Some years back, I visited a project in North India as a facilitator. During my visit, I noticed a boy who received his food and kept it inside his bag while all the other children were eating their food there. I was curious to know why this boy wasn’t eating his food like the others.

He told me, “Sir, at home, my younger sister stays hungry, as my mother could not go to work. I remembered her now. So I packed the food to take home so that I will share it with my sister.”

There are many children in India who are hungry and have no one to care for them. Today, the Lord is asking us: “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” As God created everyone in His own image, are we not responsible to share what we have? As God called each one of us, I believe it is our primary responsibility to share what we have with the poor.

The boy with the fish and loaves in John 6 was willing to share everything he had as a response to the Lord’s question. He knew that five small barley loaves and two small fish would not be enough to meet the needs of the crowd. But he trusted the One who called him.

The Lord’s miracle was a sign of acceptance of this boy’s sacrifice. And the boy’s willingness to share all that he had became a great blessing for the entire crowd. Though the name of the boy is not mentioned, I believe that he became great in the Lord’s kingdom.

What is my response toward hungry children? Am I willing to share all that I have as a response to God’s calling? Am I ready to become a channel of blessing in the lives of others?

“Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” — John 6:5b, NIV

Prayer: Father God, help us to share what we have with our needy brothers and sisters. Amen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: K.L. George works as a Partnership Facilitator Supervisor in India. K.L. lives in New Delhi and works in the Delhi office.

Read all the One in Spirit devotionals.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

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!

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

My wife and I have been on three mission trips to Nicaragua, where we have built several relationships with people living in extreme poverty. Since that first trip, we have made fighting extreme poverty a life-long goal.

I have struggled to figure out how to use the gifts God has given me to do the work He wants me to do, which is how the seed of making a difference was planted for me and has now sprouted into a company: ResQrags.

My concept is to create shirts with a simple design that emphasizes a powerful message of hope and love. Every message is inspired by the Word of God. Every shirt has a purpose.

I donate more than 50 percent of the proceeds from ResQrags to causes I believe in. And if you purchase a shirt, you decide which program your purchase should support.

• Rescuing moms and babies
• Developing future leaders
• Disaster relief and stability
• Health and medical needs

10 Ways ResQrags Make the World a Better Place

1. “My shirt raises awareness.”
Whether it is about extreme poverty or the meaning of the shirt’s specific message, ResQrags raise awareness.

There are too many people who simply do not understand what extreme poverty means. People need to know that 1.4 billion people live below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.

ResQrags give you an opportunity to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. They allow you to share your faith and talk about things that matter to God.

2. “My shirt encourages others to take action.”
Many people want to make the world a better place but they don’t know where to start. ResQrags give you an easy way to get involved.

Buying a shirt provides financial support and wearing your shirt encourages others to take action. There is strength in numbers, which is why I have made ResQrags as affordable as possible.

The more people who wear the shirts, the more of a positive impact we can make in the world. Everyone needs to be encouraged.

3. “My shirt provides disaster relief.”
Whether it is a tornado, earthquake, tsunami or hurricane, when natural disasters strike, people come together and help each other persevere.

Compassion’s Disaster Relief Fund provides food, blankets, shelter and replacement belongings for children and families when disasters strike.

4. “My shirt feeds the hungry.”
The current global food crisis is being called by many a “silent tsunami” that could plunge an additional 100 million people on every continent into hunger.

Food prices have risen as much as 100 percent in some countries since 2006. Compassion’s Global Food Crisis program provides food for the hungry.

5. “My shirt fights deadly diseases.”
My shirt helps break the devastating cycle of AIDS and provides care for people who are often cast out by society.

Compassion’s AIDS Intervention program helps staff, partners and families understand and prevent the disease, care for children who have lost their caregiver to AIDS, and provide treatment and care for people who already have the disease.

Compassion’s Malaria Intervention program helps children and their families receive the resources they need to fight the deadly disease, including mosquito nets to protect children from mosquito bites, prevention education, and access to medical treatment.

6. “My shirt builds unity.”
When people join forces and support a common cause, that’s when mountains can be moved.

Companies, non-profit organizations, churches, governments, faith-based groups, schools, and other groups need to find more ways to work together to help those in need.

ResQrags brings people together and partners with people committed to fighting extreme poverty and providing hope to the hopeless.

