Author Rick Bloomer and his family firmly believe in our mission. They have sponsored children for several years and consider themselves blessed to also be able to sponsor a student in our Leadership Development Program.

Over the past couple of years, my wife and I have partaken in the discipline of fasting. We have really focused on strengthening our relationship with the Lord, and with His grace and guidance we have experienced success with many challenges.

In September 2008, our daughter, who was born with spina bifida, had her only ventricular shunt revision to date (thank God). At that time and after hearing God’s calling to do so, my wife decided to do her first fast, with a dedication toward our daughter’s health. It was a 21-Day Daniel Fast, which essentially consists of consuming all natural plant-based foods only (fruits, vegetables, nuts).

About a week after our daughter’s shunt revision, we took her out of the bathtub one night and noticed that her shunt tract looked majorly infected. It was bulging out an inch from her neck.

We knew from all of our reading and study what an infected shunt looked like. We also knew that infections were somewhat common following surgery and that if she did ever have a shunt infection, it may require a hospital stay of 10+ days before it was resolved.

We quickly called the neurosurgeon and she told us to get to the hospital right away. It was about 7 p.m. We put our daughter down to sleep in our bedroom while we packed and got ready to go.

My wife, packing the suitcase on the living room floor, looked up at me and asked, “How will I ever comply with this fast while in the hospital?”

We knew after spending 14 days in the hospital after our daughter’s birth that the food certainly was not “Daniel Fast compliant.”

Couple that with the stress that is often present when dealing with such a situation and you can understand the potential difficulty here. But after thinking about it for a minute, she made it perfectly clear that because she made the commitment to the Lord, she would stick to it. My wife proceeded to pack her plain rice cakes, natural peanut butter, and fruit.

About an hour passed and we were ready to leave. My wife went in to wake our daughter and yelled for me to come into the room. When I arrived and looked at our daughter, I could see clearly that her shunt tract was perfectly normal. No bulging. No discoloration. No swelling. Perfectly and beautifully normal.

We called the neurosurgeon and she suggested to simply observe her and then to see how things looked in the morning. Well, in the morning, she looked great, and praise be to God — she has not had one major health problem since that night.

In fact, she started walking on her own this summer … a real miracle for a 2-year-old with spina bifida!

Some people might think that the issue with the shunt was mere coincidence. But we know better. That was the awesome and mighty hand of God blessing our daughter abundantly!

I strongly believe that this blessing was due to my wife’s obedience and faithfulness to the Lord during this difficult time. She accepted His challenge to complete the fast and He blessed our family because of it.

I can relay many similar stories of God’s blessings over our lives during other periods of fasting over the past two years. This is why I am so enthused about sharing the wonderful discipline of fasting with others.

In fact, a few months ago, God placed an idea in me to engage as many people as possible in a program of fasting.

Why? Because our family has experienced firsthand the absolute power of fasting and prayer and I want others to have the fulfilling experience that we have been blessed with.

But God also gave me an idea associated with the fast that involves “fasters” requesting sponsorship for their devotion and effort during the fast, in much the same way as they would if running a race or walking a 5K. This made perfect sense to me. Give up some of my food, my comfort, and my way of life in order to provide food for others in an attempt to enhance their way of life.

We decided to call the program Fasting-for-Food, and we have been working hard to develop the program over the past few months.

Because so many individuals who fast choose to follow the Daniel Fast, we have partnered with Susan Gregory (The Daniel Fast blogger), author of the best-selling book “The Daniel Fast: Feed Your Soul, Strengthen Your Spirit and Renew Your Body.”

Susan is a wonderful woman of God and oversees a New Year fast for thousands of individuals worldwide. She will be instrumental in promoting this program.

In addition, as my wife and I have been involved with Compassion over the past few years, we thought to ask Compassion to serve as the main partner, receiving funds from this initiative.

Specifically, funds raised will be directed to Compassion’s Global Food Crisis Program, to be used to provide food and other basic needs for some of the poorest people in this world.

In the true spirit of Christmas, please remember that the wise men came and gave gifts to Him and not to each other. Our own personal fasts might be the best gifts that we could ever provide to God — the giving of ourselves through a focused time of prayer and devotion to Him.

