If you are not very familiar with Nicaragua, here are some sobering statistics:

• Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, behind Haiti.
• 17% of the population lives in extreme poverty, on less than a dollar a day.
• Four million Nicaraguans earn less than $2 per day; the total population is 5.4 million.
• Three out of four children suffer from malnutrition.
• 1.1 million Nicaraguans do not have a home.
• Two thirds of the population does not have access to adequate sewer services.
• 33.2% of Nicaraguans are illiterate.
• More than 15% of the population (800,000 boys and girls) does not attend school.

In 2009, my wife Tina and I visited the barrio of La Cruz Nicaragua for the very first time. It was an incredibly eerie feeling. The smell was overwhelming, the people were distant, and there was a strong feeling of emptiness and darkness.

I knew we were not welcome, but I also knew that La Cruz was exactly where God wanted us to be. This is where God had work for us to do.

“Lord, help us spread your good news all over the world, especially to Nicaragua this week. Use our team to transform lives and break down social barriers.”

As I walked around the dump site at La Cruz, God stirred inside of me a fire to do something and to use the resources He has given me to help the people of La Cruz.

Since that day, the organization our mission team was working with began visiting the people of La Cruz regularly and building relationships. They provided daily feedings for the children and the people of La Cruz were being given something they have never had before: hope!

In 2010, we returned to the barrio of La Cruz. The reception our mission team received compared to the year before was amazing. The people of La Cruz welcomed us and were thankful to see us again.

Relationships had been built, and are being built. God’s love is at work. God is transforming lives, and it is incredible to see.

As of today, all of the children who live in La Cruz (about 50 kids) are now sponsored by members of Grace Church, and a brand new school was built for the children of La Cruz!

Only God could take a little barrio in the middle of Nicaragua where people live off of a dump site, call it La Cruz (The Cross), and then use it to impact the lives of so many people.

North Americans simply do not know enough about extreme poverty to get involved. But the bottom line is this: we all have an obligation to help the helpless. We should use the resources and gifts that God has given us to do the work God wants us to do.

For Tina and myself, our experience in La Cruz has inspired us to create ResQrags, a company that uses clothing as a resource to help children living in extreme poverty. ResQrags is partnered with Compassion and inspires others to take action by sharing the message of hope and love.

As you consider ways to help those living in extreme poverty, this is my prayer for you:

“Thank you God for relationships and the opportunity to serve You, the Almighty Creator. Help us work together and fight to end extreme poverty. Help us use our gifts and resources so that we may fulfill Your will and not our own. Help us share Your love, shine Your light and see the world through Your eyes. Help us care about the people You care about and give us the courage and strength to do Your work always. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

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.

Statistics cited from Wikipedia and United Nations Development Program

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

Awa is a housewife living in Burkina Faso. She lives with her husband, Irissa, and their five children in a typical Muslim compound of approximately 50 people. They have lived a difficult life.

Awa’s husband does small jobs and earns meager wages. He once left the family in search of gold; he worked five years without finding even an ounce. Awa cooks and sells cakes made of millet flour. What she and her husband earn every month is not enough to take good care of their family.

The only positive thing Awa could see about their hardship was that she was her husband’s only wife. All of the other women living in the compound are married to men with multiple wives. Every cloud has a silver lining, Awa would say, as her husband could not afford to take a second wife.

“I could spend three weeks without any food supply in the house. My salvation was in wandering from place to place asking for help.”

Awa tried in vain to find help from the Muslim community surrounding her. Although they were living in front of the community mosque, she and her family felt abandoned. Her sorrow was compounded when her younger brother and his wife both passed away, leaving a 6-day-old baby boy in Awa’s care.

Awa needed to find milk for the baby but could not afford it. She was so depressed by her helplessness that she considered putting an end to her life.

One day she wandered into the local Assemblies of God Central Church to ask for help.

“The day I entered the office doors to the child development center and told them my story, workers were with me.”

Unfortunately, Awa’s baby nephew could not be registered because we have not yet established a Child Survival Program in Burkina Faso. But the center workers showed Awa where she could find milk for the baby, and the pastor provided Awa with money to buy milk and other food supplies for her family.

After her visit to the center, one of Awa’s aunts advised her to give her life to Jesus if she wanted to get out of the mess she was going through.

“From that day on, I started going to church on Sundays. Three months later I gave my life to Jesus.”

A significant change has occurred in Awa’s life since she met Christ. She can now count on God to solve her problems.

