Stories and Articles on Global Poverty and Child Development

How and why people pray vary by church, culture and life circumstances. Prayer doesn’t need to be a formal, ritualized practice. It’s simply a conversation with God that we can strike up in any number of ways. Still, it’s interesting to considerthe many reasons, places and times people pray, and the wide variety of methods used. 

Prayer is an integral part of our programs and work. Here’s what the Bible says about prayer and why we believe prayer is so important.

We are constantly in awe of everything our staff members do to help release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. But we also know that some of the most important contributions to our mission come from people who will never be found on a Compassion staff list: the pastors of our frontline church partners.

Be inspired by these stories of pastors and their work on behalf of Compassion around the world.

Florence’s rescue center has saved more than 413 girls from female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriage. The Kenyan schoolteacher’s lifelong crusade against FGM began with her own narrow escape as a child.

These pictures of kids with animals are cute, of course. But they also show how animals help people in poverty.

At Compassion, one of our highest goals is to help children grow to reach their full, God-given potential. Our frontline church partners across the world invest deeply in each individual, helping them discover their talents and use their skills to escape poverty, bless those around them and glorify God.

Scott, Cyndi and their four young boys love good matches of all kinds. They enjoy sports matches, especially those broadcast by Scott’s employer, ESPN. They love matching the birthdays of their sponsored Compassion children to their own young sons’ birthdays. And they love the benefit of matching gifts through Scott’s parent company, Disney, to the family’s Compassion donations.

Eleven-year-old Neema walks across the playground carrying a bottle of water. Other children are playing wild and noisy games during break, but there is something else she prefers doing. Neema — image-bearer, hands in dirt — shapes surprises from the soil like her Father God.

In the bride kidnapping tradition of the Hmong people, girls can be forcibly married to their abductors. But churches in Thailand have been fighting for change.

As the new year begins, I’m always thinking about the calendar. It’s probably because of the yearly planning we all tend to do. (Got to get after those goals, am I right?) Or maybe it’s because every year for the past 16 years I’ve received a wall calendar for Christmas from a dear friend. Whatever the case, a good wall calendar or even a digital calendar that you keep up-to-date online can help you prepare for the year to come. Here’s how keeping a calendar helps me figure out when it’s best for me to write to the child I sponsor.

As editor of the Compassion USA blog, I always love looking back over the previous year to see which articles resonated with you the most. It gives me a chance to reflect on the powerful stories and photos that come from our photojournalists around the world and writers in the U.S. I also get an idea of what type of content to gather and share with you in the year to come. In case you missed them, here were the top stories of 2021 on the Compassion USA blog.