I hope that you will consider a fast this New Year. I also hope that you can help spread the word about this program so more people can learn of the benefits of Christian fasting.

It is our intent to engage as many people as possible in a fast this New Year — with the main objective of enhancing their own personal relationships with Christ.

When individual relationships are enhanced, group relationships are enhanced and good things really begin to happen.

You can learn more about this program by visiting www.fastingforfood.com.

I pray that the Lord will place on your heart the desire to dedicate yourself to Him this New Year through a focused period of fasting and prayer.

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About 500,000 Kenyan children are missing school due to lack of food.

According to the World Food Program, in countries where school attendance is low, the promise of at least one nutritious meal each day boosts enrollment and promotes regular attendance. Where that is not offered, hunger interferes with the children’s concentration in class, affecting class performance. As famine takes its toll across the country, a growing number of students are staying away from school altogether to help their parents look for food (The Standard, Sept. 23, 2009).

Drought and famine have led to an increase in the high school dropout rate primarily in schools in the Njoro and Nakuru areas. While 29 percent of children in Nairobi are malnourished, that number increases to 42 percent in the Eastern Province (Daily Nation, Oct. 7, 2009).

The United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has stated that malnutrition is the major barrier to universal primary education in Kenya.

Famine conditions have also affected livestock in the rural areas of Kenya, undermining the primary source of income for pastoralists, especially the Maasai population.

Malaria continues to be another source of concern, and an increase in cases is predicted because of the El Niño rains expected to pound the country. Malaria is the leading cause of death in Kenya, affecting mostly the rural poor, particularly young children and pregnant women. Most cases affect children under the age of 5 (Daily Nation, Oct. 7, 2009).

While mosquito nets have made a difference in squelching the malaria epidemic, researchers are discovering that mosquitoes are now feeding earlier in the evening, which reduces the effectiveness of the nets. While there has been a dramatic reduction of malaria in children under 5 years, the disease appears to be shifting to older children (Daily Nation, Oct. 30, 2009).

Other threats to Kenya’s children include the H1N1 virus, child abuse and abduction, and neglect. The number of orphans in Kenya has risen to more than 2.4 million. In 2008, 38,325 children were described as neglected and 2,753 were abandoned by their parents (The Standard, Sept. 29, 2009).

The effects of poverty are felt most severely in the country’s rural areas, where half of the population lives on less that Kshs. 1,560, versus the more urban areas where people earn an average of Kshs. 3,000 per month. Of the 40 million people living in Kenya, 16.6 million survive on one meal a day and are most likely to die of disease, hunger or political violence (The Standard, Oct. 29, 2009).

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Prices in general have increased, reducing the buying power of the average Salvadoran. On average, people are spending twice as much money on staples for the same amount of goods.

But Juan Carlos looks at his crops that extend over the mountains of the El Capulin community about 45 minutes north of San Salvador and says, “What crisis?”

He explains that he has received help with his crops from Compassion through the child development center his children attend. The help came through a Complementary Intervention (CIV) developed by Salem Bible Church with the advice from Compassion El Salvador.

Complementary Interventions are additional funds that are obtained through proposals written by the Compassion country office as a team with the implementing church partners.

Since sponsorship funds are strictly used to run the day-to-day operations at the child development centers – to meet the basic four components of child development (spiritual, physical, educational and socio-emotional areas) – additional funds obtained through CIV are necessary to implement additional benefits, such as entrepreneurship workshops, or to provide equipment for the centers (computers, water sanitation units, etc), or to offer crisis response and relief.

The CIV proposal Juan Carlos benefited from is called “Fertile Soil.” It has blessed a total of 19 families who had no resources to plant and who depend on agriculture for a living.

Brother Juan Carlos received approximately $400, which was the amount he needed to get the seeds, pesticides and fertilizers he would need to grow his crops. The other families received similar amounts of money, depending on the size of their crops. Each family is expected to pay back their loan once they have sold their crops.

Brother Juan Carlos has been able to plant about two and a half acres with maize, beans and pipian, a kind of white little pumpkin very common in the Salvadoran diet. He will have corn and beans, the base of the average Salvadoran diet, secure for his family for the year.