Just a month after she received Jesus, Awa’s little girl Fatimata was registered at the Assemblies of God Central Church Child Development Center. Soon, someone sponsored Fatimata and Awa considered it a miracle.

The turnaround even brought dreams into little Fatimata’s heart. She was able to go from worrying about daily food to dreaming about tomorrow. Fatimata would like to be a primary school teacher.

Fatimata is in 1st grade and has a gentle spirit. Her mother encourages her to work hard at school to fulfill her dreams.

Within two months of her registration, Fatimata’s sponsor sent a family gift. It was like manna for the family. Awa used the money to purchase food supplies and a bicycle, and she was also able to restart her business of selling cakes.

Some weeks ago the family again received some extra money from Fatimata’s sponsor, and Awa used the money to buy provisions. The storm is over for Awa and her family. The time when they were living from hand to mouth is over.

Awa is now confident in life and has started praying that her husband would come to know Jesus and give his life to Him.

While the family’s livelihood improved dramatically after Fatimata joined the child development center, Awa was not out of the woods yet.

Being from a Muslim family, and living in front of the community mosque, her decision to become a Christian was not acceptable among the Muslim community.

Recently Awa was summoned to the mosque by religious leaders, who questioned her about her Christian faith. They pressured her husband to give her an ultimatum: give up Christianity or leave the house.

But Awa refused to reject her new faith. She told the Muslim leaders,

“When I was suffering with my kids under your eyes, no one dared to lend me a hand. Now that the church has saved my life, would I give it up? Never ever.”

Awa was ready to leave if her husband asked her to. The mosque leaders told her to take a week to think and make up her mind. When Awa met with them a week later, she told them again,

“I have decided to follow Jesus and you will not make me change my mind. It is because of Jesus that I am still alive.”

The Muslim leaders were speechless. They had all witnessed the hardship Awa had gone through with her family and they had never lent her a hand or paid her a visit.

They could not stand against her arguments. That was how she obtained freedom to go to church with her kids. Her husband has given up trying to convince her to give up her faith.

As for Awa’s daughter Fatimata, she has also changed. She used to be extremely rude, insulting people around her.

Since Fatima joined the child development center, a radical change has taken place in her life. Fatimata has become polite and disciplined; she no longer insults others. She is now the one advising other children not to be rude or insulting.

Though Fatimata is a bit shy, she has a gentle spirit. Her mother considers Fatimata her “lucky star.” The whole family is benefiting from the spiritual, educational, social and physical help Fatimata receives through the Child Sponsorship Program.

Awa and her family are experiencing the difference it makes when someone dares to give his or her life to Jesus. And it takes a lot of courage for a former Muslim woman living in front of her community mosque to give her life to Jesus openly and to take a stand for her faith.

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

Several years ago when I started sponsoring a child through Compassion, I thought I was doing a good thing. I made a small but noticeable donation to a nonprofit doing great work. Some little kid in India had a better life, I felt good for caring for the poor, the kid probably felt better because he had more food to eat, I was being oh-so-Jesus-like, and all was well with the world.
 
Then, I went. I went to where “the kid” lived. And I discovered something.
 
I discovered that this child sponsorship thing isn’t a game to make rich (or middle-class) people and poor people feel better about themselves.

I walked the prostitute-filled streets of Mexico City. I walked among the sick and dying lying hopeless outside the Buddhist temples in Kolkata. I walked between the standing puddles of water left over from floods that had brought down a string of houses in the Dominican Republic like a row of dominoes.

I saw poverty and the reach of its ugly hand. The beautiful young Latina girls who would sell themselves away for almost nothing because they needed money and, let’s face it, what were they really worth anyway? No one was going to rescue them.

The orphans of lepers and cripples in India, begging for food and being smacked upside the head by a passerby for being “bothersome.” Where would they go? They are no one, nameless to the world. 

And the Dominican Republic … what is the DR if not a place for drug lords and dealers to get rich off the poor and addicted? 
 
This is the world I live in, though I often choose to block out the images and pretend they don’t exist.
 
This is the world Compassion lives in. And they refuse to close their eyes.  
 
Compassion releases children from poverty in Jesus’ name. They do not simply release children from the economic plight of poverty. They provide them with the hope that can only come from Jesus, the hope that says,

“You matter. You are precious. You are made in God’s image. You have a purpose. We refuse to let you believe that you are no one, that you don’t matter.”

