Another clip from our video interview with the Moody Bible Institute scholars.

After watching it, will you sponsor a Leadership Development Program student? You can do so by yourself, but you can also do it as a group, with family, friends, co-workers, your small group, etc.

So, an emperor, a chief and a queen are all in a room together. The emperor is from Uganda. The chief is from the Dominican Republic. And the queen is from the Philippines. Who’s in charge?

You can also view the Who’s in Charge video on YouTube.

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…)

In late July we interviewed our Moody Bible Institute scholarship recipients using questions you submitted here. We filmed the interview and will be sharing clips from the session with you over the next few weeks.

In this first clip, which is just over 13 minutes long, you’ll get to see how Richmond, Tony, Michelle and Jimmy interact with one another.

You’ll get a taste of the strength of their relationships with one another and with God.

And you’ll get a little insight into what Jimmy probably asked his sponsor when they met at Catalyst 2009.

Beyond getting to know them a little better, by learning what these agents of change are studying at Moody and why they chose their fields of study, you’ll also hear, among other things:

• Tony speak about his call to serve teenagers
• Michelle and Richmond share about their desires to develop strong Christian leaders in the Philippines and Uganda
• Jimmy relate what life was like before he was sponsored

Enjoy.

Are you still with me? Still tracking with these thoughts on eliminating poverty? Good.

Now, I’ll share with you some data – data that show the Millennium Development Goals are on target.

We used to say that 40,000 children under age 5 die every day of hunger or preventable diseases. Then about 6 to 7 years ago this number was 30,000. Today, 24,000 children under 5 die every day of hunger or preventable diseases.

These statistics show that in 20 years the number of children who die every day of hunger or preventable diseases has been cut in half. Yet, the birth rate is actually going up. The population is increasing. (more…)

Typhoon Ketsana, which struck the Philippines on September 26, damaged more than 1,500 homes of Compassion-assisted children and families, and nearly 20 student centers were affected by the storm.*

Ketsana hit the Philippines on a Saturday, the day when registered children gather at the student centers. But on September 26 not many arrived at Marikina Foursquare Student Center. Ketsana was already pounding hard.

However, some children did come.

Bernadette, the center director, fed them and instructed them to go home immediately. And as she planned to visit the homes of other children to give them some food because the floodwaters were rising fast, she was called by her own family. Her home was flooded too.

“What I have learned from this is not to look back on the possessions I lost, but rather focus on saving myself and my loved ones. On that day, I couldn’t attend to the needs of the children since my own home was in disarray.”

In the following days Bernadette reports that none of the children from her student center were hurt, although all of their homes were flooded, damaged in some way or destroyed completely.

The student center and its surrounding communities were completely submerged under water. And five days after the typhoon, homes and communities were still flooded, muddied, stinky and a mess.

Mirasol, a mother at the church, says,

“It is still a nightmare for me. I still vividly recall images of people being swept away by the water. I couldn’t sleep thinking that I was not able to help them as they were crying, as they were swept away towards the river. My child was crying the loudest, ‘Mother, Mother, the water is so high already!’”

Two of Mirasol’s children, Maribel and Dominic, are registered at the student center. They are safe but their home is still under water.

Miguel, another child from the student center, says he was so afraid because he got separated from his father when his father took his mother to safety first, but could not come back for Miguel and his younger brother because of the dangerously strong current.

Miguel and his brother were rescued by a neighbor, also a Compassion parent, as the boys jumped from roof to roof. They were reunited with their parents the next day at the church, but their tiny home was washed away completely.

Miguel’s father confesses,

“I pounded on my heart in anguish, crying. I was thinking of my boys all the time. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to look for them several times. I even waded back and forth in the water calling out for my sons.”

But despite the situation he and his family now find themselves in, Miguel’s father says,

“I won’t complain because I still have what truly matters.”

His family.

When natural disasters strike, Compassion’s Disaster Relief Fund provides sponsored children and their families with food, clothing and basic supplies to help rebuild their lives. Learn more about the Disaster Relief Fund.

*Editor’s note: In the wake of a disaster we contact each sponsor who has a child affected by that disaster. We do so once we receive details from the country office about the child. If your child was affected by either Typhoon Ketsana or Typhoon Parma, you will be contacted when we receive information about your child.

Thomas Swaroop, Child Advocacy Director for South Asia, shares about the inspiration he received from a young girl who has an opportunity to shine for Jesus.