I stepped into my favorite coffee shop for my morning cup of java. Behind me a man carried a toddler on his shoulders, bundled to brave the chilly Colorado morning.

“There’s chocolate, powdered sugar, and even sprinkled! You can chose whichever you’d like, buddy.”

The father gave his young son a donut education as they waited in line. He spoke to his son with such adoration!

With so many absent fathers in the world, it’s encouraging to see dads invest in their children. As I watched this dad and his son enjoying their morning outing, I couldn’t help but say,

“You’ve got yourself a real cute son there!”

With a huge smile and welling pride, he responded,

“Thanks! He’s also my best friend.”

What a pleasure for the young boy! What love he will have! Imagine the difference this dad will make, even going as far as to say his little toddler was his best friend. This child will grow up cherished.

On the other side of the world, in many East African cultures, men are responsible for providing for the family and women are responsible for domestic work within the home and, in particular, looking after children. But our staff knows the role of the father in a child’s life is indispensable.

As a result, Child Survival Program (CSP) fathers in Ethiopia are more involved in caregiving and emotional support. Fathers are beginning to help wash their babies, take them to activities at the church, and participate in program activities.

They contribute to their children’s well-being through their own loving presence. They maintain a healthy relationship with the child, providing emotional and financial support.

Whether walking into a coffee shop or walking down a dirt road to a child development center, fathers can use their powerful influence to change the life of a child. These men and babies will change the face of their country.

I left the shop that morning with more than a great cup of coffee. I left with a reminder to pray for fathers and their crucial role in the lives of their children. The next time you grab a powdered-sugar donut, say a prayer for fathers and their continued presence in our African CSP programs.

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Our holistic child development model is central to our mission of releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. And the curriculum standards we have put in place in all of our programs are key to achieving this goal.

In recent years, we developed a global curriculum to help develop children holistically — physically, spiritually, cognitively and socio-emotionally. It is designed to be nonacademic, similar to an after-school enrichment program. For example, instead of learning math, children learn how to apply mathematical skills.

Another example is that in many of the countries where we work, children are taught to stay quiet and to not share their opinions. Instead of just telling them what to do, we work through our curriculum to empower children to have their own voice when they leave our sponsorship program.

“We want them to own their own development,” says Mary Ann Springer, who led the curriculum design. “As an example, we train the children how to eat well so they can make good decisions on their own.”

The new curriculum is both age-appropriate and contextualized to fit the needs of the children. For example, in our Child Sponsorship Program the lesson plans are aimed at age groups of: 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14, 15-18 and 19 and above.

For the 3- to 5-year-olds, a physical lesson might be learning about basic hygiene, such as brushing your teeth. The spiritual lesson might be learning a Bible story. A socio-emotional lesson might include learning how to treat others. A cognitive lesson might teach about the five different senses.

Global curriculum standards ensure quality programming in our child development centers by giving the tutors easy-to-use and effective material to teach the children. Another important benefit is having measurable “outcomes” and “indicators.”

“Every lesson plan and activity points to a specific outcome and indicator,” says Springer. “The goal is for every student to graduate having achieved the four outcomes, each with three indicators, for the lesson plan.”

For example, one outcome of physical development is that a child “chooses good health practices and is physically healthy.” The three indicators associated with this outcome are that the child:

1. demonstrates an appropriate understanding of his or her physical body
2. experiences reduced incidence of illness, nutritional deficiencies and physical impediments
3. takes responsibility for wise life choices about health and sexuality

The new curriculum standards also provide for focused, detailed lesson plans. This allows the tutors to have a clear path to obtain the desired objectives. It greatly helps the teachers prepare the classroom programs. With less time devoted to preparing lesson plans and with better tools, they are able to give individualized attention to each child.

The curriculum uses various methods of teaching in order to reach every child’s learning style, whether that’s hands-on, auditory or visual. Most of the lessons are participatory, including small groups, discovery and games.

Because we work in so many diverse cultures, each of our country offices has the freedom to contextualize the curriculum to their specific needs. For example, in Indonesia, one of the lessons had been designed to teach the children how to tie their shoes. However, in some of the communities in Indonesia, they wear sandals, not shoes that tie. Contextualizing helps our offices weed out culturally irrelevant content.