Yes, they meet the physical needs. That’s imperative. But meeting physical needs in a life devoid of hope isn’t enough. Meeting physical needs by extending the hope of a life in Jesus, though — that produces transformation.
 
And so I discovered just that. Transformation. For while I saw what appeared to be endless lines of prostitutes along the colorful streets of Mexico City, I also saw young girls and boys who entered the doors of a Compassion child development center in a local church, received nutritious meals, health screenings and checkups, tutoring and life-skills classes, and were personally loved and cared for by families within the church.

In India I saw young children in school uniforms who sang songs and created beautiful works of art, who were no longer captivated by the lie that told them that just because they came off the streets, they were trash.

In the DR I saw hope and life in the eyes of young teenagers who were refusing to deal drugs or join gangs because they had another reason to live. That reason just happened to have a name. They called him Jesus.
 
I discovered that child sponsorship isn’t about making me feel better. It’s about transforming lives — in every sense of the word, releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. And I became, in a word, humbled. Even a little humiliated. 

For $38 a month (which has at times been pocket change and at times been a sacrifice), I get to provide the bridge needed for a child to cross over from the streets to the Compassion child development center, from the land of hopelessness to a place of love, hope and joy.

As a sponsor, I’m not a part of making someone just feel better. I’m a part of a transformation.
 
When I returned home, I quickly realized that so many of my own friends and family members were right where I had been. They didn’t know the reality of so many kids in our world today, the hopelessness that binds itself around the hearts of children because the kids are caught in the grip of poverty. 

My friends and family didn’t know because they hadn’t seen it. Or, maybe they knew about it, but they didn’t know what could be done to really make a difference.

I was a little overwhelmed — how could I communicate all that was on my heart?
 
My journey of discoveries led me to Compassion’s Advocates Network. The Advocates Network is a team of volunteers who commit to speak up in their spheres of influence on behalf of children in poverty.

These child advocates create and share resources, provide coaching and training and spiritual retreats. They pray for each other and know each other by name. They get that advocacy on behalf of children is hard – and desperately important. So they encourage each other to press on.
 
Has your heart been broken by the reality in which your sponsored child lives? Do you want to do more on behalf of your child?

Become a part of our movement to see hundreds of thousands more children released from the cycle of poverty and hopelessness. Become a child advocate. I’d love to have you join me.

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

One day Pastor Alioas saw a group of lepers and beggars who were trying to survive on municipal land. He watched as police pitilessly chased away the poor street dwellers. With a broken heart, he began to weep and pray. It was in that moment he received a vision from God.

Pastor Alioas wanted to help people who were rejected by society. He started to work among the lepers and beggars, leading spiritual meetings for the lepers and giving them food. During those days, he actively carried the gospel across different parts of Kerala, India. His traveling brought him to the community where he now lives.

The majority of the tribal people in the area where Pastor Alioas lives sold their land for meager amounts of money or goods. They are indebted to the landlords and money lenders, unable to pay them back because of high interest rates.

In this situation, the children usually become slaves of the landlords. Although the families toil hard to work the land, they have no right to demand money from their landlords. Whatever they are paid, they accept silently. They have few rights.

The tribal people seem to be trapped in a cycle of abject poverty. Almost every man in this tribe fights alcohol addiction; women and young boys drink, too. The landlords take advantage of the weakness and often pay the families with alcohol.

Many people work the whole day only to spend their money on drinking. Children are not sent to schools, but rather seen as extra hands to work. Early marriages take place. Teenage pregnancy is common.

Viewing this situation, the Lord put a great burden in the pastor’s heart. To give the people hope through Christ, Pastor Aliaos began a ministry in 1983 distributing food, clothes and medicine. He conducted awareness programs, and started a children’s home with 10 children to give them food and education.

After 20 years of working in this ministry, Pastor Aliaos had the opportunity to start a child development center through Compassion. The program began with 55 children and now more than 280 children  are registered, including nearly 100 tribal children.

God has brought about an incredible transformation in the lives of the children, their families and this community. The children regularly attend schools. The educational standard of the children has improved. About 40 children participate in sports activities and they have received many prizes in school and higher-level competitions.

This center has a music band of 15 children. Their talents in playing instrumental music attract the attention of many other schools. They now receive invitations from several schools to give special programs.

The way of life for these children has changed so much that nobody would now be able to recognize them as tribal children. Their confidence and dignity has improved.

But as Pastor Alioas served these people, he found something alarming: an increasing rate of suicide among the farmers. The reported reason was economic instability, severe financial crisis, despair and hopelessness.