He has also calculated that from the sale of the pipian, he will be able to give back the money he received from the church so other families’ needs can be fulfilled, too.

The faith that these families put in God shows not only in the provision to get what they needed. The faithfulness of the Lord also shows in the abundance that these crops have produced, even in the middle of a scarcity.

Brother Juan Carlos is a witness that God provided exactly what was needed for the crops to grow up and produce a good harvest. “It is because we plant with faith,” he says.

Along with his crops, brother Juan Carlos has seen hope grow, too.

It is solely because of the mercy of God that brother Juan Carlos has been able to face this crisis with a smile and hopes for a better future. But to get to this point, there were other elements that helped make a difference. The love and hard work from the church staff was key.

Pastor Mena shares about the beginning of this vision, with an expression in his eyes that communicates the passion that he and his team have for this ministry.

“We realized that the time for sowing was close, and we are in the middle of a world crisis … many parents have portions of land, land that was not going to be planted.”

This is when the church started its job, not only praying and crying to the Lord for blessing, but also knocking on doors and looking for a way to help these families.

One of the tools that God put in their path was the ministry of Compassion. Through Compassion, the church was able to get the funds needed to make the loans to the parents so they would be able to harvest.

“We do not charge interest. What we have is a covenant between gentlemen,” says Pastor Mena.

The pastor continues that families will not only fulfill their needs, but also bless other families with the abundance they will receive by giving back. Brother Juan Carlos in an example of this.

Next to the church, there is a portion of about 1,600 square feet; there is a plantation of corn and beans where the children learn from Brother Juan Carlos the basics about agriculture.

“It is beautiful. I can´t help it when I see the children excited to learn and take care of the plants. My eyes get wet.”

For next year, the church staff, pastor and parents are planning on expanding the financing of productive activities to chicken, rabbit and fish farms for the families that are willing to do so. The church is also making arrangements to get a bigger space to keep implementing the agriculture workshops, and implement the learning about animal farms as well.

There are other CIV programs in place to help church partners throughout El Salvador, including programs to help parents grow maize and beans by providing seeds to them at low costs and programs to teach children and parents to make dried fruits and jelly, then sell them as a sustainable activity.

“The cry of a child cannot be comforted when the father is lost because he stole to give food to his family. The call to the church is to do something before this happens, to prevent.” – Pastor Mena

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But not anymore. The food crisis in Guatemala has become so severe that the president has declared a state of calamity, and the rate of undernutrition in children under 5 has reached 49 percent.

Many remember the famines in China in the 1950s and 60s. Or in Ethiopia in the 1980s. But famine is just not a problem of the past. It still happens in countries that have economies prosperous enough so that no child should have to suffer chronic or severe malnutrition. This is the case in Guatemala.

In Guatemala, the face of poverty and hunger is young, indigenous and rural. Guatemala, with the fourth-highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world and the highest in Central America and the Caribbean, faces a serious challenge in reducing the rate of chronic undernutrition.

One of the causes fueling the current food crisis is the state of education in Guatemala.

Based on a 2002 census, nearly 24 percent of Guatemala’s population is illiterate because, for example, children desert education in order to help their parents work. This is especially common in rural indigenous areas.

Another reason is a lack of knowledge of the Spanish language, as many of the rural indigenous population speak Mayan languages. Guatemala has 22 officially recognized Mayan languages.

Besides education, culture also fuels malnutrition. Nutritionist Jacobo Jiménez works for a government institution in Zapaca, and has seen the damage some cultural traditions can do:

“We daily fight the taboos that screw up sound ways of having a healthy intake and make things utterly hazardous for the inhabitants in this area.

“A young mother with a baby … she refused to eat eggs because of the town’s belief that [eating eggs] will make the milk she gives to her baby rotten.

“The lack of education of many Guatemalan mothers prevents them from having the right habits and nutritional knowledge in their first months of pregnancy and the baby’s first months.”

Another cultural problem adding to the crisis is sexism.

“Women decide to feed their husbands instead of the children, and I think this is not fair. Girls are forced to stay at home and do chores or take care of their youngest siblings while boys are encouraged to attend school.”

The girls are fed less at home, furthering their undernutrition, and they also do not have the opportunity to learn about health and how to care for themselves and their family as they are denied access to education.