The variations of the curriculum range widely from country to country. Some use the standards as they are and some have made major changes. For example, in Rwanda, due to the past internal conflicts, there is an emphasis on teaching forgiveness.

“As long as there is balance within the curriculum, the countries have freedom to adjust the curriculum to their needs,” says Springer.

Our new curriculum helps children develop into whom God made them to be, and the tutors no longer feel burdened with developing daily lesson plans. They now have the time to devote to the children to encourage them to grow holistically.

As the new curriculum standards are implemented in more child development centers, we draw one step closer to using fully realizing our mission: releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

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I grew up in Wisconsin, a part of the U.S. that doesn’t get a lot of attention. But it’s a beautiful, fruitful area. There are farms, gardens, orchards and, of course, dairy cows. My first job was working on an apple orchard when I was 14.

The harvest was my favorite time, when people came out to buy bushels of fresh apples. It took years to develop the trees to get that fruit. And then it took continual care to keep the apples coming. But as every farmer knows, you can only do what you can do — there are limits.

Ministry is like farming, too.

Paul said, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6, NIV). Paul assumed the people he was talking to understood farming — they understood there were limits to what they could do and what they couldn’t. He helped them see that this applied to ministry as well.

The ministry that Compassion does around the world is development. And, just as in farming, we do what we do for the outcomes — the fruit — not for the activities themselves. A farmer doesn’t grow trees because it’s good to grow trees; he grows trees in order to get the apples. At Compassion, we don’t busy ourselves with activities because the activities are good, but because we want to see an outcome of our labor — good fruit.

John 15:8 (NIV) says, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” Disciples bear fruit, and we want to bear much fruit.

In order to do this, we need to know what we are growing, what it takes to grow good fruit, and how we evaluate good fruit. We don’t want to just have fruit that looks good. Think of a Red Delicious apple. They’re beautiful from the outside, but sometimes when you bite in to one, you find it’s not all that good.

The fruit we hope to see in the children we minister to are that they would know Jesus, that they would be healthy, that they would be able to get a job or create income for themselves, and that they would be able to relate well to others and have an appropriate attitude about themselves. This fruit may look different in every child, just as every seed grows up to look so different.

But as with farming, we know that we can’t control every element in a child’s life. It’s a lot easier to garden in Wisconsin than it is here in Colorado. I used to garden with my mother, and it was so fun to watch the seeds sprout and the tender plants push through the rich black soil. I wanted my kids to have that same experience here, so we planted gardens. But the soil, the sun, the wind, the hail and the drought of Colorado made that much more difficult than in Wisconsin.

Colorado is a harsh environment in which to grow vegetables, just as much of the world is a harsh environment in which to raise children. Many of these young people with amazing potential are growing up in the harshest of environments. The conditions of our world and the conditions of our souls hold us in bondage. God’s children are shackled by the chains of disease and a world that underestimates them. They are in bondage to the shallow dreams of those who walk before them telling stories about the limits of life.

We could get discouraged. What chance do these kids have? The fruit we want to see in these children seems impossible! But God is the God of impossible. Many do make it against amazing odds, clinging to life, blooming in inhospitable places. Our job is to make that more likely.

But in our excitement about bearing fruit, I have a warning. Our goals are ambitious. Our dreams are visionary. But our expectations have to be tempered with some realism. We must be careful in our zeal to see children released in marvelous ways that we not place unrealistic expectations on them. They are unique human beings with their own set of potentials and gifts and their own set of struggles and problems. Our job is to love them and to help them and to let them grow.

It makes me think of one of my favorite children’s movies, Mary Poppins. Do you remember the scene in which Mary Poppins pulls out her measuring tape to see how the kids measure up? Michael was “extremely stubborn and suspicious,” while Jane was “rather inclined to giggle.” Mary Poppins was, of course, “Practically perfect in every way.”

Sometimes I think we expect the kids in our programs to measure up to the Mary Poppins standard. Just as Jane and Michael Banks didn’t measure up, neither will our kids at various times. As we watch them grow, we have to set reasonable targets. And even as they are leaving the program, we need to remember that they are adolescents — at a most vulnerable and chaotic stage of life. These are young people figuring out their way in the world. They make mistakes; they have a journey to travel. Many of them are becoming more and more like Jesus, but they’re not quite there yet. Just like you and me!

