Making a Difference

I went to El Salvador to view firsthand the World Vision Community Transformational Model: clean water, nutritious food, health care, educational opportunities, and spiritual nurturing are all elements of the holistic approach World Vision takes in transforming communities and individuals for a sustainable future. This is the best example I’ve seen of showing God’s love in Word and Deed!

My fondest memories are always of the people…

Maria is the manager of a group of eight restaurant owners. She and her partners are single mothers; they are caring for 21 children. They were given a small business loan by World Vision to open a small restaurant. We bought lunch there and it was really good! They came up with the plan, they make it work and they are doing an incredible job. This is nothing less than a miracle! Not the way we expect to see a miracle packaged, not a physical healing but no less than a miracle! Eight lives have been transformed and 21 children have been spared a lifetime of poverty. 29 lives have been touched by the love of Christ though a tangible expression of help. Seeing lives transformed is why I love what I do!! 

We have never worried about food security, healthy growth for our children and hope for the future.   Yet, these are haunting concerns and fleeting dreams for millions of parents all over the world.

I had the privilege of sitting in on a training session in El Salvador that was addressing these needs and relieving the fears of a small group of mothers.  World Vision was teaching the young women about nutrition and providing them with the necessary ingredients to make “power drinks” for their toddlers.  The mothers come weekly, their child is weighed and they get to remain in the program if they’re following directions and their child is growing. The program provides so much more than just a food hand out.  The women are learning valuable information that they are sharing, they are building relationships with each other and with the staff, they are becoming more confident as they see their success and their children are loving this “pre-school’ like experience.  Best of all, the program includes some great instruction on hope for the future and who that hope should be in.  I had the privilege to pray for the moms and little ones.

Through the promotion of Child Sponsorships, I hope to see many of these programs initiated. 

Then, there was Pastor Carlos who was excited to receive a Talking Bible in Spanish.  Yes, I met another Pastor Carlos in El Salvador, imagine that. 

I was getting thirstier and I was trying not to envision the 55 gallon drum of water I saw behind the house. I trusted that they’d boil it for me and do everything they could to make it safe for me to drink. I think it was the floating objects that made me a little nervous. It also bothered me a little that I couldn’t see clear to the bottom of the drum. Unfortunately, this is their normal. They worry about getting sick too. In fact the illness resulting from waterborne disease is staggering.  

Just days before, I saw World Vision plumb running water to 200 homes in a community in El Salvador. This was accomplished because a number of children in an Area Development Project were sponsored. This is my prayer for this community in Nicaragua. Clean water.  A new normal.

Reaching the Hungry is committed to partner with World Vision to show the love of Christ by caring for children. Children make up the largest population group in the world of those who live in extreme poverty without the knowledge of Jesus Christ. A child sponsorship is the single most effective way to reach out in Word and Deed. Clean water, nutritious food, health care, educational opportunities, and spiritual nurturing are all elements of the holistic approach World Vision takes in transforming communities and individuals for a sustainable future.  
 

Join us in making a difference in a child’s life today!

Click on the banner and change a child's life forever!