Plan is one of the best known UK sponsorship charities and works in 49 countries. The programme has been running for over 70 years, today they run a community based programme rather than sponsorship of individual children. Money is pooled and  then the programme works on projects that impact the whole community such as training teachers, building schools and providing clean water. When you sponsor you receive a welcome pack with a picture of your child, a note or drawing and information about the family & community. Each year you get 2 updates and a photograph. You can write to your child.

World Vision  http://www.worldvision.org.uk/

World Vision work in nearly 100 different countries. World Vision is a community development charity, funds are pooled for community work, though your sponsored child should receive a small gift on registering. World Vision focus on food security, clean water, education, HIV/Aids and healthcare. The welcome pack includes information about and a photo of your child, plus a card to introduce yourself. You can write letters to your child.

SOS Children’s Villages  http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/

SOS Children’s villages work in 123 countries, primarily with children who are orphans. Sponsorship is directly of a child who is provided with caring, family home, although children may have more than one sponsor. Welcome pack includes photos and a description of the child, their family and community.  Also offer option of sponsoring the SOS Children’s Village as a whole, rather than an individual child within the village. You can write to your child and send small birthday gifts, children are given the option to reply. You receive regular updates on your child and their village.

Compassion www.compassionuk.org

Compassion UK work in 26 across Africa, Asia and South/Central America. Each child has just one sponsor and the money is directly used to benefit the child through church based projects. Support covers healthcare, education, social activities, support for parents, food if needed and spiritual guidance. Each child has just one sponsor and sponsors are very much encouraged to write. Children reply 3-4 a year, in some cases more regularly. An update is recieved every two years.

Everychild  http://www.everychild.org.uk/

Everychild work in 18 different countries across the world. Sponsorship money is pooled and used to support and develop communities. Projects are based in the local communities and focus on improving lives through education and advocacy. Sponsors receive a picture and information about a child, plus updates on the work of Everychild. Sponsors may write and may receive letters or drawings in return. Guardians can support very vulnerable children in the commuinty.

Abaana http://www.abaana.org/

Abaana work in 4 countries in East Africa. through sponsorship children are provided with food, clothing, healthcare and education. You receive a welcome pack with photo and information. Sponsors are encouraged to write to their children and should get replies back. Most of the funding goes to the children, left over funds are used on projects to benefit all the children eg. building a new classroom at a school.

ACT http://www.africanchildtrust.org.uk/home.html

ACT is currently working in Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Nigeria.  As well as paying school fees and buying necessary school items like books, clothes and shoes, ACT provides financial support for the widowed mother or guardians to provide food for the family. Sponsors have the opportunity to exchange letters with their sponsored child, there is also an option of indirect sponsorship where there is no contact made.

P is for Pujarana http://www.compassionuk.org/child-details/95070/

O is for  Oumou  http://www.compassionuk.org/child-details/94552/

V is for Vivian http://www.compassionuk.org/child-details/94478/

E is for Esther http://www.compassionuk.org/child-details/94877/

R is for  Rogelio http://www.compassionuk.org/child-details/94903/

T is for  Tiara  http://www.compassionuk.org/child-details/94806/

Y is for Yembouaro http://www.compassionuk.org/child-details/94502/

Could you spend £21 a month to save a child living in POVERTY?

Her mother was in trouble, Sarai knew instinctively. Recently there had been little laughter in their small house, her mother rarely smiled and often snapped. As the eldest of 6 children, Sarai felt responsible; surely there was something she could do to help her mother.

Sarai’s mother worked hard for the family business, only recently she had mortgaged the family home for $50 to support the expansion of the business. To 15 year old Sarai, this didn’t seem too significant, yet ever since then her mother seemed worried and preoccupied. One evening there was a stranger in their house, one with a quiet, threatening voice. From the shadows Sarai listened as he hissed out his warning. Her mother owed the man $300, interest on the mortgage she had taken out on the house and then man wanted his money. The only other alternative was the house.

 That evening Sarai watched as the younger children slept, innocent of the real danger that faced them behind tightly shut eyes. What would the family do? Sarai could not bear the thought of the younger ones out on the street where the gamblers, drug addicts and drunk congregated. Suppose their mother moved them to the city, where would they live? How would they eat? The lender was determined and returned several times.

 Then an apparent solution occurred. Three women came to the house offering Sarai a job peeling shrimp in a fishing village; the advance she would receive was exactly $300. Sarai was hopeful, but Mary, her mother refused, not wanting to be parted from her young daughter by such a distance. She would find the money another way. Sarai didn’t see how.

 However, the women persisted, they hadn’t given up. As Sarai walked the street in her village alone, they approached her. Sarai’s mother didn’t know. Inside Sarai’s head ran a battle, between deceiving her mother and a desperate desire to save her family. Seeing her struggle, the women approach Sarai regularly, gradually wearing down her resistance with their promises. As the oldest child, Sarai knew she had a responsibility to her family and she was old enough to know they would never pay the debt. Nor was she too naive to know what that would mean for her brothers and sisters.