The farmers faced crop disease, price drops, drought and excess use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Agriculture became an unreliable means of living and the people became the miserable victims of the crisis. Owing to these difficulties, the farmers fell into debt.

People began to take huge loans from banks and toiled very hard in the lands. But their hope was lost as they couldn’t pay back their debts or make any money. From 2002 to 2006, 316 farmers committed suicide.

Hundreds of children lost their fathers and mothers, and wives lost their husbands. The banks began to seize properties with lapsed loan payments. Many people lost their hope for their future, along with their land.

A survey was conducted in the community the child development center serves; 12 people committed suicide in 2008 and 11 in 2009. Among them were parents of three Compassion children.

Wilson, a farmer, who was 48 years old, committed suicide by taking poison in June 2008. He was reputable in the community, innocent and well accepted by his neighbors. He was married and had two sons. Both of them are in the sponsorship program.

Wilson was not able to pay the loans that he had taken from the bank, and he committed suicide. His wife was pregnant. They suffered tremendously, but the church helped them build a house and supported them financially. Now the family is living peacefully.

Rajan, 40 years, committed suicide by hanging himself. He was also married with two children. This family lived in government-allotted colonies, and Rajan worked as a blacksmith. He suffered from epilepsy and was an alcoholic.

Unable to repay the debts nor bear his sickness, he committed suicide. The church gave the family a helping hand in those dark days.

Shiji was a mother of three children. She used to fight with her husband every day after drinking and never used to give money to the family.

Shiju was working as a cook at the development center. Unable to tolerate her husband’s unchanging character and the hardship she underwent, she poured kerosene on herself and burned herself. Her husband was watching and tried to save her, but he also caught fire.

Both of them were rushed to a nearby hospital. Shiju breathed her last at the hospital. Her husband was half-burned but survived. His hands and legs were paralyzed and he cannot walk now. His relatives took one son and one daughter with them. The son is part of of the sponsorship program.

Pastor Alioas’ church also has a Child Survival Program. There are 44 mother and their children in this program. They are taught what it means to be a family and what it means to raise children. The entire community has learned their responsibilities both toward home and society.

Family problems, quarreling among couples, use of bad words, nuisance in community, relationship problems, etc., have decreased. There has been a drastic change in people’s attitudes.

The church has also started income-generation programs to enable the families in debt to make money and thus improve their financial situations. This also helps lower the suicide rate in the region.

The poor women are provided with mushroom seeds so that they can cultivate mushrooms and make money. The church provides them with raw materials for making soaps and selling them. Each poor family is provided with a goat. This goat yields a kid after one year, and in this way the family can raise income.

The women are also taught to make umbrellas. Tailoring classes are conducted. Men are taught to drive vehicles and are provided financial help for getting driving licenses.

However, to make these efforts a complete success, men have to give up drinking, which can cause fighting and violence in the family. With the aim of helping alcoholics, recovery programs are supported. Twenty-one church families have been sent to a treatment center. Follow-up is done. Weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are conducted at the development center, and so far alcohol addicts have given up the habit.

With this variety of intervention, Pastor Alioas has been able to help change lives.

“Through Compassion we are able to give them good education. Not only that, we are able to develop their inborn skills and talents. We concentrate on the all-round development: education, economic, social and moral. Through our continued efforts, children learn how to be responsible members of the family as well as the society.”

Compassion has had a lasting influence not only in the lives of the children but throughout the community by helping create responsible parents, helping reduce the suicide rate, bringing people into the saving knowledge of God, strengthening family bonds, and building responsible members of society.

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

• educational opportunities
• health care and supplemental nutrition
• opportunities for safe recreation
• opportunities to learn about important life skills
• hope and a sense of confidence
• most important of all, the child has the opportunity to hear about Jesus and be encouraged to develop a lifelong relationship with God

I met this child in the slums of Kampala. He’s not part of our child sponsorship program.

I met these children at Compassion’s program. There’s a significant difference between the two photos. The children in our child development centers still lead difficult lives but they have a sense of hope and purpose.

Everywhere we went, people would tell us things like:

• Compassion is doing great work in our country.
• Do you know my sponsor?  If so, tell her I said thank you.
• I love my sponsor.
• I would not be the person I am today without Compassion.

All of the bloggers on the trip have arrived safely home, but you can still follow along since they’re still processing the experience and writing about it.

Check out the Uganda Blog Trip page and click through to the blogs to read what they’re saying.

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