What does it take to make Mom happy?  I’ve visited nearly 20 countries in the 17 years I’ve worked with Food for the Hungry (FH), and it seems all mothers want the same things. They want their children to be healthy and happy. They yearn for their kids to finish school.

If you probe deeper, many of the mothers express feelings of loneliness and doubt. In urban areas, where people migrate in search of better lives, the women often don’t know anyone well. They’ve come from small towns where you  knew everybody from birth, and they don’t understand how to start a friendship from scratch.

Because of their grueling house and farm work, their backs and joints ache constantly well before they hit what we’d call middle age. I’ve heard many complaints about persistent, debilitating headaches, often due to iron deficiencies in their diets. Moms who work all day in small rooms with smoky stoves suffer from asthma or persistent bronchitis.

You can give them stuff to take care of the immediate need, but FH does more than that:  We create connections. FH often starts Mother’s Clubs in communities, where moms can learn and have fun together. Our Care Groups teach moms how to improve health and hygiene, even with their limited resources. In some FH countries, the moms learn how to grow nutritious vegetables. They’re also learning how to create household budgets and save money that will help them reach their dreams. They learn that they are daughters of the King of Kings, and hear what the Bible says about being a wife, mother and person of value.

The key is that they learn together. They are successful together and they make mistakes together. And with the support, they create a new type of community that cares for one another and helps children grow in wisdom and stature.  This new type of community also includes husbands and fathers, who learn how to help and encourage moms.

In the late 1990s, I helped recruit a team of college students at the Urbana missions conference, to serve in Bolivia.Toward the end of the team’s time, we decided to provide manicures to the women in the community.  We thought that a gentle hand massage and pretty nails could really lift  their spirits. It was the dead of winter, well below zero every night, and we could see the weather had sucked all the moisture out of hands and faces in the neighborhood.

We were swamped. One of the team members had brought large bottles of fragrant rose-scented hand cream, which we massaged into the mothers’ tired hands just before painting their nails.

I took a break for a moment and leaned against the metal door to the community center where we were gathered. Suddenly I felt a gentle tap-tap-tap on the door. I opened it to find one of the fathers from the community, standing in the doorway, holding a cone made of paper.

He quietly asked if he could have some of the hand cream in the cone, because his wife couldn’t come right now. I obliged and he went off with a spring in his step. A few minutes later, there was more gentle tapping…another husband, another paper cone. We had several men stop by that night, wanting to treat their wives with something special.

I don’t know for sure if these fathers were part of the marriage seminars we that FH was holding in that community. But I’d like to think that perhaps our manicure sessions simply gave them the opportunity to practice what they’d heard about appreciating their spouse. I know there were some happy moms out there for whom a paper cone warmed what was otherwise a frigid winter night.

You can make a mom happy too, right where you are. If you sponsor a child, you’ll give a mom her greatest dream of seeing her child grow up healthy, happy and educated. You can help us purchase mosquito nets that keep kids healthy, or chickens that the mom can use to earn some extra money. And know that along with the tangible stuff that FH provides, we also help moms find friends and supportive community.

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The Pentecost Festival is a gathering each year in London to celebrate the birthday of the Church, Pentecost Sunday. This Saturday, over 2,000 people will gather first in Parliament Square for a prayer gathering led by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres along with our Board Member, Lord Paul Boateng. This event represents the launch of new efforts by Food for the Hungry in the UK.

At the festival, Food for the Hungry will invite participants to join as child sponsors to impact the lives of the most vulnerable children through our work in over 20 different countries.

Tim Smith with FH Sponsored Children in Guatemala

As we prepare for this event, I am reminded of the beginnings of great efforts through the engagement of donors to our work around the world. It is a combined effort through partners like the Pentecost Festival, our field work around the world and our marketing team. We have the chance to end poverty in our lifetime through these types of efforts. It has been my privilege to spend the majority of my life around generous donors.

There is something special about that moment when a person realizes they can make a difference in the life or lives of the poor. I love to be standing there when the light comes on… when the donor picks up that packet… when they see the face of a child whose life they can change… It is a rush to watch it all come together.

