Who gets that chicken or soccer ball you give through the Gifts of Compassion Christmas gift catalog?

Does a gift like that really make a difference? How does a soccer ball make an impact on a child in poverty?

It’s hard for me to answer these questions, because I’ve never wanted a pig or cow for Christmas. But after doing some research, I found this story from Tanzania showing how the gift of a soccer ball made a lasting impact.

Encouraging Talent in Tanzania by Charles Ngowi

Last year, the money given toward soccer balls helped fund not only the purchase of soccer balls for children, but also the second National Children and Youth Talent Festival in Tanzania, November 30 through December 4, 2010.

It was organized by Compassion Tanzania, and the event brought together about 600 children who had earlier been competing at the development center and regional levels in order to qualify for the national event. The children came from the 12 regions of Tanzania where we operate.

In addition to sports equipment, the festival provided opportunities for children and youth to display their God-given talents through competition, while socializing with others in a friendly environment and compassionate manner.

The festival also developed the children’s talents with the possibility of one day making them economically self-supporting using their skills in sports and arts.

The children participated and competed in different kinds of events including soccer, javelin, high jump, singing, drawing, painting, netball, discus and many more. At the end of the event, the top students and overall regional winners were awarded trophies and medals.

One of the Compassion children who attended the festival was Hemedi, 15, who is now in secondary school. He was registered with Compassion in 2004 when he was 9 years old and got involved in sports with the Compassion team when he went to Arusha in 2007 to play in the first Talent Festival.

What has Hemedi gained by being involved with sports?

“Sports help us know each other and socialize well. They also help us be in unity; it’s easy to support one another when you know what someone needs.

Through sports, I have been able to know many people. Sports also help me be fit physically, and by playing different sports it is not easy to be attacked by opportunistic diseases.”

Whether it’s competing at a national level, understanding the value of teamwork, or getting healthy and fit, your gift of a soccer ball is giving life to dreams of Compassion children around the world.

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Nooltetan is a Maasai peasant farmer who has been unable to farm because of the severe East African drought.

Mostly, she has depended on raising cattle for her family’s survival. In the past 10 to 20 years the Tanzanian government has encouraged Maasai pastoral communities to engage in alternative work such as farming instead of just relying on cattle.

Nooltetan heeded this call. Along with raising cattle, she began farming her small plot of land when she got married. But the drought has been severe, forcing Nooltetan to cease her attempts at farming. Then she lost all of her cattle and was reduced to poverty.

Nooltetan and her husband had two children before they separated after family quarrels. Now she looks after her children on her own.

With children to feed and responsibilities to fulfill. Nooltetan resorted to collecting firewood for a living. Each day she goes to the nearby bush to collect firewood, which she carries to the nearby town to sell.

One day Nooltetan injured herself with her machete, which has forced her to rely on her 15-year-old son, Alais, to collect firewood and sell it to feed the family. Nooltetan tells us,

“We get about Tshs 2,000 per day (approx. $1.15 USD) for the bundle of firewood we sell and then we use the money to buy food and other home essentials.”

Nooltetan feels it is better to do that than go hungry with no food at all. When the family is not able to earn a living through selling firewood, or when Alais has not been able to secure a day’s pay, the family resorts to asking a neighbor for food.

But if the neighbor family has nothing to spare, Nooltetan’s family goes hungry that day.

After her separation from her husband, Nooltetan decided to go back to her parents where she was born. While there she met a man who fathered four more children with her. This man has not married her and doesn’t take any responsibility for the children.

So Nooltetan now has six children to raise. Before the drought, she had six cows and 10 goats, but now she doesn’t have so much as a chicken to supply eggs and income.

“This year the drought has persisted and because of the loss of our cows and goats, the situation has become even more difficult.

“We depended much on the cattle as our security and means of survival, because we could sell some and buy food. But since cattle are no longer available, we depend on the small business of collecting firewood in exchange for food.”

On a good day, Nooltetan’s family has two simple meals of maize flour and beans, vegetables or porridge. Today they had porridge in the morning and they were going to have another porridge meal in the evening.

The porridge is made of water with maize flour and smallest measure of cooking oil they can buy (at Tshs 200, approximately 15 cents USD) to add flavor.

Food scarcity is not the only the problem in this community; there is also an acute shortage of water. Even though a water pipe is located a few hundred meters from Nooltetan’s home, the pipe is dry most of the time.

The only reliable source of water is a puddle of water-pipe leakage. Here, many people from the community collect their water each day. When the puddle is dry, they have to walk several kilometers to look for water.

One day a relative heard that the local church, in partnership with Compassion International, was going to register children and help support them. Knowing Nooltetan’s struggles to raise six children as a single mother, the uncle asked the child development center workers if he could register her son Emmanuel.

