Nine-year-old Jessa lives in a tiny, dark hovel situated within a crowded squatter community in metro Manila. Jessa’s home, unlike the typical homes in most squatter communities, is a concrete house.

While this shelter could keep the family safe during typhoons, on other days of the year it is very hot and humid inside their one-room house.

Jessa wakes up at 4 a.m. Monday through Friday. It is still dark at this time of day, but inside the family’s bedroom it is dark at every time of the day. They do not have a window.

During the rainy season, sleeping in their cramped bedroom is cozy, but on most days of the year, it is hot and humid. Jessa, her father, Jesus, her mother, Naty, and sister, Joyce Ann, sleep together on a tattered double-size mattress inside a 6’ x 6’ room.

The family sleeps cross-wise on the mattress with their feet touching the floor.

At 4:30 a.m. Jessa smells the freshly steamed rice “Nanay” (her mother, Naty) is cooking below; not “downstairs” but “below” since they do not have a staircase. The family bedroom is on a sort of mezzanine-type floor.

Jessa gingerly steps down onto the kitchen sink and to a wooden plank before she touches the linoleum- covered concrete floor. She tries not to startle her uncle who is sleeping on a wooden mat in the living room.

Jessa takes a quick breakfast – a plate of steamed white rice and locally canned meatloaf – and a quick morning bath.

It is so humid in the Philippines during both the dry and wet seasons that Filipinos cannot truly start their day without taking a quick shower. Jessa doesn’t have a shower. She scoops water from a pail using a plastic dipper inside their dimly lit bathroom. On cooler days during the winter, Naty heats a kettle of water for her daughters.

The Philippines does not have what many people would consider winter. It never gets that cold. There are only two seasons here – dry, when it can still get really sticky, and wet, when typhoons, cyclones, floods and flood-related diseases arrive.

Jessa’s family doesn’t really have a living room. It is just a dark, tiny living space with her uncle’s wooden bed that doubles as a couch when the family watches TV. Uncle owns the second-hand TV but it does not connect to any of the local channels; they use it only to watch DVD movies. Jessa’s uncle sells cheap, pirated DVDs.

At 5:30 a.m. Jessa is ready to walk to school. The Bayanihan Elementary School is only a few meters away. Jessa’s favorite subject is math, but she doesn’t enjoy science. Today she is competing in a journalism contest in which she already won the first round.

But Jessa doesn’t want to be a journalist or mathematician when she grows up; she hopes to be a nurse. She tells us,

“I want to be a nurse someday so that I can help other people.”

School goes until noon, then Jessa returns home for lunch. The house is better lit at this time of day, but the living room is still mostly in shadows. Jessa’s uncle has left to sell more of his DVDs.

Jessa helps herself to lunch. Her mother and little sister, Joyce Ann, join her. They are having leftover cold rice and canned meatloaf. Jessa’s father, Jesus, is working as a tricycle-taxi driver, riding through the crowded back alleys of Baler community where they live.

The tricycle-taxi, the most common form of transport in back alleys and minor Philippine roads, is a 100-cc motorcycle with a lavishly designed metal sidecar. It normally rides three passengers but can carry six when necessary. Basic fare is P8.00 (US $.19). Jessa’s father earns an average of P150 (US $3.57) a day.

After finishing her school assignments, Jessa spends the rest of the afternoon playing outside. Naty allows her to watch local TV at their neighbors’ house for an hour.

Jessa and her little sister come home at 6:30 p.m. — just before its gets dark outside (and darker inside their home) and before their neighbors start drinking bottles and bottles of beer and getting boisterous and violent.

Nearly all male adults in this crowded community spend their evenings hanging out and getting drunk; Jessa’s father is one of the few exceptions.

Almost all female adults hang out all day gossiping and gambling, except for Jessa’s mother and a few others.

For dinner, the entire family eats cold rice and canned meatloaf – more leftovers. By 9 p.m. the entire family is back in their tiny mezzanine bedroom.

This is Jessa’s typical day. But her routine changes dramatically on Saturdays, when she goes to her nearby Compassion-assisted child development center to play with friends, sing and dance, listen to Bible stories, memorize verses, learn, and eat nutritious meals and snacks.

“I really enjoy going to the student center because I learn many things; I also get school tutorials, and I also enjoy memorizing verses.”

Jessa’s mother shares,

“Jessa loves to study. She is intelligent, respectful, kind and diligent. She does her homework on her own.”

Naty hopes and prays that Jessa will go to college someday and achieve her dreams in life – something Naty and her husband dreamed of as they grew up but never had the chance to fulfill.

Naty grew up in the same community. She saw, felt, smelled, tasted and experienced all that her daughter is going through right now, but there is a big difference — Jessa is a sponsored child through Compassion International.

Jessa receives regular medical and dental checkups, school tutorials, spiritual discipleship, and one-on-one attention and care, as do all of the 160 children registered at the CCWI (Church of Christ Worldwide Inc.) Student Center.

