Good Morning friends, it’s almost Thanksgiving and I am sure many of you will be traveling today to be with your families tomorrow and enjoy a great feast.  As we gather around our tables tomorrow and thank God for all we have been given, our family will also be reflecting on those who have nothing to eat and are starving.  Some days my kids think that they are “starving” but we really don’t have a clue as to how that feels and hopefully we won’t, ever.  
Today I want to share with you a cause near and dear to my family’s heart, Food for the Hungry. You may have noticed the ad in my sidebar on the left that I put up the other week.  I asked them to provide me with a banner because I love this program and what they are doing.

 If you have never heard of Food for the Hungry before, let me share with you what they are all about. Here is their mission statement:

When you give to programs you expect a large portion of your money to go directly to the people you are giving to but that is not always the case.  With Food for the Hungry they state:

More than 93 percent of total income, including commodities, goes to field programs. As such, we ship donated goods using matching grants from governments and corporations, and cooperate with other organizations in pooling resources for the purpose of gaining efficiencies.

What they do with your money is go to the hard places in Asia, Latin America & Africa teaching the community how to sustain itself, teaching families how to care for each other and giving the children a better education along with learning healthy practices.  They also learn that they are valuable in God’s eyes, the power of prayer and reading their Bibles.

We first started sponsoring children back in 2005 through another child sponsorship program.  Unfortunately it didn’t go very well, we kept sending letters to our child and then we would get a note from the program saying we had a different child.  We never actually received any letters from our children and we left the program after being switched around at least 5 different times. 

We first heard about Food for the Hungry when we attended a concert put on by 33Miles.  During the concert they shared with us how the traveled alongside Food for the Hungry and saw first hand the work they were doing and better yet, the difference they were making in lives!  You can read a blog post by one of the band member’s regarding this child sponsorship program here.
My husband and I decided to give child sponsorship another try and we are so thankful we did.  We picked Jesus out and have been writing to him, encouraging him and praying for him for the past two years.  It is great for our children to see how kids live in other parts of the world and they look forward to reading his letters and writing back as well.  We received a letter in the mail last week stating that Food for the Hungry is leaving the region where Jesus is located because the community is able to sustain itself and no longer needs sponsorship.  Our family is very excited about this yet we are sad that we will no longer be communicating with Jesus. We will definitely keep praying for Jesus!  Our kids are excited to pick out our next sponsor child and I love how they want to be involved in this! 
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  If you would like to sponsor a chld, you can head over to their website by clicking on Sponsor a Child.  For $32 a month you can give a child like Roger (pictured below) food, an education and most importantly, hope! 

There are other ways to give as well, including through the Gifts Catalog where you can buy things such as:

• Deworming tablets for 500 children for $25
• Vegetable seedlings for $25 which a family can use to feed themselves for a year
• Dairy goat for $100 
• Water purification tablets to provide clean drinking water for a year for $24
• School Fees for $50 allows a child to attend school for a year or a school uniform for $20
• 5 Bibles for $35 or Sunday School for all ages for $50
• Emergency Fund Every $10 provides an amazing $150 to $200 worth of life-saving food, plus hope for the future

You could get your family together and pick something out of the catalog to give this Christmas.  Maybe you could even bring your extended family together and combine your money to sponsor a child or purchase something from the catalog instead of purchasing gifts for each other this year.  Do you really need another sweater or pair of socks?  We did this one year, instead of buying our parents gifts we used the money for those who had nothing.

I am typing up this post on my own accord because our family believes in this child sponsorship program.  I am also not writing this post to make anyone feel guilty about what we have or where we live.  I am writing this post because I want to share with others who maybe looking for some way to give.  I know there are many programs out there and some of them have given child sponsorship programs a bad name.  I am sharing with you today to let you know that there are places out there doing the work, giving the money you give to the people it’s intended for, being the hands and feet of Jesus.

During this time of celebrating God’s goodness, abundance and grace to us, would you please consider sharing your abundance with someone who has nothing?  More important than food or clothing you will be sharing hope when many of these people have none.  The blessings we are given are not meant to be kept to ourselves but rather to share with others.

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