So we continue to plant, and we continue to water. We know what fruit we want to see in the children we minister to, but we also know that God is the one who will make it grow.

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Thirty-eight dollars a month. That’s how much it costs to sponsor a child through Compassion, which is more than the price of sponsorship at other organizations. The difference sometimes leads to questions like these.

“When I first starting sponsoring it [the sponsorship rate] was $22 a month; that was 1989, or 1990 I forget, I’m getting old. During college I stopped sponsoring for a few years and then it was I think $26 or $28 a month . . . Other organizations have stayed about $22-24 a month . . . what extra services does Compassion offer for the extra money . . . what does Compassion provide that other organizations do not supply at $22-24 month?” — Dwight“

“I am getting a bit concerned with the cost to sponsor a child. Where is the money going that isn’t going to the children? I would hate to think it is for a glossier overedited over advertising or staff bloat to make sponsors feel better.” — Nancy White

Although these two questions may seem to be asking the same thing, they’re actually not. Dwight is asking, “What does my child get each month for $38?” (i.e., how are our programs run and what do we deliver?). Nancy is asking, “Where is the money going that isn’t going to the children?” (i.e., how do we spend your money?). They’re both important questions.

I’m not an expert on how other sponsorship programs are run, but what I do know is that some organizations don’t have Christ at the center of what they do. And some allow children to have multiple sponsors.

So two things that Compassion delivers is the Gospel and a one-to-one relationship with your child.

Some child sponsorship programs just focus on one or two areas of a child’s development, rather than being all-encompassing, and others organizations administer their programs on behalf of the community a child lives in, rather than focusing directly on a specific child.

Compassion delivers holistic child development that is child focused. These two posts help show what that means.

• What does holistic child development look like?
• What does my sponsored child learn at the child development center?

Additionally, some organizations receive government funding. We do not. We’re 100 percent sponsor and donor supported.

And finally, some programs are more localized and less global than our program is. We’re a global holistic child development ministry and we use a one-on-one sponsorship model that encourages you and your child to share your faith with each other. We’re Christ centered, child focused, church based and committed to integrity.

Some programs may have similarities to ours, but none are exactly the same. That’s what we deliver.

As for how we spend your money, no more than 20 percent pays for administration and fundraising. That’s our commitment to you. And for the past several years, we’ve been significantly below that 20 percent, usually two to four percentage points below.

In fiscal year 2009, approximately $31 of your $38 monthly payment paid for development center grants, program services and child advocacy (i.e., educating the Body of Christ about the biblical mandate to care for children and the poor), while a nickel shy of $7 was used for administration ($3.23) and fundraising ($3.72).

Because of how we manage your money we have received eight consecutive four-star ratings from Charity Navigator, an independent charity evaluator. Only 1 percent of charities rated by Charity Navigator have been recognized in this way.

So, what does the $31 buy your sponsored child?

The money categorized as development center grants is delivered directly to our church partners to cover the costs of implementing our sponsorship program. The basic elements of these activities include:

• regular Christian training
• learning opportunities (e.g., funding school attendance and/or regular participation in extracurricular educational activities)
• health treatment and training (e.g., regular physical exams, dental care, vaccinations, referral for advance medical care, instruction in physical and dental hygiene, exercise, nutrition and preventive health care)
• socio-emotional development (e.g., learning basic social skills, teamwork, art, drama, dance, etc.)
• materials and supplies including hygiene supplies (e.g., soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste), center supplies (e.g., paper, writing utensils, games, toys), fees or costs associated with field trips, camps, drama, art and dance activities, and snacks, food and supplemental nutrition each child may need
• individualized care and attention (e.g., school progress reports, center attendance records, health records, home visits by social workers and adult supervision while at the development center)

Program services include activities undertaken by our staff to select, train, equip and oversee the church partners implementing our program, as well as programmatic research and evaluation. They also cover the costs of staff who direct and maintain the daily activities at the child development center.

More personally, this is where the money comes from for letter translation, postage, taking photos of your child, and updating you on your child’s well-being.

You can consider program services as the funding source for maintaining our program’s integrity and all the things that connect you and your child.