Jessa’s family is also comforted to know that local Compassion staff will help take care of them if their house ever gets struck down by a strong flood or other calamity or if Jessa becomes seriously ill — tragedies that are not uncommon in Philippine squatter communities.

As her mother says,

“Jessa’s sponsorship is a big help to us. We have very little in life. She is learning many things at the student center and church. Our family is very grateful.”

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I sit back in my chair at the dining table and rub my belly.

I tell my wife,”That was delicious, honey.” And it was. She’s become quite the cook!

My 2-year-old, always the copycat, stands up in his chair and lifts his shirt. He rubs his hands across his little, round belly.

“Delishus momma!”

Then he turns to me, giggling.

“Wook daddy … my tummy is big!”

I reach over and rub his warm tummy as he cracks up.

He wouldn’t know how to express it just yet, but that warm, full-belly feeling is satisfaction.

A full tummy is a satisfied tummy. And I’m satisfied too. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes with knowing that I can provide for my family.

Both of my boys are healthy. They have healthy appetites. We are blessed.

But I’m also reminded of the fathers around the world who work much harder than I do and still can’t put enough food on the table.

I’m reminded of little bellies that groan and growl. I think of the 2-year-olds who aren’t giggling today but crying, hoping for anything to fill their empty stomachs.

I think of the single mothers who struggle with the cost of daycare so they can go to work just to buy a meager amount of groceries.

There are more than 1 billion people on this planet who don’t have enough to eat.

That sentence alone should enrage you. It should move you. It should give us all motivation to do something about it.

Today is World Food Day.

A day to realize how blessed we are just for having a chance to eat a meal and get a full tummy.

Maybe this year you can join the thousands of caring people who will decide to skip one meal and give that cost to feed hungry children.

Maybe you’re called to pray for the hungry or clean out the pantry, make a trip to the grocery store, and help stock the food pantry at your church.

Maybe you’ll write a blog post about World Food Day and link it up below so we can all benefit from your perspective.

However you honor World Food Day, do something. Everyone should get that satisfaction of a full tummy.

Heck, everyone should get a tummy rub!

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Imagine a young couple in the labor and delivery room experiencing the birth of their first child. Hear her groans, see the sweat, and feel the anxious tension.

Now place a bag of potato chips in the husband’s hands and picture him munching away as he watches his wife give birth. As if it were on TV. It’s just wrong!

Or picture the man standing in the baptismal with his pastor. He’s wearing a white robe and preparing to confess Jesus as Lord of his life as he publicly identifies with the death, burial, and resurrection of his Lord in baptism.

Then, out from the folds of his robe, he brings forth the bag of chips and starts munching. Never!

“Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” “Her mother and I.”

Munch munch.

No!

These are sacred moments. And in sacred moments, we do not eat. It seems wrong to eat. We don’t think about not eating in the moment — it simply feels unnatural and unthinkable.

Scot McKnight defines fasting as the “natural response of a person to a grievous sacred moment.” McKnight emphasizes that fasting is a natural response.

Like not eating during your wedding vows because the moment is too sacred. Like not eating as you look into the casket at a funeral because the moment is too grievous.

McKnight emphasizes that fasting is a response to a very serious situation, not a device to take us from a good level to a better level. Did you get that?

Read the rest of this excerpt from Scott’s book, Fast Living, at Outreach Magazine

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Have you ever had a monumentally bad week? I’m not talking about running late, forgetting to turn off the sprinklers sort of bad, but an epic week that shifted your normal and changed everything? Last September, I had one of those weeks.

My very bad week began with the worst kind of phone call. One of my college roommates died in a car crash that morning. It was just months before her wedding.

Days later in my newly married community group, I watched a dear friend and Air Force officer weep as he looked deployment square in the face while holding his two-week old baby girl.

And then I got a letter from Compassion.

Weeks before, I learned that one of our Compassion kids, Kevin, had been removed from the sponsorship program. His mom had a good job, and he didn’t need us anymore.

We rejoiced with him and with his mother who was finally able to provide for her son, and we prayed for the new child who would greet us in the mail and take a place among the photos on our bulletin board of Compassion kids past and present. When the letter arrived that week, we met our new little guy through a cartoonish worksheet he had filled in about himself with crayons and pen.

Ezra indicated he was from Indonesia, average height, average weight, enjoyed school and loved his family.

In the last section of the sheet, tucked on the back page, he got to ask us something. There was just room for one question to these strangers on the other side of the world.

“Do you get to eat every day?”

There it was. A punch in the stomach. The ache for him. The knowledge that he had seen hunger. He had known it. The understanding that he got a chance to ask us anything, and he chose that question.

Three great tragedies – death, separation, poverty – all in one week.

I was down for the count, lost and overwhelmed. The world was too filled with grief, and my contribution wasn’t going to make a dent in it.

But in the days that came after, I saw friends and families swarm my college roommate’s grief-stricken family. People helped meet her family’s needs, provided council and casseroles, and sat through the long, tear-filled silences.

