. Noe would have to meet us at the church.

I remember as we were singing songs and getting to know the other children, I saw a curly-haired little boy and his family walk in the door. I thought to myself: I have a feeling that is my Noe. My heart skipped a little in anticipation. I couldn’t wait to meet this kid I barely knew.

I had come prepared with toys and coloring books, silly bands and all the things I thought a child his age would like to play with. When it was time to meet Noe and his family, my nerves kicked into high gear.

Would he understand who I was? Did he know I already cared for him like one of my own? Would this be awkward? What would his family think?

When I walked into that room, it was most definitely that curly-haired little boy that I had seen a little while before. And when the interpreter told him who I was, he smiled with his toothless grin.

He was shy at first, but immediately came to me. He was so polite and endearing for child his age. His parents were so thankful.

As I sat down with Noe, my tears started to come. I just thought of the world around him and all the things he would have to conquer to be the man of God he was made to be. And how with maybe just a little encouragement and support from my family thousands of miles away, we could help him have the hope to accomplish his dreams and his family’s dreams.

We played ball, we hugged a lot, we took pictures, and we colored. Of all the other kids around, Noe was the most polite and humble. It almost seemed like at the ripe age of 5 he wanted to make sure I was comfortable in this new situation as well.

The greatest moment came when he asked if he could thank me by praying over me. With the help of his mother he prayed the sweetest prayer as he laid his hands on my head. I know heaven was rejoicing at this precious little one’s faith. Then the tears really started to pour. I thought what incredible faith from a little 5-year-old.

After I got my wits together I taught him some English and we made a videotape for my family at home. We hugged goodbye, and I had to pull myself away from this new family member.

My affection grew so deep for him and his family in just the short time that I was there. I plan to take my family and my sweet little boy Holden to visit him. There is not a day that goes by that my family doesn’t think and pray for Noe.

Our refrigerator has his pictures proudly displayed and the company that my family has started literally has his name written all over it.

When I got back I was inspired to do something for the “grown up” Noes because I was so touched and moved by this little boy. I knew Noe would get through his adolescence with the support of his family and us. But how much harder will it be for him to graduate high school and go to college and make a life for his own family?

I want Noe to have the same experiences that Holden will some day have – the ability to pursue his dreams and receive an education. So, I came home from this incredible trip and decided to do something about it.

I’ve started a company called wiseabe, after Noe Abraham. I’m making handbags from recycled coffee bags and have partnered with Compassion in this. Ten percent of the gross earnings from each bag purchased will help send a student to university.

Right now, wiseabe is sponsoring a student named Ana from Peru. She is a part of the Leadership Development Program. She dreams of being an accountant, and I hope to help her dreams come true.

As wiseabe grows, I intend to add more students. And I hope that when Noe grows up, wiseabe will still be around to help him go to college as well.

The dream is that these students will educate themselves so in turn they can return to educate their communities. With your help, this is something we can accomplish.

Be sure to visit the wiseabe site, take a look around, and let Kristi know what you think … about her product, wiseabe’s mission, the story, etc. She’ll randomly select two winners to receive a free burlap messenger bag.

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