4 Family Budgets Around the World

Someone in a green shirt is holding a handful of money

Would you like to take a peek into the pocketbook of a few families around the world? Have you ever wondered what it’s really like to live below the global poverty line of US $1.90 a day? These four families invited us to learn what it’s like to try to make ends meet in extreme poverty.

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How to be Involved with Child Sponsorship on a Tight Budget

world map with children's photos attached

Sponsors at my church have been experiencing financial hardships with gas prices, unemployment, and the overall cost of living. I’m not sure if you’re experiencing this same tension, but I suspect that with finances being tighter, many of us are investing less time in this ministry.

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two women with a child looking at a paper

Teaching Home Economics With Common Sense

Moms in our Child Survival Program typically lack the opportunity to learn basic home economics skills. Knowledge that we consider common sense is not always common for them.

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Budget, Schmudget

Numbered out! When you’re an arts and letters person like me, waking up to figures, budget targets and terms like “capital depreciation” are like, well…an alarm clock that just makes you want to keep hitting the snooze button.

But face reality I must. Waking up helps, too.

Truth is, there’s some very exciting stuff going on at Compassion. Growth, regrouping, a fresh look at what ministry looks like when the Church is mobilized. We’ve just got to be poised and ready…ready to listen, hear, obey. And act. Act boldly, because we’re given a bold mission that will succeed even in the face of a brazen enemy.

This is how you know you’re onto something, and that — perfect or not — you are in the midst of God’s divine purpose. Things don’t come easy, but they come. It’s not because we’re so good or smart or driven, but because of who God is and what He wants to accomplish through us…and through you. We’re just mobilizers.

Several years ago, I took a life-changing course called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement that gave me a view into the history of Christianity — its ebbs and flows; rises and falls; the good, the bad and the ugly; and the blessing and persecution. What became very clear to me was this: When God wants to move, He moves. He’d rather move through His people rather than in spite of us, but He will move.

The key part for us is finding our place in the movement called the Great Commission. Mine, I learned, is mobilizing — promoting a cause and encouraging others to find their place in it. Yours might be sending others to the mission field (here or “there”). It could be going yourself (mission field, short-term missions or visiting your child). Or it might be praying and supporting. It could be working here or at another NGO that serves those in need. Point is, we each have a part.

Just after I finished Perspectives, God gave me the faith to offer what I thought was a resumé a mile wide and an inch deep. And after that, it was clear He was making my life deeper and wider than I could hope or imagine.

I’m no saint (ask around), but like anyone, if I’m willing I can be a tool of impact in the right Hands. By God’s grace, that even includes crunching numbers.


Nydia Teter works as Compassion’s Field Communications Director, her job is to get the great stories from our country offices to our global partners so they can share the good news about what God’s doing through sponsors and donors around the world.

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