This Saturday will be a day like the experience I just described. The Pentecost Festival has set the stage, our marketing team has prepared the opportunity, our field staff have identified the children most in need of sponsorship. Now it just takes the donors to respond generously. I know we will see several hundred children sponsored. I hope I can stand close enough to watch the light come on!

What’s great is you don’t have to wait for an event like this.  You can sponsor a child right here. I hope you will pray for this great festival and for the many children who will benefit as a result of our efforts. With our joint efforts we can end poverty. Let’s do it together.

Watch a video about what excites Lord Paul Boateng about FH.

The post When the light comes on appeared first on Food for the Hungry Blog.

My guest blogger today is Ryan Horn, a Food for the Hungry employee and child sponsor. Ryan shares what it was like to get news that his sponsored child had graduated…and then how he began another sponsorship with a different child…all of it happening right in Gautemala.

A couple of years ago, I took a seven-day trip with FH to the community of Campat, Guatemala.  My wife, Kresta and I, were in our hotel getting ready to leave  for the village of Campat, when I read an email that one of my sponsored children had graduated from FH’s sponsorship program.

It was a great success. The child was moving away to study at a university. My wife and I decided that since one of our sponsored children had graduated, that we would take that opportunity – then and there – to choose a new child from Campat to sponsor.

We literally had minutes in the hotel lobby to find another child before our bus left for our trip into Campat.

So we looked through several different child packets and selected a little boy by the name of Julio. We held onto our new packet and communicated back to FH that we were signing up to sponsor him. A few minutes later, we jumped on our bus and headed into the community. It was about an hour ride up a very broken and bumpy mountain road. Once we arrived, our van was swallowed up with the laughter and playfulness of what seemed to be hundreds of precious little children from the community.

Ryan and Kresta Horn with Julio.

The children took our hands and led us into their school yard. Within the hour, the whole town was on the school grounds. We were being seated to witness a community celebration welcoming team leaders and officials of Campat. With just a few minutes to go before the official kick-off of the ceremonies, I looked up from my seat and saw a little, precious boy standing several feet  in front of me. The boy stared  me in the eyes. I knew that little face.

I looked down and saw the picture of my new sponsored child on my packet, and then looked back up. There was Julio – standing right in front of me! It was amazing. I pointed and with a loud voice, I said, “It’s Julio!”

His little eyes got really big, and he smiled even bigger. The next few days, we had such amazing, God-filled experiences spending time with little Julio, his family and community.

I encourage you to sponsor a child.  In fact, go one step beyond and get your church to support a community. Then plan a trip with FH to go and visit your church’s community. It’s an experience that you’ll never forget. You’ll be blessed beyond any expectation that you could ever imagine.

The post Julio’s story: Starting a new child sponsorship appeared first on Food for the Hungry Blog.

The conversation came out of a terrible tragedy that occurred last week in Bangladesh. An eight-story garment factory building crumbled, killing at least 300 workers and injuring over 1,000 more. On Wednesday afternoon, my friend Eileen called to tell me the news. “It has me thinking about purchasing habits,” she said. “There’s a connection between American consumers and this factory. Most of us don’t think about it.”

Shagorika, age 12, is waiting for a sponsor in Bangladesh.

The TV ad

Eileen got me thinking. And then, in a stroke of irony stranger than fiction, just minutes after hanging up the phone I saw this TJ Maxx ad on TV.

In the commercial a woman quips, “Is it wrong to buy an entire outfit to match your mani-pedi?”

Her response to her own question: “Not if you find something amazing for less than the price of it.”

The ad reinforced what had long been true of my own shopping habits: price was my primary consideration, and justice was not even a thought. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the TJ Maxx ad if I hadn’t heard just moments before of the disaster in Bangladesh. And that’s the problem. We don’t give it a second thought.

Here’s an excerpt from my blog on Her.meneutics.

Even after the tragic collapse, the news that such a factory would be making our clothes didn’t come as a complete surprise. We knew it already. Most of us have heard of sweatshops, where labor laws are violated, wages are unfair, or conditions are hazardous. For decades, clothing manufacturers that supply the U.S. fashion industry have been accused of relying on unethical working conditions for the cheap products we buy. We feel aghast when we hear such reports… at least initially. We might even share a news article with friends. And then, with our most powerful voice—our wallets—the majority of us simply pretend as if we had never heard the news.

You can read the rest of my post on Her.meneutics.