That about sums it up. I hope this explanation is useful to you. If you want additional information about our financial stewardship you can visit compassion.com and charitynavigator.com, as well as call us at (800) 336-7676.

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What is Compassion International all about?

Well, first and foremost, we’re about Jesus. We are Christ centered. We “release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.” We work through the local church, and we work in response to the Great Commission.

We demonstrate what we’re about in how we behave – what we do and how we do it.

We’re child focused. We develop children. Each child we serve is ministered to personally, and each church partner we work with tailors its programs to meet the specific needs of the children in its community. We help children in poverty become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults. We give them an opportunity to succeed.

As we do this, we refute the lie of poverty and are that much closer to eliminating extreme poverty altogether.

But how we go about fighting extreme poverty contrasts with how other organizations work toward the same goal. We fight poverty personally, while many organizations fight it communally.

I don’t mean that other organizations aren’t personally invested or committed to eliminating extreme poverty. I mean that a child-focused, child development approach to fighting poverty is distinctly different from a broader, community development approach.

I believe that community development is important work, and I suspect that everyone at Compassion would agree it’s important. But as Tony Neeves, our Vice President of International Development, says, we don’t agree that community development is the best approach to eliminating extreme poverty because over the years we’ve learned that changed circumstances rarely change people’s lives and changed people inevitably change their circumstances.

So, which method do you think is more effective?

What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each? Do the two methods complement one another or work against one another?

And if you had complete control over limited resources to use in the fight against poverty, how would you approach it? Would you focus on children, on communities or something else?

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If you find yourself calling Compassion a child sponsorship organization, I have news for you. We are not a child sponsorship organization. We are a child development organization.

And child development isn’t just child sponsorship.

Child development requires involvement. Involvement begins with a commitment and extends beyond dedication to perseverance. Child development is an investment – an investment of time for a lifetime.

All that child sponsorship involves is identifying people to make a pledge on behalf of a child.

Child development is dynamic. It changes as a child’s needs change. It’s personal, individualized and relational. And it’s tailored to ages, gender, health, cultures and family situations.

Child sponsorship is just a tool, and the tool is different from what the tool builds. Child sponsorship allows us to develop children. Child sponsorship allows you to do God’s work – to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

Child development equips children today with the skills to succeed tomorrow. It’s long term. It doesn’t occur overnight – because children don’t grow up overnight. However, children do die at night. And they die during the day too.

Children die when they’re in the womb and in their mothers’ arms. Children die when they’re young and when they’re older, which means that child development requires child survival. If a child dies, there is no child to develop.

This is why we have our Child Survival Program, which is different from our Child Sponsorship Program, which is different from our Leadership Development Program, which is different from our Complementary Interventions.

Taken together, those four things are “how we do” what we do. They are how we develop the children we serve, the children you sponsor.

What we do is develop children. Compassion International is not just a child sponsorship organization. We are a child development organization.

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The Pastors Discipleship Network (PDN) is an initiative begun by Leadership Development Program graduate and Moody Bible Institute scholar Richmond Wandera. It exists:

“to train and equip local pastors in Africa with basic study tools for accurately interpreting God’s Word through monthly seminars, accountability relationships, and the provision of study resources.”

We’re bringing PDN to your attention as an example of what we mean when we say,

“The Leadership Development Program identifies young Compassion-assisted men and women who have shown potential to become Christian leaders who can, in turn, influence their own families, churches, communities and nations.”

PDN is an example of your support bearing fruit! Even if you don’t sponsor a leadership development student, your commitment to Compassion helps create the environment for opportunities like this. That’s what holistic child development is.

You can learn all about PDN at pdnafrica.org and can stay current with Richmond’s work via the PDN Facebook page.

But the philosophy essentially boils down to this:

“When a pastor is trained, his church is also trained; when you resource the pastor, his church is also resourced … everything rises and falls on leadership … a trained pastor becomes a watchman against heresy and false teaching. Therefore, training a local pastor protects the church.”

“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” — Hosea 4:6 (NIV)

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For the children who have accepted Christ as their Savior, the center staff conduct a discipleship class which occurs during the Bible study.

In addition to the spiritual development of the children, the center has programs to address the physical, social and economic needs of the children.

The key factor in creating a stable economic future for the children is education; education is the key.