Government decisions have contributed to the crisis as well.

Guatemala has lost the capacity of producing what it consumes (nutritional sovereignty) as a result of economic policies that slant towards a particular market, oriented to reduce the costs of the most dynamic industries, which obtain the majority of their raw material from foreign countries.

Between 2007 and 2008, the area dedicated to corn and beans, the base of the country’s economy, was reduced 40 percent. This lower production drove an increase of importation, which is now happening with five main products coffee, sugar, cardamom, bananas and African palms.

The climate has led to the food crisis, too.

Guatemala, as well as other countries, has been battered by the weather phenomenon called “El Niño.” Effects on weather vary with each event, but ENSO (El Niño) is associated with floods, droughts and other weather disturbances in many regions of the world.

In the Atlantic Ocean, effects lag behind those in the Pacific by 12 to 18 months. Developing countries dependent upon agriculture and fishing, particularly bordering the Pacific Ocean, are especially affected.

Throughout the duration of this devastating weather phenomenon, and just when the crops in Guatemalan soil needed rain the most, there was no rain at all.

Attacking the Global Food Crisis

Living in the small town of San Cristobal Verapaz, Freddy attends the Rayitos De Esperanza Student Center. Surrounded by beautiful green mountains, Freddy and his family have gained hope.

“During the last medical checkup, Freddy [had] gained 10 pounds, thanks to the Complementary Intervention activity we have been hosting,” states Lucía Jom, general coordinator of the student center.

This Complementary Intervention activity was made possible with the funds that were raised in the Global Food Crisis Day held March 11, 2009. Forty student centers have been assisted by this activity, benefiting 2,500 children diagnosed with malnutrition [slight or chronic].

“When a disease is detected, we give assistance” states Erick Castillo, Compassion Guatemala’s Health Specialist.

“The children are diagnosed with the standards that the World Health Organization gives related to weight, size and malnutrition.

“Our health intervention consists in giving the children diagnosed with malnutrition balanced meals. This can be breakfast, lunch or dinner that has been cooked by persons who have been previously trained.

“This training consists in giving knowledge to the cooks of each student center on how to prepare nutritious meals. Mothers of sponsored children are trained as well on how to take advantage of local crops in order to give them the most nutritious meals they can with the family budget they have.

“What we want to do next is strive to find funds to keep educating and training on how to harvest hydroponic crops, such as celery, cucumber, beans, spinach, tomato, turnip amongst many. These crops are rich in minerals and vitamins that can complement the meals prepared at home.”

“The community approves this way of helping children” states Lucía, ”and they are interested in sending their children to have this kind of assistance.”

One of the expected outcomes we wish to reach with the children is that they may choose good health practices and are physically healthy.

Compassion Guatemala has made an intentional effort for all children registered in our sponsorship program to experience reduced nutritional deficiencies and know how to prevent nutritional deficiencies.

The curriculum includes such topics as:

• “What is a lunch?” — with an objective of describing and defining the ingredients of a nutritiouslunch
• “Making a group of healthy food” — with an objective of identifying the five basic groups of food and their value to keep the body healthy
• “Breakfasts are very important” — with the objective of describing and identifying the ingredients for a nutritious breakfast and its importance for good health
• “Make a healthy meal” — with an objective of dramatizing potential scenarios related with different food options
• “Favorite recipes” — with the objective of making a book that contains recipes of food used in their communities

In the midst of the worst of the famine to befall Guatemala in the last 30 years, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs from the United Nations as well as other institutions have predicted that this famine can turn even worse if the second harvest at the end 2009 is destroyed by the lack of rains and low temperatures. This is especially possible in the northwestern part of Guatemala.

The government is already trying to take some actions to assist the families that may be affected by this famine, but this won’t be enough.

We have proven our leadership by currently encouraging people to become involved and donate for the sake of this noble cause. It is thanks to the money raised on our last Global Food Crisis Day more than 4,000 children in different student centers nationwide are being assisted to reach a better physical state.

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” – Matthew 25:40, NIV

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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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México’s economy is not in good shape, and although México has not had a major food shortage; the main problem has been the constantly rising food cost and the distribution of the grains. Families can no longer afford to buy supplies for their children.