Don’t click away

For any of us hearing a story like what happened in Bangladesh, the most dangerous moment is the split second between our sense of horror and our realization of helplessness. It has happened to me countless times. I feel a spark of outrage, but then I start questioning my ability to do anything to help. The issue seems to far away, too large scale, and too complicated. As a result, rather than drawing near, making a small dent, or seeking to understand a solution, I simply turn away.

Sponsoring a child like Ramjan Ali helps to end poverty for children and their parents.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In the Her.meneutics article, I offer some daily choices that anyone can make to move toward justice in the garment industry. One of those solutions is to support work that fosters entrepreneurship among the vulnerable in Bangladesh.

The more you learn about Food for the Hungry’s work in Bangladesh, the more convinced you will be about its effectiveness in ending poverty.

Before you click away, please look at the photos of children available for sponsorship in Bangladesh. Say a prayer for these children and their parents. Give thanks that through sponsorship their poverty will end!

The post Grieving the seamstresses we never knew appeared first on Food for the Hungry Blog.

I fondly remember graduating high school six years ago. I began to excitedly prepare for my big move to the university two hours from home, armed with dreams of becoming an elementary school teacher, joining the Peace Corps, saving the world and wearing tie-dye forever.

Karla, a 16-year-old from Peru, has just graduated from school, and also graduated out of our child sponsorship program. She wrote a wonderful letter to inform her sponsor of her future aspirations, which it turns out aren’t too far off from my own at that age.

Karla proudly displays the graduation keepsake she received from her school

Hello my friend,

I hope you are very well. I hope you pray for me a lot. This year I finish the school and am getting good grades at school. When I finish, I want to study in the academy to get ready and enter the university. I want to study human medicine. I love that career.

The good thing is that I have a professional goal and family goal. My goal is to have a job and with the time, I want to find someone who loves me as I am, but above all that my husband supports my job. I would like to have two babies and educate them, as well as to help my parents because one of their dreams is to have their own sewing workshop.

I want to help needy people and share our love and affection in order that especially needy children know they aren’t alone in this world and there are more people who are worried about them. So they can live happy. That is a part of my goal.  I send blessings to you.

Kisses and hugs! Trust in God! He is the best friend of all.

I love you so much.

How encouraged would you be if you received a letter like this? Being a sponsor is such a wonderful opportunity to walk alongside a child across the world, supporting them, sharing God’s love, building a relationship and watching them grow up. Karla’s sponsor has been a part of her life for six years and now gets to see the fruit of her sponsorship — her completion of school (which is a big deal for a girl in a developing country) and her plans to spend her life loving and serving others.

Do you want this opportunity too? Partner with Food for the Hungry by sponsoring a child today.

The post Sponsored child writes inspiring letter to sponsor appeared first on Food for the Hungry Blog.

I never, ever thought to thank God for a light bulb. But for some students in Food for the Hungry’s Burundi program, a simple solar-powered light fixture is their key to a brighter future.

Gerard is a sixth-grader in Mufumya, a small town in Burundi. Sundown comes before 6:30 p.m. on any day of the year in Burundi, which didn’t leave Gerard much daylight for studying. So he did his homework under the dim, flickering shadows of a kerosene lamp. When his family couldn’t afford kerosene, he studied by the light of the kitchen fire. “It was so hard,” Gerard said. “I was getting tired quickly, and then had to wake up very early in the morning to review my notes.”

But this past February, due to the generosity of partners in Canada, the primary school in Mufumya installed solar panels to power overhead lights. Gerard joined more than 40 elementary and secondary school students from the community, studying at night in a well-lit classroom.

By the end of March, Gerard reported his GPA had improved by 10 percentage points, and he had moved from 23^rd to 15^th in his class of 72 students. “I expect to improve performance as I continue to use the solar panel light,” Gerard said.

Fellow student Renovat is in 10th grade, and praying fervently that he’ll be promoted to 11^th grade. But before the solar panels were installed, he was failing math, geography, biology and physics. Like Gerard, he studied at home with a kerosene lamp or a candle. After just a few weeks of studying at Mufumya Primary School, with the solar lighting, he’s now passing biology and physics, and moving up to 11th grade looks possible.

