“Lord, if you allowed this to happen, it’s because you will give me something better.” These were the words that Rosalva expressed when she saw her home torn apart by an earthquake that hit the town of San Lorenzo, in the department of Ahuachapan, about 100 km west of the capital city San Salvador, in El Salvador.

Earlier that day, at about 1 in the morning, the town had felt a tremor. Then, at 11 a.m. of the same day, a 4.6 earthquake hit the area; this is like detonating 1,000 tons of TNT.

Rosalva worked as a baby sitter on the other side of the town, and as soon as she could, she ran home, only to see a big hole in the roof, since most of the tiles had fallen off because of the magnitude of the quake. The walls, made of adobe (a mix of clay and straw), had cracks all over, and the danger of them falling apart was evident. (more…)

For three months the women met, sitting at their sewing machines, not only learning a skill to help them support their families, but also gaining new hope and faith in God.

This exceptional group of women at Centro de Desarrollo Gracia y Poder student center in Honduras benefited through a workshop carried out through our Complementary Interventions programs.

 

The seed fund was for $3,000 to teach these women, who didn’t know anything about sewing, a skill that could help them generate an income. The training lasted three months, and the participants learned how to create bed comforters and bed sets, curtains and tablecloths.

This activity was a life-changing experience for Gladis A., who didn’t just learn a new skill, but also opened her heart to Jesus through this workshop. (more…)

Aleja wakes up very early in the morning, as she does every Saturday, to go to the market and buy the groceries for the week. She takes with her the same amount of money she usually does, but to her surprise she can’t even buy half of the things she needs.

At home, Aleja has five small children waiting for her to bring them something to eat. She is a single parent, mother of two sponsored children from Betel Student Center in the city of Oruro. She was abandoned by her husband and left with her children.

The family lives in a very small and dark room where they have three beds, a small table, some chairs and a small, wrecked shelf. Outside of the room, they use a small space covered with old pieces of calamines as their kitchen.

Aleja works washing clothes. She earns around $21 per week, and that is how she supports her family. She uses the money to pay the rent, the water, the electricity, the gas and buy the food and some things her children need for school. (more…)

Yesterday, we introduced you to Chantal, a 9-year-old girl from Rwanda.

Chantal is a beneficiary of our Highly Vulnerable Children (HVC) initiative, and during the Christmas season the vulnerability of these children parallels the extreme vulnerability that our God entered into on Christmas Day.

It’s a vulnerability portrayed in homes throughout the world by the nativity. And this Christmas season, we’d like to share with you a reminder of God’s love and sacrifice for us all.

This handcrafted Rwandan nativity set is as fragile and vulnerable as many of the children we serve. And it’s available to one randomly selected reader who answers these questions for us.

• What do we mean when we say complementary interventions?
• Why is the HVC initiative considered a complementary intervention?

On December 18, we’ll randomly pick a winner from the comments we receive.

Thanks for participating, and Merry Christmas!

Since November 2005, we have ministered in specialized ways to the needs of thousands of highly vulnerable children registered in church partner centers. We acknowledge that all children in our programs are vulnerable and face a certain degree of risk, some registered children face much greater risks than others.

Highly vulnerable children in our programs are those registered children who are at greatest risk of physical, psychological or social harm relative to the other registered children in the program.

Our Highly Vulnerable Children (HVC) initiative is therefore a targeted intervention, accessed through Complementary Intervention funds, that seeks to provide enough stability to the most vulnerable children to allow them to participate in the Child Sponsorship Program.

Prior to the HVC program being implemented in East Africa, we conducted a survey in all church partner programs worldwide, which revealed that tens of thousands of registered children have lost either one or both of their parents.

In some countries nearly half of these deaths are due to AIDS. Children are also at risk of abusive home environments, chronic illness, exploitation or extreme poverty. Whatever the cause, we recognize that for these children additional measures are necessary to protect and secure their well-being.

We currently utilize a wide range of approaches to respond to the needs of highly vulnerable children. From provision of nutritional support to children who do not have enough to eat, to reconstituting a family for those who have lost both parents and do not have a place to call home, each need is assessed thoroughly by local church partners and an appropriate response given. So far more than 10,000 children have been supported through the HVC initiative in East Africa alone.

Chantal, a 9-year-old girl from Rwanda, was one of the first recipients of the HVC program.

When she was selected as a beneficiary of the first Compassion cottage in Rwanda in March 2006, she and her elder sister Jackie had just lost both of their parents. They were living at the mercies of kind neighbors and strangers and on a daily basis moved from house to house seeking food and shelter for that night.

The risks and hardships that these two young children and many others in similar circumstances face everyday trying to make a living for themselves is unimaginable. It is for children such as Chantal and others living in such vulnerable conditions that the HVC initiative was designed.

The benefits of this initiative are already being seen and felt far and wide. As for Chantal, she is currently enjoying the warmth and protection of a new home, a new “mother” and new “brothers” and “sisters” in addition to her very own biological sister.

Impossible, one may think, and humanly speaking, a situation such as Chantal’s would have proved insurmountable. But thankfully, we serve a God who specializes in such impossibilities!

Please pray for the HVC program and the many children we assist who desperately need this additional assistance.

The first thing Heidi Partlow does each morning is check her e-mail. It’s always packed. As Compassion’s complementary interventions manager, she gets all kinds of e-mails each day.

E-mails about how to submit a proposal for a complementary interventions (CIV), e-mails from marketing departments about the particulars of a CIV, e-mails about a disaster that has just occurred.

So her e-mail inbox pretty much dictates her day. After attacking the onslaught of messages each morning, she has a cup of tea at 10 o’clock. 

Then she spends a lot of time running around, especially during a week where there has been a crisis, like with the recent hurricanes, getting approvals for funds to be distributed.

But she slowed down enough to give us a peek into CIV and her world. (more…)

At the end of June, I had the opportunity to travel to a developing country for the first time since hearing about the Global Food Crisis. I spent the week in Tanzania visiting Compassion child development centers and learning firsthand the impact the food crisis is having. I asked the people I met if the rising cost of food is making life more difficult for them.

While most people I spoke with have noticed an increase in food prices in their local markets, no one seemed too adversely affected by the trend. That was until I met four women, all beneficiaries of our AIDS Initiative. (more…)