According to the social development secretary of state, most poor families in México spend more than 70 percent of their income just to feed their family.

Considering the cost of such basics as corn, beans, rice and other supplies, families have very little and barely any money left to cover the rest of their needs.

Rising costs, fuel costs and natural events, such as the drought in the north and central part of México or the floods in the south, harm the crops and leave the communities devastated.

Economy is normally measured with two basic indicators, income and expenses, and for these families, their income is lower and their expenses are higher.

Lack of employment, low wages and rising food prices have combined to worsen the plight of families here in Tabernillas and everywhere in the country.

The program director and other leadership from the Gethsemane Compassion-assisted program are clearly aware of the difficult situation the families here face and have taken the initiative to provide an answer to their community.

The church received some information about a food bank working in a city nearby, so they applied for assistance and have been able to receive regular support to help the families in the program and the community.

Mobilizing child development centers to find and utilize resources already available within their own community is one of the ways we have responded to this crisis. In this way, the local community is empowered to find local and long-term solutions.

The food bank is an organization that works in association with the main grocery stores, markets, producers and food distributors in the country.

Whenever there is extra stock of any product or when a particular article is not selling well, it is donated to the food bank in the area. The food bank has different beneficiaries in the most needy areas of their region, and the food is donated to the organizations with a commitment to take it to the most needy families. Gethsemane is a beneficiary of the Toluca Food Bank.

Each week the church receives whatever one of the largest grocery stores in the city has in stock for them. Sometimes they receive dairy products, fruits and vegetables, canned food, and other products close to expiration but still good to eat.

The church director and some other leaders pick the food up from the food bank and bring it up to the community to distribute among the Compassion-assisted families and the rest of the community. They always have some pastries and bread, which are very valued among the families here.

Families often buy groceries, fruit and vegetables for only a fraction of the regular price. In the community store, each piece of bread costs 30 cents and is not affordable, but here families buy three pieces for the same price.

Even after the six months the food bank has been working here, children at the child development center are still able to enjoy good, nutritious meals twice a week. While they are in the program they receive tutoring, and on Saturdays all the children come for an entire program that includes sports and Bible classes.

Our church partners have been challenged to continue providing excellent development opportunities to their children in the midst of this unprecedented economic crisis. The challenge rises up like a huge obstacle, but we know there is nothing impossible to God.

The food bank is one response that has come like the bread falling from heaven in the times of the Israelites.

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Only the thing is, the “good-ness” of this news is relative … it’s only true for those of us living within certain geographic boundaries (read: the developed world.)

So, while we may be seeing signs of economic improvement in our part of the world, many other parts of the world are still in dire straits.

I recently received a report from our staff in Guatemala that says there are 54,000 families seriously lacking food. Fifty-four thousand. UNICEF says that almost half of Guatemalan children suffer from chronic malnutrition.

While the food crisis is not new, the reasons behind this reiteration of it are different from before.

Whereas before the skyrocketing cost of food was almost solely responsible for the crisis, this time Guatemala is experiencing something like the Perfect Storm – a combination of adverse weather, poor soil and the effects of the global economic downturn have lead to a severe food shortage.

On the other side of the globe in Uganda, the situation is equally heartbreaking. The last report our staff submitted said that more than 4,500 of our children and their families are suffering from famine.

Kids are not attending school because they don’t have the strength to get through the day. People cannot take their HIV medication because it has to be taken with food.

And they have none.

Since the onset of the Global Food Crisis last year, we have distributed millions of dollars worth of food, medical treatment and nutritional counseling.

Together with your help, God blew us away with His abundant blessing during our Global Food Crisis Day on March 11.

We were able to meet the needs of many children like Doris, an 11-year-old girl from Guatemala who was malnourished, surviving on a diet of vegetables and chicken giblets once a day, and provide her with three meals of chicken, beef, vegetables, eggs, milk, Incaparina mixed with beans, corn flakes, rice and Protemás.

But for others, as the crisis goes on seemingly without end, it’s hard not to get discouraged.

There actually is good news, though: This economic imbalance has not taken God off guard. Actually, He knew we’d be in this predicament. That’s why He gave us clear instructions about what to do.