7. “My shirt develops leaders.”
Compassion’s Leadership Development Program helps identify young men and women who have shown potential to become Christian leaders who can, in turn, influence their own churches, communities and nations.

The Leadership Development Program assists with college tuition, books, and room and board. Leadership is crucial to making a difference. ResQrags is committed to building new leaders.

8. “My shirt shows compassion.”
Everyone needs to show mercy and compassion. And Compassion’s Child Survival Program saves the lives of young, vulnerable children and helps set them on the path toward healthy development.

The Highly Vulnerable Children program provides food, clothing and a nurturing Christian home environment to children in poverty who are orphans or who have no adult caregivers. Compassion is God’s way of motivating us to do His will.

9. “My shirt gives hope.”
A common theme in poor villages throughout the world is hopelessness. Without hope we have no reason to live. We are told in Romans 5:3-5:

“Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Hope reminds us how powerful God is. When we rely on God and follow His lead, He will provide. Hope does not disappoint us.

10. “My shirt shares my love.”
Jesus tells us to love each other as He has loved us. If we did everything in love, the world would be a much better place. I often take love for granted and underestimate its power. Without love we have nothing. ResQrags remind people how important it is to love one another. After all, God is love.

Wear love well. Join the fight against extreme poverty at www.resqrags.com. And show us how you “Wear It Well” by sharing your photos with us on Facebook.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Gannon and his wife, Tina, are the founders and owners of ResQrags. They live in Fort Myers, Fla., with their twin 6-year old boys.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

The moment I was sponsored through Compassion at age 8, I became aware that I was bigger than poverty. Poverty was a situation, a condition, but I was a life. All I needed were positive messages of hope to grow out of it.

It is the relationships that sponsorship promotes through letter writing, not so much the money, that ends poverty. Think about it this way: A child runs to a parent for protection not because he has see the parent carrying weapons but because the parent has fostered a relationship that assures the child of protection.

In the same way, a starving child approaches the mother for food even when he can clearly see there is no food in the hands of the mother.

This is a relationship that grows confidence and bears fruits of optimism and the belief that nothing is impossible.

The moment I read my first letter from my sponsor I felt empowered. I heard him tell my 8-year-old heart, “There is nothing impossible with the God I am telling you about.”

I believed him like he was a messenger from God. Writing about it now reminds me of a story I heard many times growing up — that the angel Gabriel was sent by God to Nazareth, saying to the virgin Mary, “Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you.”

I remember myself at that age wondering how God will release me from poverty, and my sponsor sending another letter saying that he is praying for me and encouraging me to work hard in school and trust in God.

Jimmy visits Graceland ministry in South Africa, which cares for children of alcoholic parents.

At times poverty threatened and lied to me that nothing is possible, but my sponsor would write to me, “Jimmy, it doesn’t matter what you are going through, ‘for nothing will be impossible with God’.”

A candle was lit inside of me and I started believing in the dreams of my childhood. The circumstances didn’t matter: I believed I was bigger than poverty. In time I began seeing myself as the savior of my community from the oppressor, this grinding poverty.

I became a joy to my mother. She loved listening to my positive messages. I became her favorite preacher. It satisfies me to remember the many times I made my mother forget her struggles, pain and suffering.

My sponsor restored my mother’s joy. Within a year of sponsorship, I could read the Bible that I had received from the program. I read to her all my favorite childhood memory verses in English.

Many nights she asked me to read her the Bible and then she would pray and we would go to bed a happy mother and a hopeful child.

Some of those nights we went to bed on an empty stomach. On such nights, unable to sleep from hunger, I would hear my mother crying to God to let me live another day. In my innocence I would ask her why she was crying. She would reply, “Because I can hear the rumbling in your stomach.”

I would assure her that I would make it to the morning. That was the strength my sponsor put in my heart — to be there for my mother.

At her deathbed, my mother called me to her and shared her joy for having been my mother. She encouraged me to live a life of loving people just as my sponsor loved me. Then she bid me goodbye saying, “My son, I see you succeeding in life but I do not see myself sharing the success with you. Trust in God.”

A few months later, I received the sad news that my mother had died. She had left my grandmother a gift for me: her Bible. From her Bible I quoted Jeremiah 29:11 to my sponsor when I wrote to break the sad news.

In his reply, my sponsor Mark wrote:

“I am sorry to hear about the death of your mother. I cried when I read your letter. It was great to read your scripture reference – Jeremiah 29:11 — because I also believe that God has good plans for you. I shall continue to pray for you.”