 The well paid job was a dream offering. Without her mother knowing she agreed to go with the women. The next day, a taxi pulled up at the arranged meeting place, three other girls had accepted the offer too. Sarai had never been out of her own village and she marvelled at the sights they passed on the taxi ride. Too soon it was over and the girls were put out in another village. Guided by two men they marched through jungles and over a mountain. The men warned the journey was dangerous, if the girls tried to leave they would surely be attacked by wild animals.

 As the sun rose the next day, the men divided the girls between two brothels. In a small, damp room Sarai wore her first make up. Bright and garish, it felt greasy against her skin. One look in the mirror told Sarai what she had become. For the next month Sarai was sold for $15 a time. Never did she see this money nor was she told that it was gradually paying off her mother’s debt. Hope faded. The brothel owner, struck Sarai when she failed to apply the unaccustomed make-up properly, other times she was kicked for failing to fawn over the customers. For Sarai, there was no point in trying to escape, even if a way out could be seen, girls who ran away were hunted down and shot. Sarai had heard some of the other girls talking about it.

 Back in her village, Mary had given up hope. Although desperate to hear good news of her daughter, Mary knew the stories, Sarai was most likely dead.  

Jesus warned that there would be trials and sorrow on Earth. What an understatement! Turn on your TV and you’ll soon see. Sarai’s story is just one among thousands….make that hundreds of thousands. There are 1.2 billion people in the world living in abject poverty, living on less than $1 a day. Every 5 seconds a child dies of hunger or a preventable poverty related disease. How many is that since I started writing this? There are stories in our papers of abuse, neglect and evil that freeze the heart and make us recoil in horror. Poverty seems senseless. There are hundreds of children like Sarai, little treasures made in God’s image, who bit by bit are destroyed by poverty, disease and abuse. God made each of these children, crafted them carefully in his image and yet there they are lying in the dirt, trampled on and abandoned.

 The hurricane in Haiti, three pleading children in Chile, a gun man on the rampage in Cumbria…. this is one messed up world. Someone must be to blame. However, the Bible has never kept silent on the state of the world. From day one, the first son of man killed the second born, famine, disease, war fill the pages of the Bible. The world is fundamentally damaged and it won’t be mended in your generation or mine. Stories flood our TV screens, disasters leave behind the homeless, orphaned and destitute; tribes try to wipe one another out over elections; silent genocides occur; wars ravage lands; dictators take mindless and feelingless actions out on their people to feel power. I hear stories of babies whose lives end before they begin, free of hope, blighted by lack of food or clean water.

 My story is very different though. The stories on the TV screen are just that, sad tales that make us sigh before tuning in the next reality show or favourite soap. Mine is a land of unprecedented prosperity, safety and opportunity. Advances in technology continually open up more and more opportunities.

 Ok, I grew up in family where we penny pinched for a while. My mum gave up work to bring me and my sister up. So our car was tiny and rather clapped out, our holidays cheap and some of our toys homemade. But I was well fed, clean water came through our taps and the NHS made sure I was always treated when childhood illnesses struck. I grew up in the knowledge that I would go to university and find a good secure job.

 My town is pretty ordinary, yet all the time new businesses go up, schools get built. My church is doing ok, we have prayer meetings, a great choir, youth club, mums and tots, Bible study, sometimes we do outreach in the local park.

 We are prospering, but I can’t help asking – Is this what God wants? Is this what he planned for us?

 On a trip to Rwanda I was given this passage by a Pastor in a rural village and it has stuck with me ever since.

 Isaiah 58 (The Message)

Your Prayers Won’t Get Off the Ground

 ^1-3 “Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives,
   face my family Jacob with their sins!
They’re busy, busy, busy at worship,
   and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people—
   law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’
   and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
   ’Why do we fast and you don’t look our way?
   Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’

 ^3-5“Well, here’s why:

   ”The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit.
   You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
   You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
   won’t get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
   a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
   and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
   a fast day that I, God, would like?

 ^6-9“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
   to break the chains of injustice,
   get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
   free the oppressed,
   cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
   sharing your food with the hungry,
   inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
   putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
   being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
   and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
   The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
   You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

 ^9-12“If you get rid of unfair practices,
   quit blaming victims,
   quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
   and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
   your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.

The people of Israel where good people; they kept religious practices, better than I do. They were prosperous and enjoyed the fruits of their hard work. Genuinely they sought God. So God’s reply hits hard. The Israelites are just a bit too like me. They go to church, they are busy for God and they earnestly seek Him.

 But God wasn’t impressed. Why? What does God want from us?

   to break the chains of injustice; get rid of exploitation in the workplace; free the oppressed; cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry; inviting the homeless poor into your homes; putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad; being available to your own families.

 Ouch! It all sounds rather messy, part of a challenging and often hostile world. But maybe that’s what God wants, for us to come out of our neat and tidy religious lives and engage with the mess. To go out and transform the mess, take action in love, show compassion in service. God is calling his people to do something – to restore the Sarai’s of the world with mercy.

 Sarai, God’s abandoned treasure was found. She was picked up, brushed down and loved by International Justice Ministries. I think God might have a treasure like Sarai waiting for me.

