Why We Should Care About Honduras
This is the byline on a recent op-ed piece in The Miami Herald:
“Edouard Lassegue is the Vice President of the Latin America and Caribbean Region at Compassion International, the world’s largest Christian child development organization.”
And this is why Edouard says we should care about what is happening in Honduras:
Poverty in Central American countries is the foundation for all other social justice issues. Honduras maintains an unemployment rate of 28 percent, and two-thirds of its citizens live below the poverty line. The instability the country is currently experiencing is not rooted in politics — it is social. It is hopelessness and destitution.
When Central American economies fail to produce opportunities and jobs — and if governments cannot protect citizens — populist demagogues promising reform but continuing the status quo are elected.
Where poverty flourishes, crime and corruption flourish. This is what we are currently witnessing in Honduras.
From Diamonds to Rectangles
Giving back to the community has become chic for many who are in the public eye and have the resources to do so, but for St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, it isn’t about what’s fashionable or what looks good. It’s about being faithful to a God, Who has given him much, and helping the children he loves in his native Dominican Republic.
As Albert steps off one of Major League Baseball’s many well-manicured baseball diamonds, he often finds himself stepping onto the dusty streets of the Dominican Republic. But he’s not coming to play baseball, nor is he coming to instill in the children who live the way he once lived a love of the game he is now famous for.
His mission is to provide to those who are less fortunate something we in the United States take for granted – rectangular mattresses to sleep on.
For many of the world’s poor in places such as the Dominican Republic, a mattress isn’t a necessity: It’s a luxury. For Albert, this is a tangible and lasting way to use baseball as a ministry in his homeland. Through his partnership with Compassion, he is able to provide to those less fortunate something that will last for months and years to come.
But it’s not just mattresses that Albert is providing to the people of the Dominican Republic. To find out what else he’s doing, read his story in the summer issue of Compassion Magazine.
More Precious Than Gold
Being involved with Compassion, both as an employee and as a sponsor, has allowed me — and sometimes forced me — to consider things that I used to not give a whole lot of attention to.
One of those things garnering more of my attention lately is the many blessings God has given me.
It’s not that I’ve never thought about my blessings before. I’m very thankful for everything God’s given me — family, friends, food, shelter, clothing — not to mention the many “extras” that we as American Christians get to enjoy.
Working at a ministry, however, has helped me to focus on the greatest blessing — other than the blessing of His Son — God has given all of us. That blessing is people.
Ministry is first and foremost about people. It’s about building relationships that will last an eternity. It’s about sharing with people the good news about the ultimate relationship with their Savior.
I, like most people, have no problem thinking about the family I come home to everyday as a precious blessing from God, but here is where my time with Compassion has challenged me.
My family isn’t just my wife and two kids anymore. My family now also includes my sponsored child, Kimberly, who lives in Guatemala.
Kimberly may have started out as a monthly “feel good” payment, but many letters, pictures and prayers later, she has become — like family — more precious than gold.
There are always competing items in any household budget, but Kimberly, like the rest of my family, has no competition. She has, for me, become as important as putting food on the table for my family.
Although balancing a budget is never easy, many are facing even more difficult choices as jobs are being lost across the country. Yet those who find themselves in difficult situations like this are still making the decision to invest in people and not give up on their relationships.
This article, The Not-for-Profit Surge, in Christianity Today talks about one widow’s decision to continue sponsoring three Compassion-assisted children in these difficult financial times. It also talks about how even in tough times, Compassion is doing better than most people would expect. Praise God.
Reviving God’s Army
I have read various articles, columns and statistics on the state of Christendom in America, and the prognosis isn’t good. Christian commentators across the country are doing their best to encourage our churches to get back to the basics, but their pleas seem to fall on deaf ears.
But underneath the apparent complacency plaguing our churches is a revival that God is stirring in the hearts of our young people.
Like the young boy David who faced the giant Goliath when grown men cowered in fear, it’s times like this that God calls on our young people to bring a revival to His army – to the Church of God.
In my last post, I mentioned how 14-year-old Emily Blake raised tens of thousands of dollars to reach out to as many as 100 children in Kenya suffering from malnutrition and poor hygiene. Now once again, it is another teen who is reaching out to make a difference for children and their families halfway around the world.
Seventeen-year-old Jordan Foxworthy, daughter of comedian Jeff Foxworthy, recently had the opportunity to see the devastating effects of malaria while visiting Kenya with her family.
Being moved to action, she helped start the Bite Back Against Mosquitoes campaign.
Through this campaign, she enlisted many other teens to join the fight against malaria and is encouraging the rest of us to join the fight as well.
Watch a video segment of Jordan talking about the Bite Back campaign on Christian World News.
God’s Army of One
It never ceases to amaze me how diverse the army of God is. I think in our adult minds, we all too often differentiate between “adult tasks” and “children’s tasks,” but God doesn’t think that way. His foot soldiers include people of all ages from every nation.
Consider for a moment the job of fundraising. Now, I’m not talking about the summer phenomenon of lemonade stands that offer a refreshing cup of the tart but sweet drink for 50 cents. I’m talking about the task of raising tens of thousands of dollars. Most of us would not consider that a child’s job.
However, one 14-year-old wasn’t hindered by the adult mentality of the impossible. God instilled in young Emily Blake a passion for the possible.
While attending a church summer camp in 2007, Emily, then 12, heard the disturbing statistic that more than 25,000 children living in poverty die each day from such preventable causes as poor hygiene and lack of food. The young preteen looked around at the world she had grown up in and knew it didn’t have to be this way, so she decided to do something about it.
Uninhibited by her age, she successfully reached out to as many as 100 kids in Kenya whom she never met, and changed their lives forever.
This is how she did it.
Faith Rising
In December, The Times Online published an article entitled “As an Atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God.”
I was as intrigued to read the article as I was skeptical to see what the inevitable “spin” would be. Come to find out, Matthew Parris, the author, was born in Africa and raised throughout the country, and was personally familiar with Christian missionaries who often lived and worked in villages close to his own.
As a frequent contributor to The Times, he was asked to go to Malawi to see the charity that the paper supports. In his first few paragraphs, Parris comments that:
“. . . travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.
“Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.”
Reading that ignited myriad thoughts and questions, and for a brief moment, I sat in simple silence as I basked in God’s love for this man.
“An observation I have been unable to avoid since my childhood” is nothing short of the gracious, patient and relentless love of a real God gently knocking on the door of his heart waiting to be invited in.
The “spiritual transformations” he has witnessed and has humbly admitted to, despite his own personal belief to not believe, must be speaking louder in the halls of his heart than he realizes.
He goes on to say that the change and impact that Christianity has brought to so many people, tribes and nations throughout Africa is undeniable and is worthy of recognition. He remarks that “only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it.”
So why am I telling you this?
Because I am so encouraged. I am encouraged because God is still seen and reflected in and through the lives of His children. Despite the turbulent circumstances that plague our world, the love and light of Christ is recognized. I am encouraged to see that the Word is in fact living, active and true.
The most encouraging thing is knowing that Compassion is a part of the change and impact that so many are seeing, believers and nonbelievers alike. We work in many of the countries that Parris mentions, and while he may not have seen our children, he did notice and feel the difference that the Spirit of the Lord makes.
So perhaps what he felt and what he saw was the result of faith rising in the hearts and lives of little ones who are in fact being used to make a lasting impact and change. Maybe what he witnessed was the result of a child’s pure and innocent faith being proclaimed in a way that only children can demonstrate.
It could be that the children we are serving in Africa are in fact now serving us in America.