Jimmy and 8-year-old Jayden at Graceland ministry.

I celebrate my sponsorship with Compassion because through the relationship with my sponsor, I caught the fire of hope. Sponsorship puts hope in the hearts of children and in return these children serve the rest of the world with that hope.

My mother died in hope, satisfied that she bore a son of hope; a hope she believed will survive and be taken to the ends of the earth to the glory of God.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Every year Soroti district is listed as a statistic for emergency help. It is said to be one of the districts with the highest levels of poverty in the country, with a very low education level and inhabitants ignorant of cultivation skills. Many have painful memories of war.

With unpredictable weather, from hot and dry conditions that lead to drought and famine, to strong winds and rain that destroy homes and crops, the inhabitants of the land never know what to expect of fickle nature and how to overcome the damage left behind.

To the local inhabitants, the hunger and famine that come with the changing seasons is a leopard looking for the helpless and hopeless to devour. But for a few people in the community, it is time to fight back.

For the beneficiaries of the Asuret and Victory Outreach Orwadai Child Development Centers, it is time to hunt down and chase the “leopard,” and banish it for good.

Mary has watched three of her children die of disease, neglect and ignorance. Her family has been brought to its knees with no hope. Being HIV-positive with no money for treatment, both she and her husband Emmanuel had no strength to work for a living, and even then no one to take a chance on them. Life was hard with hardly enough food to eat. Most nights the family went to bed with empty bellies.

Despairing and wracked with disease in 2004 when her husband lost his eyesight, Mary set aside her pride and dignity and resorted to begging on the streets and public buses coming in from outside of town. Her husband stayed at home with their remaining two children.

For four years this was the life she knew. She woke up every morning praying to God to touch the heart of one person whose generosity would extend to her, so her family would have something to eat that night.

In 2008, the Victory Outreach Orwadai Child Development Center opened a few meters from Mary’s home. Mary and her family were one of the first families whose children were identified to benefit from the sponsorship program.

As part of the assistance the family received, Mary and Emmanuel were given 50,000 Uganda shillings (about $27) to start up a business that they could manage. With this money they bought one pig and firewood, and started to sell fried pork to the community members in the town center.

As demand for their food has grown, the duo’s business has moved from selling one pig in two days to currently two pigs a day.

Whereas before they had no food and depended on the mercy of good Samaritans, the family now is able to have three meals a day as well as a variety of food in their diet.

Out of the profits of the business, Mary and Emmanuel bought a bed, a goat and a sheep. They also joined a ”savings” group of people like them benefiting from the program, and were able to save enough money to buy a second sheep. The family hopes the sheep and goats will reproduce, and that they will sell them and expand their business.

“We have so many plans. We are planning to expand the huts in the eating place and add Irish potatoes and cabbage with tomatoes,” says Mary, who is excited at her future prospects. “We have great hope in the future.”

Life was not so different for the community of Asuret village, located about an hour away from Soroti town. They too experienced the harsh weather and stalking hunger and famine. When the Asuret Child Development Center opened, the prayers of many were answered.

When given the 50,000 shillings to start up their individual income-generating activities, the beneficiaries of Asuret Child Development Center decided instead to pool their money and start up a group activity. This helps also take care of the elderly and weak, who would not be able to maintain their own individual projects.

The group started a chicken and piggery farm, and the members each take turns tending to them daily.

All the beneficiaries in the group are HIV-positive, and being a part of this has given them a lifeline to hold onto.

For many, the profits from the project have enabled them to start their own individual income-generating activities like tailoring, selling charcoal, and small-scale agriculture.

“My children are now happy because I can now go home with something for them every day, unlike before,” says Naome, a widow with seven children, the youngest of whom is HIV-positive and also in the Asuret Child Development Center. Naome started a tailoring business that is now thriving.

The success of the group income-generating activity as well as each person’s individual activities are helping many group members pay for their other children’s needs, even those who are not registered in the sponsorship program. Most of the group members have also returned the initial investment given to them by the church.

The group’s success has filtered into the community, and the association had had requests from people who are not HIV-positive to join in the investment.

With the weather erratic and difficult to predict in this region, a more sustainable solution found in the income-generating activity programs seems to be the answer for the beneficiaries of both these development centers. They are determined not to remain a statistic, but to be the exception when the “leopard” comes calling next year.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

You can help them have a happier ending – compassion.com/youcan

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Are you still with me? Still tracking with these thoughts on eliminating poverty? Good.