Sarai was recognised by a former neighbour who had also been trafficked. This women escaped back to her village and sought out Mary to tell her that Sarai was alive. Overjoyed Mary went to the police, who sought out IJM support. The brothel was raided, Sarai and two other girls were rescued, while the three women were caught.

Sarai was taken to a centre, where could receive with care and support she needed to recover. She is receiving vocational training in preparation for a better future. Soon she will return home to her mother, Mary who has hope for a better life for her daughter.

* All names changed

Could you change a life for a girl in Thailand? Sponsor Orn for £21 a month

Orn lives under the care of her parents. Her home duties include washing clothes, making beds, cleaning, carrying water and gathering firewood. There are 3 children in the family. Her father is at times employed as a subsistence farmer and her mother is at times employed as a subsistence farmer. For fun Orn likes playing with friends, bicycling, walking, playing hide and seek, reading, drawing, playing jump rope, listening to music and playing ball games. She attends Sunday School & Church and church camps regularly. She attends school where her performance is Average. Please remember Orn in your prayers. Your love and support will help her to receive the assistance she needs to grow and develop.

http://www.compassionuk.org/child-details/88501/

A couple of weeks ago we had a real scare at our youth club, one of those heart stopping moments. It came back to me watching this week’s Criminal Minds on Living TV as a young girl disappeared. One minute the child was there, the mother turned away for a moment and then she was gone. I guess all parents have those moments in toy shops and parks, where a child wanders off attracted by some glittering prize.

My moment wasn’t even my own child. I lead a youth club for 10-14s in quite a tough area, recently I was pursuaded by a parent to take the younger sister of two boys who’ve been attending for a while at the age of 9. JJ was feeling really left out when the boys attended the Friday club, so I gave in. JJ is a great kid, but very shy and nervous of joining in some of the activities. A fortnight ago, football traffic had made all the leaders arrive on the last minute and there was a busy queue of kids at the door. Before long there was a heated football match going on, dancing on the stage and lots of mini games. I settled to sort out the materials for the organised activities and the other leaders played with the kids. Five minutes in and John came to see me.
“Have you seen our JJ?” he asked.
Busy I suggested she would be playing with some of the other girls. Minutes later he returned.
“She’s not in the hall or the games room.”
Distracted I went and checked the toilets for him, fully expecting to find her. No sign. At this point I’m not worried, she’ll be playing. I check with the other girls, they’ve seen her come in but no has played with her. A search starts. First I think of a kids prank, she is just hiding from her big brother. But part of me knows she is not that kind of kid. Anxious now, I enlist the other leaders in the search and John phones home – no answer and no JJ in the building. Now I’m snappy with the other kids and that terrible moment of panic is setting in. I can’t see how anything can have happened to her, but we do keep the door open for 15 mins as the kids arrive. I go outside and check the street. Suddenly the football fan in the car and the man walking his dog are potential predators.

One of the other leaders walks home with John to check, while the rest of us worry while trying to pretend that everything is ok with the other kids. They soon return. JJ is home feeling unwell, she went out to mum, who thought her daughter had told us. JJ is reprimanded by mum and we carry on with the programme. Still I am shaken.In a country where we look for predators on every corner and anyone who works with kids is treatef with suspicion, I find it hard to comprehend how someone could choose to sell their child. So I shocked by the news story from China of the man who put his 8 year old up for sale, like market produce. What desperation must drive someone to sacrifice their own child?

Yet in Thailand child trafficking is happening all the time. Desperate parents sell the children they can’t afford to feed. I don’t know what lies they tell themselves to live with this decision. Girls disappear all the time from rural villages, sold into sex slavery. With no education, poor homes and little food, they don’t have the skills or self esteem to stop it. What kind of world makes children so vulnerable? What makes them buy twisted dreams sold by the sex tourism industry?>

Look at the flower above or even better go and collect a flower from your garden; think of a young girl in your life who is special to you. It could be a daughter, niece, granddaughter, friend or student. What do you love about this girl? What makes them special and unique? How is the girl you are thinking of similar to the flower? Pray for the girl who is special to you and God.

Just like the girl in your life is special, so are the girls in Thailand special to God. He created each one unique and special in their own right. However, because of sex slavery many of God’s special girls are ruined.

Destroy your flower now!

When a Thai girl, who is so precious to God, is forced into prostitution, part of them is destroyed. When girls are young, their lives are delicate; sex slavery takes away their innocence. God never intended this for his precious girls. Just as you destroyed your flower, Thai girls are being horribly damaged.

Just as you love the special girl in your life and it angers and shocks you to think of them being hurt, so God loves the children of Thailand who are being damaged by trafficking and sex slavery.

Mark 9:37 – “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”

How does the world’s attitude to children differ from God’s?

Why do you think service to children is considered so important to Jesus?

Matthew 18:6-7 – “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!”

Jesus set new standards for caring for children and showed their immense value to god. Learning to care for children is learning about the heart of God.

Pray for:

• Protection and guidance for young girls in Thailand
• Girls who are currently at risk of being exploited
• Love and light for girls caught up in sex slavery
• Rescue for those who have been trafficked
•  communities to protect young girls
• Radical change in Thailand so that girls will be valued