In all sorts of ways, they were the bringers of compassion, loving on parents who had lost a child, sisters who had lost a sibling, and a fiancé whose whole life changed.

We rallied around our friend who was to be deployed. He left knowing his wife and daughter had a dozen families ready to lend a hand – a dozen men to call for plumbing emergencies, a dozen girls to have movie nights with, a group of moms to turn to for mothering tips, and a lawn that would be faithfully mowed every week so his wife never looked like she was temporarily husbandless.

And then there was our Compassion child.

Yes, Sweet Boy, we get to eat every day, I whispered to his little kid handwriting.

But still, compassion comes at a cost.

My husband and I drive old cars. We only go to the dollar theatre, and we don’t have cable TV. The realities of our budget elicit an occasional pity party when I see a friend’s new family-friendly SUV and am reminded that we don’t have a nest egg big enough to start a family.

But we eat every day.

Is the cost to sponsor a child a sacrifice? Yes.

Will it break us? Nope.

But without our monthly commitment, Ezra could be the one to break.

For me, sponsorship means less grande, three-pump, no water Chai Tea Lattes. For him it means an introduction to Jesus, clean water, a belly full of food and a head full of knowledge from school.

Or as Christ said it – hope and a future.

We live in a world of blistering hurts and festering, generations-long injustices. God, in his sovereignty, lets us help ease suffering and right wrongs, and in the process, we’re changed too.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed and to be sure that nothing you do will make a dent. When I was in that place, God used the question of a little boy to remind me that only He could save the world, but in the process, He would use my little contribution to make a difference in the world of one child.

It was an awful week of tragedies followed by months of hope as God brought a community of people around the hurting and reminded us all that we get to be used by Him. The sacrifice becomes the gift, and amid the suffering, we can be the bearers of compassion.

I hope that someday when Ezra becomes a father, and his child gets to ask just one question to people on the other side of the world, it won’t be the same one we were asked.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sarah Warren is a writer who works in public relations for a university. She is also a newlywed who lives in Oklahoma with her husband, Kevin. When Sarah learned that Kevin sponsored several Compassion kids, she decided it would be nice if he asked her to marry him.

If you’re interested in writing a guest blog post, we are happy to consider publishing it. Read our guest blog post guidelines.

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Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.  – Matthew 14:16-17, NIV

Jesus saw the multitude and that the multitude was hungry. His attitude was not to leave their well-being up to someone else. He took responsibility and He wanted His disciples to assume this responsibility as well.

His disciples, however, could not see past their own limitations.

“We don’t have enough food for all these people” and “we don’t have the money to buy food for all these people” were the excuses Jesus heard.

The disciples wanted to send the hungry people away to fend for themselves, passing the responsibility of feeding the hungry back onto the hungry themselves.

Jesus, however, was not deterred by the physical limitations of the situation. He had bread the disciples didn’t understand. He understood the limitless nature of God’s provision, a provision not encased in the physical reality around us, but in the supernatural reality of God.

Is our response not much the same as the disciples when we are confronted with the need of the hungry?

While we may not think of ourselves as cold and unfeeling, generally our attitude is something like that of the disciples: “I don’t have enough food to feed all these people, and I don’t have the money to buy it, so they are on their own.”

And yet the words of Jesus ring true today: “They need not go away, you give them something to eat.”

The hungry are our responsibility, and passing the buck is simply not an option in God’s eyes.

Too often our vision is limited to the physical world, and we fail to see the limitless potential of God’s provision. Had the disciples grasped that five loaves of bread and two fish could be miraculously expanded to feed the multitude, would they have tried to pass on their responsibility so quickly?

If we really understood the power of God’s provision, a provision not limited by the physical reality around us, would we so easily dismiss the cry of the hungry?

Would that our eyes would be opened, that we would see beyond our own physical limitations into the infinite potential of our Savior. Would that our first response would not be to push their needs off on someone else, but that the eyes of faith would look first to the provision of a supernatural God.

When this happens, our response to Jesus will not be “I can’t,” but instead, “Tell me how, Lord, and I will do it.”

The words of Jesus echo through today’s hungry world as well: “They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat.”

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• “You wanna go out to eat tonight?”
• “What would you like for lunch today?”
• “There’s nothing on TV.”
• “It’s so nice out…let’s go for a drive with the top down on the Jeep.”
• “It’s starting to get warm again. We need to think about turning the sprinkler system back on in the yard.”
• “I need to run to the store to get some more diapers and Diet Coke. Can you think of anything else we need?”
• “Morgan is outgrowing his clothes so fast, is it okay with you if I go to the store to see if I can find him some new pajamas?”
• “I’ll empty out the dishwasher.”
• I’m going to take a shower.”
• “Feel like ordering a movie?”
• “The housing market is so bad right now. I don’t know if it’s the right time to sell our home. But we sure need more space.”
• “I’m starving!”
• “What would you like for dessert?”

I would bet that most of those phrases are NEVER uttered in the homes of children who attend Compassion child development centers. And the ones that are, are said in a much different context.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to listen in on their conversations for a week?

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