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. (more…)

Thomas Swaroop, Child Advocacy Director for South Asia, shares about the inspiration he received from a young girl who has an opportunity to shine for Jesus.

Holistic child development has four aspects: physical, socio-emotional, economic and spiritual, and there are different issues that we have to grapple with when applying our child development model to the child survival and child sponsorship programs.

This is what holistic child development looks like in eastern India. (more…)

The Child Survival Program in a tiny village in India may not be vastly different from hundreds of other Compassion centers around the world, but to this community it is a powerful, unique and tangible demonstration of God’s provision and an essential lifeline for mothers and their children.

Villagers speak the Bhil language, which has no written form. They are classified as tribals by the government. They remain close-knit and marry only within their community. They worship animistic spirits and believe sickness represents the spirits’ anger toward the people. Major illnesses are ignored by the family, and the sick family member is left to die without any medical help. But many ailments are simply the result of insufficient food and malnutrition.

The village is a primitive agricultural community with no clean water, no sanitation, no electricity, no streets, no medical facilities and no modern transportation. Abuse of arrack, their home-made alcohol, is commonplace. Understanding and practicing hygiene is absent from local customs. To discourage theft, a family’s animals are brought indoors at night to share the living quarters, contributing to a dangerous health environment for the entire family.

Yet in this desperate corner of India, God is moving through the Child Survival Program. Program workers take the village women to a nearby hospital for regular prenatal and postnatal medical checkups. Most pregnant women in the project are anemic and underweight, so the program additionally provides iron tablets, tonics and calcium tablets, and pays the medical expenses.

Hepshiben Parmar, the Child Survival Program coordinator, elaborates on their duties.

“Twice in a month we monitor the growth of fetus as well as the development of children. I am a qualified nurse and Mrs. Swetha, our Implementer, a qualified nurse trained to check the fetal heartbeat. If we find any variation from the normal level, immediately we take the mother to the hospital for further treatment. In spite of this, some miscarriages have taken place because pregnant women are forced to do heavy work in the fields.”

Demonstrating the powerful love of God by serving the village families is the heart of the Child Survival Program’s mission.

“We pray before food distribution. When we go on a house visit we pray for the respective child. We teach them the importance of the true God and knowing God personally. We teach them how the love of God leads us to help others.

“The Child Survival Program deals with the most difficult and sensitive issues in this tribal area where many social evils are still rampant. In a community where giving birth to a girl child is considered a bane and where child care is negligent and taken for granted, the Child Survival Program’s role is laudable and paving a way for healthy living and a prosperous community.”

It’s been eight months since my last sponsor letter photos post, so I felt it was high time to raid our digital library again and round up another batch of photos showing sponsored children reading letters from their sponsors. Hope you like ‘em.

If you have trouble viewing the slideshow above, you can view the photos on Flickr.

Yesterday, I promised you some insights into Steph’s Compassion Traveller experience, so here you go. - Irene

Steph in 30 seconds:

• Age: 14 and a half



• Siblings: I’m the eldest. I have a 13-year-old brother named James.
• School: Year nine (third year in junior high school)
• Pets: We have two cats: Maddison, a white tortoise-shell cross Persian, and Soots, a grey Persian cross something. Both are girls. They have completely different personalities and hate each other. We also have budgies, which we’re getting rid of.
• Hobby: Netball. This is my seventh year playing in the district competition. I also take art lessons.

Favourites:

• Quote: “A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can repeat it back to you when you’ve forgotten the words.”
• Book: The Tomorrow series by John Marsden
• Film: The Notebook
• Board game: Scrabble
• Song: “Pray for Me” by Plumb

Steph’s Compassion Traveller experience:

Describe the trip in one sentence:

An amazing experience … I need to go back!

And at the moment I’m looking for a way to do it. No luck yet, but I’m sure my Lord will provide for me and something will come up. I can’t do it by myself.

Most memorable moment:

I met my family’s sponsored child in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her name is Kini.

Kini was born without pulmonary arteries, the arteries that go between her heart and her lungs.

My Dad sponsored her after his last visit in 2006, so we had been sponsoring her for 18 months when I met her.

The doctors thought Kini would die within months when my Dad first met her, but because of her sponsorship she receives regular treatment and still lives!

What did Kini say to you when you met her? (more…)

As a kid, did you ever daydream about venturing into the slums of Kolkata? I know a gutsy 14-year-old who did … who ventured into extreme poverty. But that’s for later.

I, Irene, grew up in a sheltered, middle-class family. Whilst I didn’t make it to India at the age of 14, I ventured to Kyrgyzstan at the age of 24 with a team of medical professionals and helpers. It was a completely humbling and mind-blowing experience.

I met church pastors who have been blessed with so much more materially than I, yet they have chosen to live in abandonment for the expansion of God’s kingdom.

I met Muslims in remote villages who suffered advanced stages of cancer, but had no means to receive medical treatment. All that my team could give them were vitamin supplements.

I met orphans who were stunted from malnutrition and sometimes from past substance abuse, but have found the love of their heavenly Father.

I can’t quite imagine how I would’ve coped on the same journey at the tender age of 14.

If you read the Reflections of a Compassion Traveller series, you may have gained some guts –- I mean, a new level of desire to meet our friends living in poverty.

It definitely takes guts to travel to less developed nations. It’s inevitably a confronting experience. (more…)