“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” — 1 John 3:17-18, NIV

And there it is plain as day — the key to solving this crisis.

While this side of the world might indeed be pulling out of the economic free-fall we’ve been in, those on the other side aren’t yet.

So, what I’d like to suggest is that this “recovery” is actually our opportunity. It is not an ending of something, but a chance to fulfill our purpose.

As we pull out of our economic tailspin, we have the chance – and the responsibility – to step up for those still spinning.

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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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The center is in a quiet place far from the noisy avenues, although the homes of squatters surround the church mission. The houses are built with precarious materials that show the poverty this community has to face. The mission is on a large property with buildings built long ago.

As I walk through the church’s wide, dusty dirt-floor patio, the center director greets me. With a wide smile and wearing blue jeans and a black hat, she looks ready to film the perfect Western TV series. Her name is Miss Pino and she is a graduate psychologist who has also studied at a Bible institute and has specialized in child advocacy and child evangelism. She has been appointed by her mission authorities as center director for Semillero de Campeones Student Center, which started in June 2008.

In this position, Miss Pino has to deal with many things she never thought she would, such as trying to keep the center open. The rising costs of household items – cooking oil, chicken, milk, etc. – has led to a 20 percent increase in food costs for all student centers in Peru.

For Semillero de Campeones, this has made it difficult to manage a program with 166 young children to feed, from which 40 percent do not have a sponsor yet.

Because of the rise in prices, many student centers have had to stop some activities such as camps, retreats and extracurricular activities. The budgets for each center are simply not enough.

Development centers with less than 160 registered children, such as Semillero de Campeones, have been more affected as they have fewer resources to face the crisis. Therefore, in order to continue serving the vital meals to the children, Semillero de Campeones received a special assistance through our Complementary Interventions Program (CIV).

According to statistics, nearly 750,000 children in Peru have chronic malnutrition, a serious problem that is hidden from the eyes of society which links the short size and the glum temper of the poor indigenous and Creole people to their idiosyncrasies and not to malnutrition.

One out of four children younger than 5 years old is malnourished and does not reach the minimum required size and weight. This causes irreversible damage to their physical, intellectual and emotional development, and this situation continues because of the poverty and illiteracy of mothers in Peru, who don’t know how to combat malnutrition.

Investigations show that the lower the educational level of a woman, the earlier she becomes pregnant, and the more likely she is to raise larger families, heightening the probability of chronic malnutrition of her children.

Miss Pino tells me,

“A good number of families prepare their meals using only chicken innards to add some flavor to their meals. Even the fruit has increased its price, and now some very poor families prepare as a supper for their children a cornstarch pudding and a cup of tea, either yams and tea, or simple bread with tea to have something in their stomach to be able to sleep at night.

“Therefore, if not for Compassion, many of the registered children would not have a chance to eat any decent meal at all.”

Because of this serious situation, Compassion is responding in two ways:

1. Educating the mothers who are registered in our Child Survival Program (CSP) to reach the children when they are most vulnerable, as infants.
2. Covering the immediate nutritional needs of the children with CIV funds.

Many of the CSP mothers are illiterate and have only basic education. Education will teach them a trade to help them improve their income, teach them about proper child care, and also how to prepare nutritious meals, with help from a nutritionist. This response began in February 2009 and will last one year.

The dining room at Semillero de Campeones bursts with children at lunchtime eager to receive what they would not receive at home. These meals will ensure the children can receive the nutrition so important to their growth, including proteins (chicken and beans), carbs (rice), vitamins (vegetables and fruits).

Miss Pino and I visit the family of a sponsored child for whom child sponsorship has made a difference. A young man who also works at the center comes with us, as the place is not safe at all.

Although there are no gangs in this community, there are many thieves who commit robbery inside the many poor homes. There is also a problem of alcoholism and many broken homes and single mothers.

It is also quite common for men to abandon their family, and so there are many young mothers who have to work to support their home, and many children who have to stay at home all day alone, a danger for their well-being.

As we enter a small squatter house located on a hill, I see a middle-aged woman in bed. She is Nydia, 42, the mother of Sayuri.