But beyond focusing on excellence in school, the center staff help identify and develop the talents of the children, musically and artistically, so they have even greater opportunities to succeed.

The center has a cooking program, choir and music program and drama team and works with the children to develop their public speaking abilities.

Here’s a sample of what the kids are producing.

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One of the commentators is 12-year-old Olvin, the voice for the children in this special radio program produced by his church pastor.

The radio program is organized by the Iglesia de Dios de la Profecia and intends to spread the message of God’s love to every child, through music, Bible stories, a prayer time, and a question and answer time – an important part of the program in which Olvin has a big participation as he expresses his comments over the questions, and later prays for the children’s needs.

Young Olvin comes from a hard-working family. His mother works six days a week and comes home late, around 9 p.m. His father abandoned Olvin when he was just a baby.

Olvin has a 10-year-old sister named Eldis and a brother named Yair, who is 5 years old. Even though Yair and Olvin have the same father, only Yair has his father’s last name. Olvin’s father never recognized Olvin as a son.

When Olvin was first registered at the Juntos por la Ninez Student Center at age 8, he was a very shy and isolated boy. After he opened his heart to the Lord, Olvin was so excited to participate in the church activities and his self-esteem improved a lot.

“His enthusiasm was contagious, so I decided to invite him to participate in the children’s radio program that I have been directing for six years,” says Pastor Iris.

This young boy has become a well-known voice in his home town, and he is happy to be part of it. He enjoys praying and memorizing Bible verses, which has been very useful especially when expressing his comments on the radio program.

“I will tell you that I feel comfortable with the microphone because nobody is watching me; it is just me and my pastor, so it is great.”

Olvin’s mother is a loyal listener, and she is very proud of her son’s achievements. Olvin is confident that the good seed he plants through prayer will produce fruit and very soon he will see his mother accepting the Lord as her Savior.

Olvin attends the student center activities every Saturday in the morning, and this bright boy is quite sure that God has special plans for him.

“God has placed me in this situation because I can help others through this radio program.¨

A promising future awaits Olvin, perhaps as a professional radio commentator or an artist. But one thing is sure. His community will never be the same because Olvin feels committed to spread the message of the love of Jesus, the same message that he has experienced while attending the student center and the message that has given him a new and better purpose in his life.

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Yet, as awakening as they can be, they are also piercing, able to transform the deepest parts of my being, to change the way I see. Even to change the way I live. We are not dealing with a quiet God and, most certainly, not a complacent God.

Working at Compassion has brought a concern for the poor more deeply into my life. Poverty is no longer some distant thought to me. It’s not a trip I can reflect on or even a verse I can read. My daily life, for eight-plus hours a day, steeps within it, within the knowledge and awareness of poverty.

Recently, Dr. Scott Todd, our Senior Ministry Advisor, spoke to us at chapel. It was a time when the Lord broke through in revelation for me.

First of all, some background on Scott. He helps define and develop our philosophy on child development and poverty and how we work to combat it, which affects our communications and program design and how they work together. He also coordinates our global advocacy efforts about the importance of children in poverty to the worldwide church. He’s a busy guy — one who the Lord has entrusted much to.

So, back to what I was saying: He presented a powerful message that left me teary-eyed and deeply convicted. I have decided I do not wish to carry the burden of his message alone.

Can We Eliminate Poverty or Not?

Not too long ago we discussed with you why we can’t end poverty, and you shared some really great thoughts with us.

Well in this chapel, Scott asked us to think of the verse that comes to mind when we think of poverty, a question he has asked many other people, including pastors. Do you know what the common response is? The same verse we originally referenced, just from a different gospel.

“You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” — John 12:8 (NIV)

Scott pointed out that this must be the most memorable verse about the poor, seeing as it is the one most referenced. It has come to serve as the foundation of our philosophy about the poor.

For those of us under the burden of caring deeply for the poor and desiring to help them, maybe this verse offers some comfort. We can’t do it all. Jesus even said that the poor will always be with us.

But for those living in poverty, Scott pointed out, what hope is this verse for them? What does it mean for those living in poverty?

If this verse is what we cling to, then what of Deuteronomy 15:4 (niv):

“However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you.”

I’ll share Scott’s belief about the grave misinterpretation of John 12:8 in a couple of days, but before I do, let me know how you feel the two verses work together.

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