The development center workers came to Nooltetan’s home and confirmed Emmanuel for registration. Nooltetan says she has seen God in these workers, and in Emmanuel.

“Emmanuel being registered has benefited us as [a] family in many ways. Emmanuel would not have gone to school if it was not for Compassion’s intervention. His behavior is very different compared to his other siblings, and more importantly, he has great hope for the future.

“The impact [of] him going to school has even touched his younger siblings, who all go to school as opposed to his elder brothers who did not go to school.”

The family has also received several gifts from Emmanuel’s sponsors, who have even been in their home to visit them.

“These gifts have helped our family to buy food and clothes for other children as well. The benefits have spanned to all other family members.”

Nooltetan cannot hide her joy and her appreciation of Emmanuel’s sponsors.

“I would like to sincerely thank Emmanuel’s sponsors for their support and I thank God who touched them to choose sponsoring my child. I would also tell them if it were not for them, our story, and particularly that of Emmanuel, would be very different.”

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“Hey, here is another one,” says Keila with enthusiasm while they search for more eggs and the chickens walk between their legs.

The center is in a fresh environment with lots of pine trees. The 140 chickens lay eggs to feed the 257 children at the Pentecostal Student Center.

One of the desired outcomes of our programs is the physical development of children, but the rise in food prices has worsened our church partners’ ability to help the children grow healthy.

In Honduras, 70 percent of families in the rural areas live in extreme poverty, and in the past year, the cost of basic grains has doubled. The price of fertilizer has gone up 71 percent.

This egg farm is one of the ways Compassion Honduras is responding to the global food crisis, which has created great difficulty in the holistic development of the children.

The chicken project started as a dream of this student center in November 2008, and the dream came true through our Complementary Interventions program (CIV).

Like any new activity, the center faced many difficulties — especially when moving 200 chickens. Some of the chickens died and others were stolen.

“We decided to move again the whole thing to a better and safer place, and we currently have 160 chickens and 14 roosters,” says Sandra, the center director.

In spite of all the problems 140 chickens are laying eggs twice a day, and the center is collecting approximately 280 eggs daily.

The children now recieve a nutritional, healthy lunch based on eggs daily. The blessing goes beyond that because the children’s families can buy a cardboard box of 30 eggs for a low price, allowing the center to generate the necessary income to purchase chicken feed.

Pentecostal Student Center is now prepared and confident about the future. This activity gives them the opportunity to bless others in need.

“We have been able to rescue families from precarious nutritional conditions, and we are encouraged to keep working hard and bless many families and children in this city of Siguatepeque,” says Sandra.

In the meantime, Keila and her sister Keren continue with their chores at the egg farm, and have a great time playing with the chickens. Both know how important their work is.

In the warm city of Comayagua, another great CIV program is taking place at Vida Cristiana Student Center: a micro-project fish production that intends to help 312 children and their families.

For Yanira, the center director, this idea started as a vision to help many people, especially children who are living in extreme poverty with so many needs.

“We have seen the need of many families, not only for the lack of food but also because many parents do not have a job and as a result do not have the means to buy food for their children.

“We have seen children with headaches and stomachaches simply because they have not eaten at home, so we are here to attend those children who are going through these difficult times, and we feel blessed to have the opportunity to keep their weight and nutrition.”

It was a common desire within the church to strengthen the children’s nutritional lunch at the center during the global food crisis. Perhaps the biggest challenge was to purchase the material for the fish tank, which is sometimes difficult to find in Honudras.

But the church was always confident that God was going to provide the tools for this activity. They were able to obtain the fish tank material, and eventually began to set it up on the hill behind the church.

Currently, the fish tank has 2,000 fish that are being taken care of by young boys like 15-year-old Gerson.

For two months Gerson has been responsible for the fish tank, an activity he enjoys because of the benefits it will bring him and his friends at the center.

Every day he walks 2 kilometers to the site to do his job with enthusiasm and professionalism. His job is feeding the fish thre times during the day, and also activating the pump that add oxygen to the water.

“They have trained me over the handling and maintenance of this fish pond, also about agriculture and many things.”

In spite of having just two months of experience working with this fish tank, the center is starting to see the fish gain weight and size. They continue training young people how to take care of the fish pond.

In the near future, these fish will be part of the children’s daily lunch. According to Yanira,

“In six months, this cycle of fish will be ready and then we will start over with another 2,000 fish. There is a good market to sell the fish, so the fish pond can be maintained economically.

“We wish the children to learn to dream big and hope that this experience will help them to have the opportunity to become entrepreneurs.”

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