I notice that they live in only one room with a roof of matting and plastic. The house walls are bare bricks, and the only furniture is two beds, a chest drawer with a TV set on it, and the TV cardboard box used as a night table by the mother’s bed.

There are many flies around Nydia and on her bed. She moves her head toward me, indicating to come, and at the same moment, she tries to kill a fly with a swatter.

As I enter the room, I sense immediately a strange odor that takes me back 18 months to the day when we, a group of Compassion workers, entered into one of the towns south of Lima City where a strong earthquake killed many people. Most of the bodies were still trapped in the debris and the strong odor of death made it difficult to breathe.

In fact, Nydia, a single mother of five, is dying day by day with uterine cancer. She was diagnosed in May 2008, and the doctors could do nothing but put her on radiotherapy. Now she is taking morphine to alleviate the pain in her swollen legs that have made it impossible to walk.

Nydia has five children: Jhon, 20, Martin, 17, Luis, 15, Rosa, 12, and Sayuri, 4. The two older ones live on their own and seldom see their mother. Luis works whenever he has a chance and brings home the money to cover the most urgent needs, and Rosa, although she is only 12, had to quit school because they couldn’t afford the school expenses. Instead, Rosa looks after her mother and younger sister.

We begin talking to Luis, and after some minutes Nydia tries to join our conversation. I look at the dirty mattress and blanket where a good number of flies keep landing, but choose to ignore it and sit down on the bed by Nydia’s side with a microphone in my hand and a camera in the other.

“My daughter Sayuri is very picky to eat so I am surprised she likes the meals that are served at the center. I thank Compassion for it because our budget at home is quite low to cope with our needs.”

Before she was ill, Nydia supported her family cooking at a restaurant in downtown Lima, and used to come home late completely exhausted. At the time she learned she had terminal cancer, she also learned about the Compassion program that was beginning at an evangelical mission located about 10 blocks from her home. So she registered her daughter, Sayuri.

Now Sayuri is attending the Compassion program and also attends school through a scholarship at the small grade school the mission runs to benefit the community children.

“If not for Compassion, Sayuri would have been at home just as her older sister. But now besides having a meal, she has a place to enjoy gathering with other children and learning many new things, instead of watching the TV all day as before.

“You see, I am dying with cancer and what worries me most is that I don’t know where my two daughters are going to end up. The boys are already grown up, and they can look after themselves.”

As our visit comes to an end, it is time for Nydia to take the prescribed morphine. After saying a prayer, we leave this home and walk toward the mission, having been a witness that without the loving care of Compassion that Sayuri is receiving now, this family would have no hope.

Nydia lost track of her relatives when she was quite young, and now her only family are the mission church members who volunteer at the center. Miss Pino, who is quite aware of the situation, tells me that the center helps this family by giving them spiritual counseling and some food supplies.

By giving them some food supplies, the family is able to eat at least something simple as a supper and to have a breakfast to help them get started for the day in better shape.

The center also pays for the medical fees and the prescribed medication sold at a special cheap price to Nydia at the hospital, after the hospital’s social workers declared her as a destitute person.

Nydia’s neighbors have also found a way to ensure the family receives a free lunch at a soup kitchen run by the government, where meals of rice and beans with tea are sold to the community for U.S.60 cents a dish.

Miss Pino has hope for this family, as she does for the center in general.

“Pastor Fonseca, who already has 15 years of experience working with Compassion at another center in the city, has been appointed to this church since January.

“He is quite acquainted with many foreign missions and foreign businessmen and professionals who are willing to help him in the development of the mission and will begin soon helping our mission work.

“In fact, in April we began a breakfast program on Sunday mornings for all the children who want to come to listen to the Bible stories after a good breakfast. And there is the possibility to extend this benefit for at least three more days during the week, so that all the community children may be able to attend school after having a nutritious breakfast.

“The beneficiaries will be the Compassion-sponsored children, the mission school children as well as all other children who live nearby.

“Besides, there are two foreign agronomy engineers who are Christian who teach at the Agronomy University in Lima City, they have the desire to help the mission install a small farm with a special method of watering. Since the mission has a big space of land, they want to use it to grow some vegetables to be used for preparing the program’s meals.”

