needy kids — Cross International

Giving back to your beginning: A full-circle story of faith in Haiti

September 10, 2019 by Cross International

The average Haitian has less than 5 years of schooling. We’re working to change that.

Do you know our friend Pastor Oville? If you’ve been with us a while, you might. Oville Wilzer was born in Haiti into a family that didn’t know God. An invitation to youth group led him to hear a sermon about God’s plan for salvation that touched him so deeply, he accepted Christ that very day.

The preacher was Pastor Jean Edmund, founder of the Cross International-supported network of Divine Shelter Schools (DSS). Through Pastor Jean, Oville was offered a teaching job at a DSS school and encouraged to become a minister.

Here I am Lord, send me
In 2011, when God called Pastor Oville to leave the city for remote Boukan Kare and lead an earthquake-damaged church and school serving poor local children, he and his wife knew they must go.

In 2016, the school was incorporated into the DSS network. This means the school, and Pastor Oville, dedicates itself to the threefold mission of nurturing minds, nourishing bodies and evangelizing souls.

Together, we are changing the world
Pastor Oville continues to be a strong spiritual leader and educator in Boukan Kare. With your generous giving, Pastor Oville and the community of Boukan Kare got a brand new school building in the summer of 2018. Since then, we’ve been able to equip it with a kitchen, benches and tables for the preschool. That first year, enrollment increased from 229 to 401 students with a passing rate of 85%. Despite violent protests and serious civil unrest, transformation is happening in Haiti! Amen!

But there is still more to do.

A new school is just a building unless you invest in the operations.
From feeding programs and hiring trained, quality teachers, the support of ongoing needs across all 13 schools in the DSS network is critical. The school depends on this support so that the full financial burden does not fall on the students, who cannot afford to pay more than a small tuition.

Over 4,000 eager minds start class on September 9th, and we want to provide them with the tools they need to become capable society-contributing adults. When a child is given opportunity, the possibilities are endless.

It’s been a joy to watch the fruit of our DDS partnership through Pastor Oville’s life, from an unbelieving young boy to a world-changer. And the cycle of change continues: his daughter is a student at the newly completed school.

Our mission is to transform Haiti materially and spiritually for the glory of Jesus Christ. We believe education develops an individual more so than any other kind of international development intervention. We pray you’ll join us in this mission.

Meet our Partners in Guatemala

August 29, 2019 by Cross International

For more than a decade, our strategic ministry partnerships in Guatemala have helped children and families affected by poverty and abuse. Since 2006, we’ve worked alongside these partners, and we’re excited about what is ahead!

Casa Bernabé Ministries provides hope and healing to children rescued by Guatemalan courts from neglect, abuse, or abandonment. Once placed with Casa Bernabé, children receive food, shelter, medical care, and education. They’re grouped into family units lead by local Christian couples who raise the children in warmth and support. The school and medical center provide transformational Christ-centered services to these children and to children from surrounding communities. Edgar, the Executive Director, is a heartwarming example of this transformation. Casa Bernabé plans to add school classrooms, offices, and a soccer field, and to develop vocational and mentorship opportunities for the children.

Casa de Vida offers shelter for victims of abuse, which is a tremendous problem in Guatemala. Attacks are often unreported and countless women are trapped in abusive homes. Casa de Vida provides a way out, with a safe home and the promise of a new life. Run by Lesbia Gonzaléz, a domestic violence survivor, Casa de Vida aims to serve 180 women and children each year. Most women stay at the safe house from 3-6 months up to a year, receiving psychological care and job training to empower them to start a new life independent from their abusers. Through our partnership, Casa de Vida will be establishing a bakery to train women for job opportunities and also to provide income to help support the ministry.

Hope of Life International’s child rescue program sends trained teams into the mountains to find village children suffering from malnutrition and preventable diseases. With no time to spare, children are rushed to the hospital and nursed back to health. Meanwhile, parents are trained to make changes to strengthen the health of their families. During a recent visit, we met one family impacted by this ministry. A single mother was preparing to welcome her children back to their simple wood stick house after a hospital stay. But before they returned, the house burned to the ground. Through our partnership, Hope of Life rebuilt the home and met the family’s needs so they could continue to grow strong.

Amigos por la Salud y la Vida is one of our largest recipients of food donations. Established by a local businessman-turned-humanitarian, this organization provides food and medical support to communities. By working within an existing network of local medical clinics, our partnership helps stock the pharmacy shelves, providing free medication to those in need.

Through long-term partnerships, we commit to these ministries, learning about their needs and celebrating stories of changed lives. Join us as a partner in God’s work and make a meaningful difference for the people of Guatemala!

Meet Edgar: A Thriving Kid shares Christ’s love

August 27, 2019 by Cross International

What happens when a child is given basic needs, education and words of hope and affirmation through the love of Christ?

They thrive.

That’s Edgar’s story, and it was out of a vision for stories like his that Thriving Kids began.

Edgar was born in Guatemala. Here, and in places like Haiti and Zambia, children wake up each morning with incredible challenges to overcome. They are without clean water and food, homes give little shelter, school isn’t an option, and life-threatening illness is a constant danger.

When Edgar was 11 days old, his father was killed. Wanting the best for her children, his mother placed Edgar and his siblings in an orphanage that could provide for their basic needs.