And the solar panel has another benefit – household savings. “With the solar panel, the money that my parents were using to buy petrol [for the lamp] is used to meet other family needs,” said Renovat.

The solar panel is also generating revenue for the school. Principal Evariste Havyarimana reported that community members are charging their cell phones at the school, for a small fee. “The school was able to earn 4,000 Burundian francs [about $US 3] in three days, which means that on average, the school will be earning $90 monthly,” he said.

It’s amazing to me how partnerships between churches and communities change lives, with small adjustments and investments. If you’re interested in changing lives of young people like Gerard and Renovat, consider sponsoring a child in Burundi or another country where FH works. For about a dollar a day, you could give a child opportunities to reach their God-given potential – passing math, graduating from high school – that they would not enjoy otherwise.

The post Let there be [solar] light appeared first on Food for the Hungry Blog.

Rhaki is my sponsor child (right) with her best friend Lota.

On my first trip to Bangladesh in 2008, I met a woman who was married at the age of 11.  She was a frail, young woman who was 22 when I met her. I can’t imagine how her small frame could possibly have given birth at the age of 12.  Her story changed me for life.  I met with her in her one-room house built with clay, mud and straw.  Standing next to her was her 10-year-old daughter who was born unable to hear or speak because her mother’s body wasn’t ready for child birth.

Stories like this one keep me motivated to make a difference.  I want to put an end to the injustices that occur every day against women and girls in this world.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 14 million adolescent girls become mothers every year.  Of these young mothers, 90 percent are found living in developing countries.    The impact on a woman’s young life and health is staggering.  The leading cause of death among girls aged 15-19 in developing countries are due to complications from pregnancy and childbirth.

Early pregnancy not only harms the young mother but also the child.  When a young mother gives birth under the age of 19, there is a 50 percent higher chance it will be stillborn or die early, than if the mother were to wait until she was in her twenties.

Together we can put an end to the poverty caused by early childbirth that puts millions of women’s health at risk around the world.  One way I am fighting for this cause is by sponsoring a girl child. https://fh.org/give/sponsor   My sponsored child, Rhaki, is at risk — she faces her twelfth birthday this year.  But, due in part to my sponsorship and the work of Food for the Hungry, I sincerely believe that she has a better chance at life.  With her marriage postponed, she is at less risk of dropping out of school.

My daughter serves her community through the American Red Cross

My hope for this little girl is the same as it was for my own daughter, Jess.  My dream for her to pursue a higher education, earn a degree and be involved in work that fulfills her.  Jess did just that and now serves an at-risk population with another non-profit relief and development organization.  She makes her mom proud and I hope that one day I get the chance to see Rhaki graduate college too. And that will make both her real mother and I very proud!

If you’d like to sponsor a child or find out more information, click here.

The post She couldn’t hear her mother’s voice appeared first on Food for the Hungry Blog.

I could see  a group of mothers and their children standing outside the gate of the turquoise-colored school building, still half-shrouded in the morning mist. The kids were so small and scared – especially terrified of the tall white lady (me) with the camera.

It was hard to imagine them starting kindergarten, because they were so tiny. But in rural Guatemala, where Food for the Hungry (FH) was registering these children into our program, rampant malnutrition was stunting their growth.

And malnutrition also leaves them more vulnerable to disease. Coming to school meant they’d mix with large groups of kids, swapping germs and viruses all day.

As the children and moms worked with FH’s staff, their fear melted away. Our community workers talked them quietly through filling out the registration forms with each family. We took the kids’ pictures. It was  probably the first time the children had been photographed. Afterward, the little ones moved to a small pint-sized table where they drew the pictures that would be sent to their first sponsors. The kids shared colored pencils and crayons to create brightly-hued drawings of their houses, churches, chickens and goats, surrounded by Guatemala’s beautiful mountains.

But they weren’t done when they finished drawing. I noticed our members gently taking each child’s hand, and walking them over to the big cement sink at the edge of the playground. The staff members took a child-sized bar of soap and showed each little one how to wash their hands. “They’ve been sharing the pencils and crayons,” one staffer pointed out. “We don’t want them getting sick.”

Studies have shown that the simple act of washing hands after going to the bathroom can lower rates of diarrhea in a community by as much as 47 percent. And respiratory diseases can be cut by as much as 30 percent. Diarrhea and respiratory infections are two of the biggest killers of children worldwide.