Pastor Fonseca also has a long-term project in mind – to build an orphanage and day-care center to help many children that stay home alone all day and are in imminent risk, just like Sayuri and her sister Rosa.

Though this family still daily faces such serious burdens, the Compassion program has been able to help with their basic needs and provide vital emotional and spiritual support.

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This is the fruit of seeds planted with hope, watered with hard work and dreams, and, at last, harvested with joy.

Pastor Damian checks two sacks full of beans. It is just the beginning of the harvest and the fruits already look promising.

Another man, Brother Juan, a seasoned farmer with dark skin and gray hair, is a perfect example of a Salvadoran farmer – thin but somehow robust, quiet and wise. Juan has served as an adviser to Pastor Damian since they decided to implement program “Double Seed.”

Juan talks about the beans and how they should keep some leaves and dirt in the sack so the beans will not lose the humidity they need.

“This way, they can last for about a year,” he adds, and smiles, knowing that the efforts made these past three months have given results – promising results that translate into hope.

It has been three months since Double Seed started in the community of Corinto, in Zaragoza, a city located eight miles south of the capital city, San Salvador, in El Salvador.

These past months meant sweat and great efforts for the people, but it also meant hope for a future that did not seem so clear a few months before.

Declarations made by international organizations since the third quarter of the year contrast with the hope at Zaragoza.

On July 13, 2008, the president of the World Bank, Mr. Robert Zoellick, declared to news agencies that they estimated that poor countries will need over $6 billion in assistance because already rising food and energy costs will continue to climb until 2012.

The economy section of El Diario de Hoy newspaper the next day showed that the cost of staples has increased 40 percent. But numbers are not as compelling as individual stories.

The journalist recalled a scene at a street market where a woman who preferred not to be identified collected the grains of maize that fell on the floor after the salesman weighed the grain to put it in bags and sell by the pound.

After much effort, this woman collected about one pound of maize just from the grains that fell on the floor, which would her feed her family that night.

Since the global food crisis filled the headlines and breaking news segments, Compassion El Salvador and its partner churches began to create strategies to face this threat. Among the strategies are agricultural development programs for the families of Compassion-assisted children.

The crisis experienced all around the world has complicated roots, and the truth is that the most affected are the people in greatest need. Now Compassion is striving to provide help, hope and the Word of God to those families at greatest risk.

Compassion El Salvador created multidisciplinary teams at the country office level, which developed a strategy that first takes into account the valuable input of pastors and church leaders.

This strategy has been implemented in two stages. First is the short-term response, where families  most in need receive immediate relief through our Complementary Interventions program (CIV). They are receiving enough food for their families to cover six months.

The second stage involves the church more, since the purpose is to support the families at the child development centers, and start income-generating activities such as chicken farms and hydroponics.

Among these programs to secure food for the short term is Double Seed, implemented by our church partner, Iglesia Jesucristo es El Señor, which runs the child development center, Nuevo Amanecer (New Sunrise).

In rural communities like Corinto, most of the people do not have a steady job and survive with what they can harvest with the seeds they receive from the government. The real hope and help they have comes from churches and organizations like Compassion. Churches like Jesucristo es El Señor and Pastor Damian understand this and have taken the challenge to make a difference in the lives of the children.

Sister Sandra, partnership facilitator for Jesucristo es El Señor, says the church received $2,000, and there will be another $700. With that money the church was able to buy seeds and other materials they needed to begin the harvest.

The land was borrowed by the pastor’s family, and the labor was the result of the collaboration of the families of the children at the development center. So far, they have sowed five acres of corn and one more of beans.

The most impressive part of this plan is the name, Double Seed. “At the place where they have sowed the beans, the church has a small group that meets to share the gospel,” says Sister Sandra.

It is called Double Seed because they are not just planting grains that will secure food next year for the families of the children from the child development center and the church - they also are planting the gospel that will secure the salvation of the families that are not Christian.

For now, Double Seed has been a short-term immediate response to the food shortage and is intended to secure food for the families of the children enrolled in the program for the next several months.

The church is becoming a holistic oasis in that poor community, where people are not only finding support for their children, but also for their families and for their souls.

“The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.” – Psalm 85:12 (NIV)

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