Now, I’ll share with you some data – data that show the Millennium Development Goals are on target.

We used to say that 40,000 children under age 5 die every day of hunger or preventable diseases. Then about 6 to 7 years ago this number was 30,000. Today, 24,000 children under 5 die every day of hunger or preventable diseases.

These statistics show that in 20 years the number of children who die every day of hunger or preventable diseases has been cut in half. Yet, the birth rate is actually going up. The population is increasing.

The blue line represents the years 1800 to 2000. In 1800, 85 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today it’s around 22 percent.

Between 1950 and 2000 there was a dramatic decline from 55 percent to 22 percent.

From 1981 to 2001 the population living in extreme poverty in China dropped from 60 percent to about 10 percent. And the same dramatic decline can be seen in India; the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty has dropped from over 60 percent to about 34 percent.

Between 1990 and 2005 the death rate for children under 5 in the Middle East and North Africa was cut in half. It is on target for the fourth Millennium Development Goal, to reduce by two thirds the mortality of children under 5.

And the same is true for Central America and the Caribbean. The death rate of children has been cut in half in the past 15 years.

Scott proceeded to show graphs from South Asia, Europe, Central Asia and East Asia and the Pacific. All showing that the death rate of children under 5 has drastically decreased.

In fact, the only area where we are behind for decreasing the mortality rate for children under 5 is sub-Saharan Africa, and yet there is still a decline.

All over the world sanitation and water quality have been improving.

As this graph represents, the spread of HIV in Africa has been curbed; it is not increasing as it had in years past; in fact, it seems to be flat-lining.

All these statistics strongly support what Jeffery Sachs (a world-class economist with a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard) has said,

“Ending extreme poverty* is a practical, achievable objective and is an objective that can be completed by our generation.”

He is making this statement through the lens of an economist, as someone looking at the numbers. He is saying this from a secular viewpoint. How much more true his statement is when adopted by us whose belief is rooted in the Creator of the universe. The One who stated, “There shall be no poor among you.”

To bring us to a close, Scott brought us back to Judas’ life. A man who walked with Jesus, who witnessed the miracles and the love of the Lord, yet he betrayed Jesus because of his greed and love for money. He sold Jesus for about half the value of the perfume Mary anointed Jesus with.

Scott states,

“The wealthy church today, the American church, has been entrusted with a purse of the Kingdom. The majority of Christ’s followers live in the developing world. What do they think of us as treasurers? Are they assuming that we would put the treasuries of the Kingdom to celebrating God’s goodness or caring for the poor? How are we doing?”

He then shared a fact that is, to say the least, haunting.

The annual income of Christian American churchgoers is $5.2 trillion. The amount of money needed to end global poverty is about $74 billion a year.

Did you crunch the numbers?

Basically, 1 percent of our annual income a year is what is needed to end extreme poverty.

Can you imagine? It could be said of our generation, “And there were no needy persons among them.”

To add a little perspective, Americans spend ten times more on entertainment ($705 billion) than what is needed to end poverty.

Is it just a matter of priorities?

As Scott ended he pointed out that there are only a few important questions:

1. What does God want? Do we have any doubt about that? Does he want children suffering?
2. Are we willing to join Him in His work?

This is a path that has already been paved by Christ-followers who have gone before us. We have a model to follow. We are not alone. We are fighting with the Lord.

Surely, that was quite a bit to take in. And now I am eager to know, was there that shining light of revelation for you? What is the state of your heart?

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

The little girl told me that as we sat with her and her mother under a mango tree. The fruit was not ripe yet, and still sat high and green and out of her reach.

Just behind the house, a few rows of corn grew. But they didn’t belong to her family. She could see them every day. But they were out of her reach.

I feel like every week I write about children who “went to bed hungry.” And they did. But right then, I sat before a little girl who literally went to bed less than 24 hours ago with nothing to eat.

I tried to imagine the tiny bit of hunger I’ve felt in my life, magnified. That small ache after missing a meal turned into deep pain after missing one, two, three meals. The slight ache when I take my lunch late turned into a pounding, relentless headache when late turns into never.

I couldn’t imagine it. But this little girl doesn’t have to imagine it. She lives it.

She is hungry when she walks past the market, her pockets empty.

She is hungry when her neighbors light up their braziers at night while her family’s remains cold.