That orphanage was Casa Bernabé, a refuge that provides hope and healing for vulnerable children, and our longtime ministry partner in Guatemala. Edgar and his family found help, love, care, education and the life-giving story of Jesus.

Edgar grew into a young man who knew he was loved by Jesus. He attended college, fell in love, got married and had a family of his own. He began to pour love back into the community that supported him.

Today, Edgar is the director of the entire ministry at Casa Bernabé, sharing Christ’s love and caring for children just like him.

We’re sure you’ve caught on by now, but we LOVE stories of Thriving Kids like Edgar. Lives filled with transformation and grace are the direct fruits of your love, prayer and giving. With your continued partnership, kids in Guatemala and around the world can continue to thrive from the inside out.

Malawi: the Warm Heart of Africa

July 31, 2019 by Cross International

Malawi is widely known as the “Warm Heart of Africa” because of the generosity and kindness of its people. With a predominantly rural population of more than 18 million people, Malawi is made up of friendly tribes and ethnic groups living in traditional villages.

On a visit to one of these villages, you would see women wearing the traditional colorful sarong-like wraps, called Chitenjes. Women wear as many as three of these versatile wraps at a time, using them as skirts, headdresses, aprons, or to carry infants on their backs while shopping, carrying water, or working in the garden. Often, the Chitenjes color identifies a woman’s home: red to represent the north, blue for the central region, and green for the south. Men dress in typical western style, wearing jeans, pants, shirts, or suits, but shoes are rarely seen, even in cities, as they are quite expensive.

Family is very important in Malawi, and village life centers around it. Agricultural villages work to grow crops and tend livestock, and fishing villages line the shores of Lake Malawi. In these villages, extended families typically live closely together in huts built next to, or even adjoining, each other. These huts, made of sticks and mud and thatched or corrugated iron roofs, are home to family members who share everything from work to resources, caring for the elderly and raising children together. Cross International partners in Malawi work to support these hard-working people through medical care and microenterprise programs to enable adults to improve agricultural practices and establish businesses to provide for their families.

Providing food has been a particular challenge for families in Malawi, where persistent drought has significantly limited the harvest and made clean water scarce, meaning water must often be carried over a great distance for cooking. Both water and corn are needed to prepare Nsima, the core of Malawi’s cuisine. This thick porridge is made with maize flour and water and is often paired with beans, greens, tomato-and-onion salad, or other vegetables. Rice, potatoes, and cassava are common, and occasionally, meat such as chicken, goat, or pig will round out the meal. Fish is also a staple along the coastline of Lake Malawi. To help during these challenging times when these traditional foods are scarce, nutritious balanced meals are offered to orphans and vulnerable children as part of educational programs at the Ambuya Development Center, a Cross International partner.

In every aspect of this African nation’s culture, its richness and beauty is a reflection of its most precious resource—the vibrant, loving people of Malawi. Cross International is proud to come alongside these amazing people through partnerships that minister to one child and one family at a time.

Making an Eternal Impact Through Thriving Kids Africa

July 25, 2019 by Kelly Miller

For many children and families in the African countries of Malawi, Uganda and Zambia, God’s presence can feel far away when they lack basic needs like food and clean water. Children suffer from sickness and disease caused by contaminated water, and chronic hunger can keep them from attending school or developing physically and mentally.

Our Thriving Kids-Africa program exists to eliminate these barriers to hope. Its mission is to mobilize the global Church to transform communities in need materially and spiritually for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Thriving Kids-Africa is doing things differently to make a lasting impact in the communities we serve, and across the country. Instead of starting another institution to distribute aid and create dependency over sustainability, it supports existing ministries and churches already serving the community. In addition to being the most cost-effective way of helping the marginalized, empowering these ministries allows us to support the Church’s spiritual mission and its important position of leadership in vulnerable communities.

Thriving Kids-Africa works with its in-country ministry partners to deliver food and aid to local churches in developing areas. While serving their local communities, leaders share the life-saving Gospel of Christ. Thriving Kids-Africa partners with three local organizations:

Kachere Development Program: This church-based ministry seeks to transform lives in Zambia by installing community water wells, helping kids go to school, supporting farmers and distributing Bibles.

Ambuya Development Center: Founded by three siblings from a nearby village to instill hope in a new generation of children growing up around Malawi, ADC provides daily meals to at-risk children and students, and reaches them with God’s Word and an experience of Christ’s love.

Project Princess Initiative: Encourages and empowers close to 1,000 girls in Kampala, Uganda to stay in school through scholarships, school supplies, skills training and hope for the future.

Thriving Kids-Africa reaches over 10,200 at-risk children and families with food, water, shelter, sustaining income, women’s empowerment and the Gospel. Through donations and gifts, the program can dig community water wells and train villagers as maintenance staff, build a feeding center and fellowship hall, provide meals, fund savings and microloan programs, provide job and skills training for over 1,200 orphaned or HIV/AIDS affected girls, and create access to remote villages. Local leaders are transforming lives and manifesting the Father’s love for vulnerable children across Africa and beyond.

We truly believe the cycle of poverty can be broken with a compassionate response. By working with and empowering our local African partners, we are together serving children and families in desperate need. Lives are eternally impacted through food, water and the hope of Christ.

Want to know more about Thriving Kids-Africa or how you can be a world-changer? Visit us here.