With that first formal hand-washing lesson, these precious children were on their way to a healthier life. FH would also teach their moms about hand-washing, so that the whole family could adopt healthier practices. FH taught teachers how to incorporate hand-washing into the daily school routine.

It’s pretty amazing that the equation is so simple. Water plus soap, on two little hands, can keep a kid alive. You can also keep a kid alive by providing a tippy tap. It’s a hand-washing station made from a bar of soap, water jug and string. For $8, it’s a great way to help people maintain good health.

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Mosquitoes.

We all hate them. We hate that momentary sting when one of them gets us. We hate the itchy, red bumps they cover our legs and arms with. We hate that they are so tough to catch, and that when we do smash one, that bloodsucker’s meal splatters all over our hands.

Gross, yes. A nuisance, yes. But aside from the rare chance of West Nile Virus, mosquitoes don’t pose much of a threat in the United States.

And then there’s malaria.

In other parts of the world, mosquitoes are hated because they transmit malaria to their victims at alarming rates. Varying research reports that there are between 660,000 and 1.2 million deaths caused by malaria each year.

Malaria is most prominent in the tropical regions of developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Pregnant women (who can also pass the disease on to their baby) and young children are most vulnerable to this disease. Children account for 86 percent of malaria deaths each year, most of them under five years old.

FH works in these very areas, focusing on the well-being of children.

Sponsored child Mediatrice sits with her family

11-year-old Médiatrice in Burundi suffered from recurring cases of malaria. Her treatments were so expensive that her grandmother had to sell her goat to pay for them. When Médiatrice went to the hospital most recently, FH covered all the expenses for that visit.

Afterwards, they educated the parents in the community about malaria prevention and treatment. Since then, Médiatrice has been much healthier, and has been able to thrive in school because she doesn’t have to stay home sick.

“FH helped me a lot, my child is doing well and I’m so happy,” Gahitira’s mother said.

Gahitira is back in school and doing well, now that he has been cured of malaria

April 7 is World Health Day.

This is a day to raise awareness for the multitude of health issues people of the world are facing. FH takes great care to provide medical assistance and education for children and families who need it. When you sponsor a child, you give FH the opportunity to meet health needs, like covering the medical expenses of a malaria-infected child in Burundi, providing mosquito nets to families, and educating communities on disease prevention. Consider becoming a sponsor; it could mean all the difference in a child’s health.

The post The world’s deadliest insect appeared first on Food for the Hungry Blog.

A girl in Kenya carrying water for her household.

Think with me for a moment about Chukuke, an 8-year-old girl growing up in Africa.

She lives in one of the more arid regions of Kenya. She does not go to school. She had to drop out. She spends every day walking 9 to 10 miles to find clean water for her household.

She doesn’t play with her friends. She doesn’t learn to read and write. She loses her childhood. She seldom eats breakfast or lunch. She will never finish school.

Young girls like Chukuke are the casualties in regions where clean water is so sparse.

This is the power and impact of water in many regions where Food for the Hungry works in the developing world. Water can provide life, health and survival for families. The scarcity of it creates despair, disease and loss of hope.

Shep Owen, FH/Africa Regional Director and Tim Smith, Chief Development Officer meet in Ethiopia.

This month, I traveled to Addis Ababa to visit Food for the Hungry’s work in Ethiopia. While I was there, I sat down with Shep Owen, FH/Africa Regional Director. We talked about how the lack of clean water affects impoverished families.

FH has long recognized that girls and their access to school are tightly related to access to water, especially in water stressed regions. Often girls are the first children to be kept home to do household chores—such as securing water daily. Shep said that the United Nations estimates that only one in six people globally have access to an improved water point. This means so many little girls are facing experiences like Chukuke.

This month—as we consider the challenges of people without clean water—let’s take time to give a little extra to combat this problem.

Next time you sit down and drink a glass or bottle of clean, purified water…take a moment and think about Chukuke.

Offer a prayer for her and others like her, then get involved.

Partner with us at Food for the Hungry as we strive to find a clean water source for Chukuke, so she can go back to school and live the life of an 8 year old.

The post Water is power appeared first on Food for the Hungry Blog.