She is hungry while fresh fruits and vegetables are in her sight, but not on her table.

As we left that night, we hauled a bag of rice out of the back of our van. Her mother bowed her head, thanking us over and over. And I knew that when this little girl visited the child development center, she would receive a meal. And that the center workers would watch her carefully, and at the first sign of malnutrition, she would be treated.

Those things are not out of her reach.

Merci

She walked slowly out of her classroom, her face turned towards the ground. Her shoulders hunched up around her ears, the ragged sleeves of her dress nearly reaching her elbows.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked the group around me. They stopped the girl, and French phrases passed much too quickly for me to keep up. Finally, someone translated for me.

“She can’t pay her school fees, so they’re sending her home.”

That’s when I noticed the headmaster, moving from class to class, a list in his hands. Those were the children who hadn’t paid their fees. He was calling them to the front of their class and asking for the school’s money. And if they didn’t have it, they were sent home.

Read the rest of the entry at I’m Just Sayin’

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Yep! A magnet. Can we get get a “Woot! Woot!” for Judy?

Now, without further ado, here is your answer key.

Answer: Six. More than 9 million children under age 5 die every year, and malnutrition accounts for more than one-third of these deaths. Most of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

(Source: www.unicef.org, November 2008)

2. Question: True or False – One-third of the children in developing countries live in poverty.

Answer: True. Of the 1.8 billion children in developing countries, 600 million of them live on less than U.S. $1 a day.

(Source: www.unicef.org/mdg/poverty.html, November 2008)

3. Question: True or False – In reducing the rate of sickness and death from diarrhea, the supply of adequate quantities of water is more important than improving its quality.

Answer: True. The organisms that cause diarrhea can be spread through many routes besides drinking water; increased quantities of water can improve household and personal hygiene, which prevents the spread of disease.

Each year about 1.7 million deaths related to dehydration caused by diarrhea occur in children under age 5.

(Sources: www.cdc.gov; http://rehydrate.org/, November 2008)

4. Question: Which one of the following is NOT one of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals?

• Achieve universal primary education
• Ensure environmental stability
• Provide worldwide access to safe water
• Develop a global partnership for development

Answer: Provide worldwide access to safe water

The Millennium Development Goals were created to develop a concrete action plan for the world to reverse poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people. The other five goals are:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Learn more about the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

5. Question: True or False – Life expectancy in the world’s poorest countries is about one-third lower than that in the high-income world.

Answer: True. Life expectancy in the least developed countries averages 55 years, as compared with 79 years in industrialized countries.

In fact, in most of Africa, average life expectancy is only 50 years.

At any given time, close to half of all people in developing countries suffer from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.

For people in the the developing world, illness, job loss, drought or even pregnancy can mean the difference between life and death.

(Sources: www.unicef.org; www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats, November 2008)

6. Question: What is the definition of extreme poverty?

Answer: Living on less than $1 a day. One in six people around the world lives in extreme poverty.

(Sources: www.unicef.org/mdg/poverty.html)

7. Question: Which of the following statements about children in the developing world are true?

• 1 in 3 children does not have adequate
  shelter.
• 1 in 5 children does not have access to
  safe water.
• 1 in 7 children does not have access to
  health care.
• All of the above.

Answer: All of the above. Along with malnutrition, these mostly preventable causes are leading contributors to the millions of child deaths each year.

(Source: www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats, November 2008)

8. Question: True or False – The majority of the world’s chronically undernourished people live in Africa.

Answer: False. Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.

Despite the food production rate being better than the population growth rate, there is still desperate hunger in many parts of the world.

(Sources: World Resources Institute, “Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems” (February 2001); www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-andstats, November 2008)

9. Question: What percentage of the world’s population growth occurs in developing countries?

Answer: 95 percent.

Currently, the world’s population totals more than 6.7 billion and grows at an average rate of around 80 million persons per year.

Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, three regions of the world made up of mostly developing countries, account for most of the world’s increasing population.

(Sources: www.worldfactbook.org; www.census.gov, November 2008)

10. Question: What is the United Nations’ deadline for meeting the Millennium Development Goals?

Answer: 2015. The Millennium Project is working with individual countries to help identify and address specific needs, such as access to health clinics, immunizations, teachers, roads and water pumps.

Developed countries have committed to provide increased funding to help reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

(Source: www.undp.org/mdg)

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates